Liturgical Colour : Green
Job 38 : 1, 8-11
Then YHVH answered Job out of the storm : “Who shut the sea behind closed doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling clothes; when I set its limits with doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘You will not go beyond those bounds; here is where your proud waves must halt?'”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard how God used stories and comparisons with the real world to teach His people about Himself, about the love He has for us all, and ultimately, on how we ourselves ought to live our lives and carry out our lives so that we will ultimately be found worthy of Him and be saved.
In the first reading, God through the prophet Ezekiel had revealed to the people what He intended to do with us. In the comparison with trees and plants growing in a field and on a mountain, He taught us that God intends for us to be good and have goodness within us. The plants and trees represent all of us mankind, whom the Lord had planted and nourished that they may grow tall and great, just like how God nourished us and planted the seeds of His Spirit in us.
We know that a plant needs good care and nutrients in order to grow big and strong. Therefore God has also given us tender care and love, to nurture within us the gifts which He had granted us, so that they may grow strong within us, and the gifts God has given us may extend to all others around us, and thus the comparison which God used, that like a tree with its large branches sheltering many animals and birds in them.
And God also likened this to the growth of a mustard seed, which Jesus used as a parable. A mustard seed is a very small seed, smaller than ever a grain of rice. And yet once it grows to its full height as a plant, it becomes a large tree, bigger than many other plants. Its roots firm, its branches wide and extensive and it is strong and majestic to be viewed.
Thus the same will be with us and our faith once it has been nurtured properly and well. Our faith will then not just remain as a seed, but it will grow and expand to become something that is great and all-encompassing, that all who see us will know that God had done His great works in us. Remember that Jesus Himself said that even if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains? That means once we have the faith in us and we cultivate it, then everything truly is possible for us.
The problem is indeed that many have lost the faith, or that the same faith is simply nonexistent or covered beneath layers of worry, corruption and desires of this world. To better understand this, we have to look back at yet another of Jesus’s parables. This is the parable of the sower and the seeds, where the sower threw the seeds that fell in various locations.
We should be quite familiar with this parable, where some seeds fell on the roadside, and the birds ate it up. This represents just how vulnerable we are to the works of Satan and his evil agents, the seducers and tempters that try at all times to keep us away from righteousness and from the path of God. And also those seeds that fell on the rocky ground, unable to form deep roots and died being scorched by the sun.
And also the seeds that became choked by the thistles and weeds growing around them. Both these examples showed how it will not be easy to build up, nurture and maintain our faith, since not only that Satan will try his best to keep us away from God’s salvation, but he has so many tools with which to destroy us, namely by the many worldly goods and desires that has often distracted us and kept us away from the One who should be our focus, that is the Lord our God.
But we know that the seeds that fell on the rich soil grew big and strong, healthy and great, to bear fruits in the thirtyfold, sixtyfold, hundredfold and even more. This is in perfect tandem with what we heard through the prophet Ezekiel in our first reading today, that a great tree with wide and extensive branches, where birds and other creatures came to dwell in them.
Thus, if our faith is strong, then it will truly grow to massive and epic proportion, not in terms of how great we will become, but in terms of our reach to others around us. The birds and the creatures are like those around us who are lost and who need our help. If we can grow stronger in faith, it does not benefit just ourselves, but also many others who by our help and by our examples also find themselves needing to be saved, and thus repent and change their ways. And indeed how much fruit that will bear us!
Truly, Jesus used His parables to make things more understandable by making the things divine explained in human terms, and more often than not, they are all connected together, as all of them explain the single theme that God wants to tell us, that is believe! Repent! And change our ways to be like the ways taught by the Lord!
Therefore, today, as we reflect on what we have heard from the Sacred Scriptures, let us all come to realise the great potentials that lie within each and every one of us, that is the potential of our faith, and also therefore of the gifts that God had placed in each and every one of us. We have a clear choice here, either to let the seeds of faith in us to remain as that, or to allow it to grow in a rich foundation to grow into a great and fruitful tree of faith.
