Sunday

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Sunday, 6 September 2015 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard how God had showed forth His love, care and concern for all of us mankind, by the sending of His Son Jesus into the world, as the real, concrete and perfect manifestation of His love. We heard about God who opened the eyes of the blind, who made lame people and paralysed people to be able to move and walk properly again, and God who made the mute speak and the deaf hear again.

Throughout the Bible, in the Old Testament, and especially in the Gospels, we heard how Jesus performed many miracles healing those who were sick, allowing the blind to see once again, the deaf to hear again, the lame to jump with joy and walk again, and eventually, all these aside, as we all should know, He healed us all from the one affliction that is most dangerous of all of them, that is sin.

For while the diseases and sicknesses of the flesh affect only the flesh, our bodies without harming the mind, the heart and the soul, sin affects everything, both in our bodies, in our heart, mind and soul. And the corruptions that sin caused made us all dirty and unworthy to be in the presence of our Lord, because of all the wickedness that tainted our souls, once pure and immaculate, but because of sin, we all have been afflicted.

And this affliction had affected mankind since the beginning of time, ever since mankind first sinned before the Lord, by disobeying what He had taught us and told us, and preferring to walk in our own path and satisfying our own selfish desires. Satan tempted mankind by playing to our desires and our heart’s wishes and wants, pretending to help us and be good to us, but in reality, he wished for our downfall together with him, that in our disobedience we will also be cast out the love of God just as Satan himself had been cast out.

But God did not create mankind just for nothing or without good reason. God Himself is perfect and all good, and He has no need for anything else save Himself. And in the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God is united in His Three Divine Persons, in the perfect union of love and harmony, and He truly has no need for anything else. But in that love, He wanted to share the love He has, and thus He created all of us.

And we have to realise how special we are for the Lord. Nothing else in creation was created in the same way we have been created. We were created in the very image of the living God Himself, and our countenance is the image of God personified in each one of us. And God breathed His Spirit into each one of us, that through the Spirit of God we may have life, and no longer be dust where we came from.

But sin and disobedience had sundered us from all the goodness and the life which God had intended for us. In our greed and desire, we fail to look beyond them to find the true meaning of life, that is to be together with the Lord our God in perfect harmony, and instead we would rather listen to the devil and his lies, as he knows the vulnerabilities of our mortal bodies and hearts.

He got us right in our innocence, trying to persuade us that if we just let go of what the Lord had forbidden us to do, and eat of the fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then we would become like God. Indeed, we were made in the image of God, and His Spirit of life is inside us, but we are like a clean slate, ready to be filled with the love of God, and with God we would have lived forever in perfect harmony and goodness, not knowing any evil, for all that God created was good.

Instead, because of our disobedience, we were tainted with sin, and when we know about the evil we have done, we became ashamed and felt guilty, and we hid from the Lord. Is this not the exact same things as what we often normally do? Whenever we sin, did we not hide in shame for our sins and even pretend as if nothing had happened because we feared the repercussions, or that we were too proud to admit that we were wrong?

We flee away from the Lord out of fear and out of shame, and often, as mentioned, out of pride and hubris. We certainly would like to think that the Lord must have been disgusted by our actions and by our wickedness, but this certainly is a frequent major misconception of who the Lord is and how He looks upon us, each and every day. He despises our sins and wickedness, but He does not despise us as we are.

This is why He came for us, for our sake, and by His own hands, He brought healing, redemption and salvation to all of us sinners and delinquents, who have rebelled against Him. His love for us is greater than all that, and through His works, He had made us all whole. How is this so, brothers and sisters in Christ? It was by His suffering, every wounds inflicted on His flesh and body, as He was stripped from all dignity on the way to Calvary, that our Lord had saved us.

He was willing to suffer for the consequences of our sins and faults, which should have been ours, because of the love He had for us. He created us all out of love, and His desire for us is to share together in His everlasting peace, harmony and joy, and not suffering, pain, death and despair which had been part and parcel of our lives ever since we succumbed to the forces of sin.