God who sees the fruits of faith in us will then bless us and welcome us into His kingdom. He will strengthen us and grant us the eternal life which He had promised all of us. Remember, God is ever loving and ever faithful. Therefore, should we not truly seek Him in all things and become ever more faithful, remembering to do what He wants from us in all of our actions? May God be with us all, now and forever. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 4 : 26-34
At that time, Jesus also said, “In the kingdom of God it is like this : a man scatters seed upon the soil. Whether he is asleep or awake, be it day or night, the seed sprouts and grows, he knows not how. The soil produces of itself : first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when it is ripe for harvesting, they take the sickle for the cutting : the time for the harvest has come.”
Jesus also said, “What is the kingdom of God like? To what shall we compare it? It is like a mustard seed which, when sown, is the smallest of all the seeds scattered upon the soil. But once sown, it grows up and becomes the largest of the plants in the garden, and even grows branches so big, that the birds of the air can take shelter in its shade.”
Jesus used many such stories, in order to proclaim the word to them in a way that they would be able to understand. He would not teach them without parables; but privately to His disciples He explained everything.
Liturgical Colour : Green
2 Corinthians 5 : 6-10
So we feel confident always. We know that while living in the body, we are exiled from the Lord, living by faith, without seeing; but we dare to think that we would rather be away from the body to go and live with the Lord.
So, whether we have to keep this house or lose it, we only wish to please the Lord. Anyway we all have to appear before the tribunal of Christ for each one to receive what he deserves for his good or evil deeds in the present life.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 91 : 2-3, 13-14, 15-16
It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praise to Your Name, o Most High, to proclaim Your grace in the morning, to declare Your faithfulness at night.
The virtuous will flourish like palm trees, they will thrive like the cedars of Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Lord, they will prosper in the courts of our God.
In old age they will still bear fruit, they will stay fresh and green, to proclaim that the Lord is upright, “He is my Rock,” they say, “He never fails.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Ezekiel 17 : 22-24
Thus says YHVH : “At the top of the cedar I will take one of its uppermost branches, a tender twig and plant it. On a lofty, massive mountain, on a high mountain of Israel I will plant it. It will produce branches and bear fruit and become a magnificent cedar.”
“Birds of all kinds will nest in it and find shelter in its branches. And all the trees of the field shall know that I am YHVH, I who bring down the lofty tree and make the lowly tree tall. I will make the tree that is full of sap wither and the dry tree bloom. I, YHVH, have spoken and this will I do.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate a very great solemnity, that is the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, or the Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. If last week we commemorate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, celebrating the Triune nature of our God, He who is One but exists in Three distinct Divine Persons : Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then on this day, we commemorate how that same Lord our God had come down upon us and dwells with us even now.
It is also a core and central tenet of our Faith to believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist. What is the Eucharist? It is not just mere bread and wine that we have offered to the Lord during the Mass. Indeed, the Mass itself is a holy sacrifice, which is truly the same Sacrifice which our Lord Jesus Christ had gone through for our sake as He hung from the cross that day on Calvary. It is the exact same sacrifice intended by God to seal His new and eternal Covenant with us mankind, sealed not by any mortal blood, but by the very Blood of the Lord Himself.
As in the first reading we heard how Moses gathered the people of Israel and sanctified them, and offering sacrifices of bulls and goats to the Lord through the priests chosen by the Lord, the blood of the animal sacrifices were collected and then sprinkled on the people, and the blood as the sign of the covenant which God had made with them. The blood is the pact and the seal that validated the whole covenant that God established with Israel.
By the blood of the lambs also God had rescued the people of Israel from their suffering and slavery by the Egyptians. God instructed them through Moses to take the blood of the Passover lambs and mark their houses on the doorposts and lintels with it. The houses marked with the blood of the lambs was then spared by the Lord and His angels of death passing through Egypt that night.
But the blood of mortal animals, lambs, bulls and goats do not last and neither did they constitute a lasting mark and seal on the covenant which God has made. Indeed, the priests chosen by God would have to renew the covenant again and again by constantly offering sacrifices to God. And in time, this became a problem when the people became engrossed with how the sacrifices were done instead of understanding the reasons behind such actions.
Instead of empty meaning of sacrifices done without proper understanding, what God intended was for us all to know that He is Love, and it is truly about His Love that we rejoice. The love of God therefore has been shown clearly in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God Himself who had allowed Himself to take up the humble form of Man, so that He may walk among us and dwell with us, as the ultimate symbol of God’s everlasting love and faithfulness.
For we mankind since the beginning of time had been intended for good things and for greatness. But we have not done our part of the covenant and the promise, and we broke the trust of the Lord by preferring to listen and obey the devil instead of obeying the Lord and His commandments. And even later on, the people of Israel continued to sin and worshipped even the pagan gods and following the pagan customs of their neighbour, in a blatant disregard of the covenant which God had established with them.
God is however ever faithful and He never went back on His words, or on any of His promises. It was always us mankind who betrayed the Lord and followed our own path, often leading up to damnation and distraction. And from time to time again, God forgave us and gave us a new chance, but there were not many who took up this generous offer of mercy. And so many of our kind fell into damnation.
Yet, for all of our disobedience, God wants us all His beloved to be sanctified and consecrated to Him, that we may be marked as His own, just as Israel in our first reading today were consecrated by the blood of the animal sacrifices before the Lord. However, this time round, it is no longer just the people of Israel and the descendants of Jacob only, but the new Covenant that God has established through His Son Jesus Christ encompasses all mankind.
And this new Covenant is perfect, far more perfect than the previous covenants, for God sealed it Himself with His Blood, the Blood of the Paschal Lamb, our Lord Jesus Himself, even as He hung on the cross. It was by His ultimate sacrifice on the cross that on the Altar of Calvary, on the Altar of the earth, He was hung between the heavens and the earth, as the perfect sacrifice and oblation for our sake. And while the blood of lambs, goats and bulls did not offer lasting purification for our sins, but the Blood of Christ our Lord offers eternal liberation from sin for all those who are true to His Covenant.
What is this Covenant? It is a Covenant of Love between God and us mankind, that is we ought to first love the Lord our God, with all of our heart, our mind, our strength and with all the capacity of our beings. And then secondly, we ought to love one another just in the same manner, as we have loved our Lord and just as we have loved and cared for ourselves. It is the Ten Commandments of God, revealed in the entirety of truth by Jesus Himself, that God is love, and His commandments is love too.
And He Himself gave the perfect example, by giving the perfect and most selfless love, by dying on the cross for us. Remember that Jesus said that the greatest love is for someone to die and lay down his life for his friends? It is therefore at that moment of the crucifixion, that Jesus laid down His life for us His beloved ones. And how is this relevant to us all, brethren? That is because it is the same sacrifice that we celebrate again and again every time we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
At the Last Supper, on the day before He died, Jesus had instituted the Eucharist itself by showing His disciples what they ought to do from then on, in the memory of Him, and not just memory indeed, for what the disciples would do from then on, and from them to our bishops and priests today, in an unbroken chain of peoples consecrated to God, they would become the Alter Christus, or the Christ personified in the person of the priests.
It is because they have been given the authority by the Lord Himself, to change the very substance and matter of the bread and wine which we offer, just as on the Last Supper when the Lord Jesus transformed the bread and wine into His own Body and His own Blood, to be given to us all, so that all of who share in them, may receive the eternal life promised to us.