To that extent He is willing to come to us and heal us from our sickness. He came to seek those who are sick from the diseases and plagues that afflicted us, primarily of which is our sin. For while bodily sickness and diseases cannot affect beyond our flesh, but sin affects everything. If we continue to dwell and live in sin, then we would risk ourselves to fall into hell, that is the suffering for eternity of not being able to enjoy God’s love and grace anymore, because we are unworthy due to our sins.

God wants us to be saved, brothers and sisters in Christ. He wants to touch us, comfort us and bring us to rest, rest from all the depredations and troubles of sin that we have had thus far. He desires our salvation and freedom from our affliction of sin, and that was what He has done. Whenever we look upon the crucifix and see the Lord Jesus crucified, we see the ultimate love which God shows us all.

Then, ultimately we have to ask ourselves, what have we done to make ourselves worthy of God’s love and mercy? God forgives freely and His mercy is freely available to all, but it depends on us in the end, whether we are willing and are capable of committing ourselves to the Lord’s mercy. We have to remember that when we are sick, we want to find a doctor that we can be healed and return to good health. Should it not be the same for our spiritual health?

Do we seek the Lord for forgiveness, and are we sincere in our desire to be forgiven? Do we make the effort to abandon our past sinfulness and live no longer in sin but in the light of God? If our answers to all these questions are yes, then that means we are ready and prime to receive God’s forgiveness, and then receive the fullness of His grace and love. If our answers are not, then we have a long way to go before us.

Shall we take the concrete step towards salvation in God? God offers us so many good things, and yet mankind, either fearful or prideful, failed to understand His love for them. May Almighty God, our loving God and Master, our loving and merciful Father help us all to understand His love and mercy, so that we may take the necessary steps to be forgiven of our numerous and myriads of sins. May all of us be healed and be made whole, and may our mouth filled with sinful words, hands tainted by wickedness be made clean and whole. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 6 September 2015 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 31-37

At that time, again Jesus set out : from the country of Tyre He passed through Sidon and, skirting the sea of Galilee, He came to the territory of Decapolis. There a deaf man, who also had difficulty in speaking, was brought to Him. They asked Jesus to lay His hand upon him.

Jesus took him apart from the crowd, put His fingers into the man’s ears, and touched his tongue with spittle. Then, looking up to heaven, He groaned and said to him, “Ephphata!” that is, “Be opened!”

And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak clearly. Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone about it, but the more He insisted, the more they proclaimed it. The people were completely astonished and said, “He has done all things well; He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.”

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Sunday, 6 September 2015 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

James 2 : 1-5

My brothers and sisters, if you truly believe in our glorified Lord, Jesus Christ, you will not discriminate between persons. Suppose a person enters the synagogue where you are assembled, dressed magnificently and wearing a gold ring; at the same time, a poor person enters dressed in rags.

If you focus your attention on the well-dressed and say, “Come and sit in the best seat,” while to the poor one you say, “Stay standing or else sit down at my feet,” have you not, in fact, made a distinction between the two? Have you not judged, using a double standard?

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters, did God not choose the poor of this world to receive the riches of faith and to inherit the kingdom which He has promised to those who love Him?

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Sunday, 6 September 2015 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 145 : 6c-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10

The Lord is forever faithful; He gives justice to the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free.

The Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord straightens the bent. The Lord protects the stranger.

He sustains the widow and the orphan. The Lord loves the virtuous, but He brings to ruin the way of the wicked. The Lord will reign forever, your God, o Zion, from generation to generation. Alleluia!

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Sunday, 6 September 2015 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Isaiah 35 : 4-7a

Say to those who are afraid : “Have courage, do not fear. See, your God comes, demanding justice. He is the God who rewards, the God who comes to save you.”

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unsealed. Then will the lame leap as a hart and the tongue of the dumb sing and shout. For water will break out in the wilderness and streams gush forth from the desert. The thirsty ground will become a pool, the arid land springs of water.

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Sunday, 30 August 2015 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about God who gave His people the Law that became the guide and the way for them to follow, that they may find their way to Him. God provides them with those laws and instructions, because they were a people who were easily distracted and swayed by the temptations of the world, and by all the forces the devil arrayed against them.