And that Body is real Body, and real food. The Blood is real Blood, and real drink. Did Jesus not say that to the people of Israel, when He said that His Body and Blood are real food and drink? And how those who did not share in them do not have eternal life in them? And many of His disciples left Him after that, simply because they could not take the fact, and because they failed to understand the truth.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, do not be afraid if others mock us for believing in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, for people have rejected Jesus Himself in the past for stating the same truth. We believe that the bread and wine we see in the Holy Mass are transformed in matter and substance completely to the substance of our Lord Jesus Christ, His Body and Blood, and what we receive at the Holy Communion is not just a memory or a symbol, but the very Real and True Presence of our Lord Himself.
That is why we ought to adore the Most Holy Eucharist and know that it is the Lord Himself who had given Himself to us, so that by receiving Him into us, we may share in His death and resurrection, and receive the keys to the eternal life and happiness that He had prepared for us. That is why also, any profanation or improper treatment of the Real Presence of God is absolutely unacceptable.
And at the same time, let us take note that because the Lord Himself now dwells in us, we have become the Temple of His Presence, and the Tabernacle of His dwelling, just as we reserve the Eucharist in the Tabernacle at the heart and the centre of the Church. Therefore, we must make sure that we keep ourselves worthy and holy, so that we are truly worthy to have the Lord, the Giver of all Life and the Source of all that is good, dwell within us.
If we have sinned, in a small or big way, let us all endeavour to seek to be forgiven first, by doing penance and seeking God’s forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance, looking for a priest to confess our sins. Let us not be afraid to ask for forgiveness and to go to confession. It is better that in our humility we are forgiven and brought to perfect reconciliation and be found worthy once again, rather than for us to receive Him in an unworthy state and then be condemned for defiling the Holy Temple of God.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all seek to be more committed to our faith in the Lord, and let us all seek to be closer to the Lord our God, who is really and truly present in the bread and wine transformed by the priests, the Alter Christus, into the very Body and Blood of our Lord Himself. Let us all who receive Him worthily gain the blessings and graces He had promised all of us who believe. God be with us all, the Temples of His holy Presence. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Mark 14 : 12-16, 22-26
At that time, on the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the day when the Passover Lamb was killed, the disciples asked Him, “Where would You have us go to prepare the Passover meal for You?”
So Jesus sent two of His disciples with these instructions, “Go into the city, and there a man will come to you carrying a jar of water. Follow him to the house he enters and say to the owner, ‘The Master says, Where is the room where I may eat the Passover meal with My disciples?’ Then he will show you a large room upstairs, already arranged and furnished. There you will prepare for us.”
The disciples went off. When they reached the city, they found everything just as Jesus had told them, and they prepared the Passover meal. While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them. And He said, “Take This, It is My Body.”
Then He took a cup, and after He had given thanks, He passed it to them and they all drank from it. And He said, “This is My Blood, the Blood of the Covenant, poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not taste the fruit of the vine again, until that day when I drink the new wine in the kingdom of God.”
After singing psalms of praise, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Liturgical Colour : White
Hebrews 9 : 11-15
But now Christ has appeared as the High Priest with regard to the good things of these new times. He passed through a sanctuary more noble and perfect, not made by hands, that is, not created. He did not take with Himself the blood of goats and bulls but His own Blood, when He entered once and for all into this sanctuary after obtaining definitive redemption.
If the sprinkling of people defiled by sin with the blood of goats and bulls or with the ashes of a heifer provides them with exterior cleanness and holiness, how much more will it be with the Blood of Christ? He, moved by the eternal Spirit, offered Himself as an unblemished victim to God and His Blood cleanses us from the dead works, so that we may serve the Living God.
So Christ is the Mediator of a new Covenant or Testament. His death made atonement for the sins committed under the old testament, and the promise is handed over to all who are called to the everlasting inheritance.
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 115 : 12-13, 15 and 16bc, 17-18
How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the Name of the Lord.
It is painful to the Lord to see the death of His faithful. Truly I am Your servant, Your handmaid’s son. You have freed me from my bonds.
I will offer You a thanksgiving sacrifice. I will call on the Name of the Lord. I will carry out my vows to the Lord in the presence of His people.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 