Therefore, the Lord revealed to them through Moses the guidelines and rules to help them to maintain their lives to be holy and good at all times. This is meant to help them to overcome their wickedness and their predisposition to sin. This is meant to help them to control themselves, so that they would not fall into the temptations of Satan, and that they may walk righteously in the sight and presence of the Lord.

But those same people had also remained stubborn and unbending, refusing often to follow the laws of the Lord, and they preferred to follow their own ways and paths. They failed to understand why the Lord gave them those laws, and even complained why they were oppressed with such laws and regulations. They thought that they wanted freedom, to be free from the restrictions and boundaries set by the Lord.

God knows us well, brothers and sisters in Christ. He knows all the things that we can do, and which we are fully capable of, and He is trying in His own manner and ways, to help us to overcome this. But ultimately, all these stem from one fact that we must all be fully aware of, that our Lord and God is loving, merciful and caring, especially towards all of us, who are the greatest and most beloved of all His creations.

He loves us all, and He certainly does not want any of us to be lost in the darkness. That is exactly the true essence and meaning of the Law, that is love, and namely love that is everlasting and not bound by the selfish love of oneself. The Law is love, because it teaches us firstly to love the Lord our God, by the giving of ourselves, of our hearts, minds and entire being to the One who loves us so much, that He was willing to send His own Son to save us from death.

And the Law also spoke of love that we need to show for one another, the care and concern, the compassion and love which we ought to show our brethren, so that in all the things we say, in all the things we commit and do, we may always show the love of God and practice the same to our fellow men. And yet, for a long time, by the time of Jesus, few understand this true significance and impact of the Law.

Instead, they misunderstood the Law as a tool to shore up their own vanity and selfishness, thinking that if they obeyed the Law and the Lord more according to what had been written, then they would be granted what they wanted. They pursued the Law and obeyed them to the letter, not because they loved the Lord or cared about Him and His ways. Instead, they obeyed the laws of Moses because they wanted to look and appear good before the people.

It was their ego which became their undoing, as in their hearts, greed, desire, arrogance and pride, and many other negative emotions were gathered together and bloomed up to form the ego and the vanity with which they showed their Lord just how wicked they were. They were serving their own interests, and when in their hearts and minds, they only saw their own glory among the people of God.

They observed the laws of the washing of hands before meal because they wanted to be seen as pious and righteous by the people. Just as on another occasion, Jesus also rebuked the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law because of their attitude in prayer, for they liked to gather in public places and marketplaces, praying loudly and with zealous appearances to gain the support and acclaim from the public.

But inside they were rotten and wicked. They had no consideration for the people they had been entrusted with. On the other hand, it was the poor and the weak, those who have nothing or little with them, the simple and the ones who lived righteously, who truly had the Lord in their hearts and in their minds. They lived righteously and in their actions, even though they were poor and lacking in worldly things, they did not lack the treasures which they have in God.

When Jesus spoke of the prayer as compared between a Pharisee and a tax collector in one of His parables, He was speaking of the reality of the situation and the contrast we have just discussed. The Pharisee prayed proudly and filled with hubris as well as self-praise about Himself, and he even looked down on the tax collector whom he branded a sinner and a filthy and unworthy person.

On the contrary, the tax collector humbled himself greatly before the Lord, fully aware of his sins and faults, and he offered repentance and true devotion, which came out of his heart, the desire to seek the Lord with all of one’s might. In the end, it is the prayer of the tax collector that God will hear and fulfil, as it was made from the heart, the outpouring of love and devotion which flows from the heart of a worthy and righteous man.

On the day of judgment, this tax collector, a sinner, will rank far higher than that of the Pharisee or the teacher of the Law, because although they were outwardly and externally seeming to be pious, but what truly matters to the Lord is not sacrifices and external faith or piety. While these are indeed important too, but without the correct internal orientation of one’s faith and devotion, all other things including the external devotions would mean nothing.

In one occasion, God made it clear to St. Peter, His Apostle, that His will is such that all things are to be considered clean and good. In a vision, He offered Peter animals of all kinds that by Jewish dietary laws and food prohibition laws are considered as unclean, and He asked him to eat them. Peter refused them saying that nothing impure and unclean had ever entered his mouth.

God replied him saying that what He had deemed to be clean, no man should mark as unclean. And this is alluding to both the dietary prohibitions, as well as bringing the faith to the Gentiles, whom the Jews up to then considered as pagan, unclean and unworthy of salvation. God had made all of mankind equal in the beginning, and no one had better standing than the other, based on their race, background or anything save their own actions.

Thus, it is truly absurd and folly to think that something from the outside such as food, or external matters such as race, origins and physical appearances made someone righteous, for these mean nothing if their insides, the heart and soul are filled with wickedness and lacking in God’s love and grace. Instead of focusing on externals as the Pharisees had done, we should first look deep inside ourselves.

Yes, look deep inside our hearts, discern and think, whether our every words and actions have been done in accordance with the will of God. For God had instructed us to be selfless, to love Him with all our might and to love one another equally as we love ourselves. Let us ponder on this, so that we will not fall into the same trap that befell the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who were trapped by their own ego and vanity.

May Almighty God be with us always, and help us to see beyond ourselves and our greedy desires. May all of us be closer to the Lord, and place His Law and love inside our hearts, so that by our understanding of the true purpose and meaning of His laws and precepts, we may be found righteous and just, and be made worthy of eternal life and salvation. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 30 August 2015 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 1-8, 14-15, 21-23

At that time, one day the Pharisees gathered around Jesus, and with them there were some teachers of the Law who had just come from Jerusalem. They noticed that some of His disciples were eating their meal with unclean hands, that is, without washing them.

Now the Pharisees, and in fact all the Jews, never eat without washing their hands, for they follow the tradition received from their ancestors. Nor do they eat anything, when they come from the market, without first washing themselves. And there are many other traditions they observe; for example, the ritual washing of cups, pots and plates.

So the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but eat with unclean hands?” Jesus answered, “You shallow people! How well Isaiah prophesied of you when he wrote : ‘This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. The worship they offer Me is worthless, for what they teach are only human rules.’ You even put aside the commandment of God to hold fast to human tradition.”

Jesus then called the people to Him again and said to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and try to understand. Nothing that enters a person from the outside can make that person unclean. It is what comes from within that makes a person unclean. For evil designs come out of the heart : theft, murder, adultery, jealousy, greed, maliciousness, deceit, indecency, slander, pride and folly. All these evil things come from within and make a person unclean.”

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Sunday, 30 August 2015 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

James 1 : 17-18, 21b-22, 27

Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of Light, in whom there is no change or shadow of a change. By His own will He gave us life through the Word of Truth, that we might be a kind of offering to Him among His creatures.

Welcome the Word that has been planted in you and has the power to save you. Be doers of the Word and not just hearers, lest you deceive yourselves. In the sight of God, our Father, pure and blameless religion lies in helping the orphans and widows in their need and keeping oneself from the world’s corruption.

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Sunday, 30 August 2015 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 14 : 2-3ab, 3cd-4ab, 5

Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right, who speak truth from their heart and control their words, who do no harm to their neighbours.

Those who cast no discredit on their companions, who look down on evildoers but highly esteem God’s servants.

Who do not lend money at interest and refuse a bribe against the innocent. Do this, and you will soon be shaken.

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Sunday, 30 August 2015 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Deuteronomy 4 : 1-2, 6b-8

And now, Israel, listen to the norms and laws which I teach that you may put them into practice. And you will live and enter and take possessions of the land which YHVH, the God of your fathers, gives you. Do not add anything to what I command you nor take anything away from it. But keep the commandments of YHVH, your God, as I command you.

When the other peoples come to know of all these laws, they will say, “There is no people as wise and as intelligent as this great nation.” For in truth, is there a nation as great as ours, whose gods are as near to it as YHVH, our God, is to us whenever we call upon Him? And is there a nation as great as ours whose norms and laws are as just as this Law which I give you today?