Sunday

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Sunday, 24 May 2015 : Solemnity of Pentecost Sunday, World Day of Prayer for the Church in China (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we mark a truly great feast day of the Church, that is the Solemnity of Pentecost Sunday, at the fiftieth day of Easter, the culmination of our Easter celebration, and then, as the new beginning of the time of glory and service, as today also marks the birthday of the Church, the day when the Lord established His Church on earth, with the sending of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Helper to the Apostles and disciples, and the baptism of the three thousand people.

On this day, we rejoice, because God had reversed the bonds and destroyed the darkness in us, the lies of the devil and the confines of our selfish desires, and thrust upon us the undeniable and all-revealing light of truth, the very Light of our Lord Jesus Christ. God made it clear this day, by sending the Spirit of truth to dispel the darkness and the shackles of blindness that Satan and his allies has imposed on us, that is sin, desire, greed and selfishness.

If we look at the readings of the Vigil, we see in the beginning how God scattered men across the world by confusing their languages and causing divisions to appear among the people. We may think that this is something that God had done out of His anger at us, but if we look more closely at it, in fact, it was the pride and greed of mankind that had brought it upon themselves.

For since the beginning of time, men had always desired things that are often beyond their means, and as a result, they received harm instead. First, they were tempted by the devil to eat the fruits from the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil, and as a result, they received the punishment for their disobedience of the word of God. This was the first sin.

And then, they did not repent and continued to sin, and God sent the Great Flood to destroy the wickedness in the world, and to purify mankind. Only the righteous Noah and his family was spared. But yet, they continued to gather in their pride and gave in to their greed, that they endeavoured to build the highest building possible, the Tower of Babel.

And their aim was to reach out even to the heavens itself, and for their arrogance and pride, the disrespect that they showed against God, they received their just reward, and God scattered them all, to show them that God alone has the power and might, and all of us and our pride cannot stand before the might of God.

However, God did not punish and then leave us alone in suffering. Instead, He gives us chance and opportunities to change our ways and repent, and to those who do so, He gives succour from the sufferings which have been ours because of our disobedience. And that is by giving us the Spirit of truth, and the Spirit of life, so that our afflictions may be healed, and all falsehoods may be dispelled.

The disciples being able to speak many languages, is a proof of this revelation, that God would lift up the punishment from those who have willingly put themselves in the path of salvation and devote themselves to Him. The veil of darkness and the veil of ignorance and the lack of knowledge had been lifted up from them, and Wisdom itself entered into them by the Holy Spirit.

Pope St. John Paul II once said in his Papal Coronation and Enthronement ceremony, that we must not be afraid to open up the doors of our heart to the Lord. We must open wide these doors indeed, so that the Spirit of truth may come into us, dwell into us and transform us. During his visit to his country, Poland, then a Communist country oppressed by ideologies hostile to the Faith, he said, inspired by the passage from the Holy Scriptures, that may the Holy Spirit come down upon the earth and renew it thoroughly.

And today is such a perfect occasion, the coincidence that today is both Pentecost Sunday and the World Day of Prayer for another Church that is in suffering and persecution, that is the Church in China. In China, ever since the takeover by the Communist regime in 1949, the Church has been suffering in various degrees for the past almost seventy years.

And so today, we have to pray, and pray that the Lord will indeed send His Spirit and His might, that eventually our suffering brethren of the Church suffering in China, may be relieved from their burdens, and from all the oppressions that the enemies of the Faith had placed on them. Remember that it does not matter how the forces of this world try to destroy the Church and the faithful, they shall never succeed. For God will protect all those who have entrusted themselves to Him.

Just as God eventually triumphed and cast down all the oppressors of the faithful and the holy ones in Poland and beyond, the same too He will promise and do for all of His faithful persecuted no matter where it may be, and when it may be. But at the moment, the situation remains very dire, and blatant disregard and assault on the freedom of the faithful to worship the Lord freely is rampant. We need to pray for our brethren in China, that the Lord will soon deliver them from this great suffering.

This day is also a reminder for us that God has given us many gifts through the Holy Spirit, that is the fruits of the Holy Spirit, namely love, joy, patience, peace, goodness, kindness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity and others. But these fruits will never grow if we do not cultivate and utilise the gifts that the Holy Spirit has given us.

Remember what the Lord Jesus told His disciples about the fig tree that is barren? Remember what He did to it? He cursed that barren fig tree, and the fig tree which was without any edible fruits withered and died. Then in another separate occasion, Jesus told the disciples about the tree that does not bear fruit, and the farmers wanted to kill and uproot the plant, for it has no use. But the Master gives it a chance, by pruning it and giving it more fertilisers to grow, hoping that it will bear fruit.

Thus, the Lord has also done the same to us. He gave us the Holy Spirit not just as a gift for us just to be passive and wait passively for salvation. Instead, on the other hand, God gave us His Holy Spirit so that we may be actively pursuing the works which He had taught us to do, that is to love one another tenderly, to show concern for the oppressed, for the poor, sick and dying. It is also to show concern for the salvation of souls, by sincerely and truly being concerned about how the people around us are falling into hell because of what they have done.

If we do things according to God’s will, then we will bear many fruits, and the Lord who sees what we have done, and what we have produced will be satisfied and will be pleased at us. And our reward in heaven shall be rich and great. Indeed, the giving of the Holy Spirit is not just a one-off event, but a continuous call for us to work ceaselessly and act ceaselessly in accordance to the way of the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this event of Pentecost Sunday, the season of Easter may have come to an end, but this does not mean that our Easter joy should end. Rather, as I have mentioned, it is a new beginning, that just as the Church was born on this day, we too should renew our commitment to the very mission which our Lord had entrusted us, when He gave us the Spirit. This mission is for us to be the witnesses of the Lord, to be the bearers of His Good News to all the peoples of all nations.

May the Lord our God Almighty be our guide, and strengthen our resolve always to live out our lives in accordance to the truth which He had revealed to us through the gift of His Holy Spirit. Let us all also commend in our prayers today, our brethren persecuted in China, by the godless and the worldly peoples and authorities, and let us then also pray for all others persecuted for their Faith around the world, asking God that He may send His Holy Spirit to renew the whole world, and give succour to all those who are currently suffering. God be with all of us. Amen.

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Sunday, 24 May 2015 : Solemnity of Pentecost Sunday, World Day of Prayer for the Church in China (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

John 20 : 19-23

At that time, on the evening of the first day after the Sabbath, the doors were locked where the disciples were, because of their fear of the Jews. But Jesus came, and stood among them, and said to them, “Peace be with you!”

Then He showed them His hands and His side. The disciples kept looking at the Lord and were full of joy. Again Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent Me, so I send you.” After saying this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit! Those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; those whose sins you retain, they are retained.”

Alternative reading

John 15 : 26-27 and John 16 : 12-15

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “From the Father, I will send you the Spirit of truth. When this Helper has come from the Father, He will be My witness, and you, too, will be My witnesses, for you have been with Me from the beginning.”

“I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now. When He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into the whole truth. He has nothing to say of Himself, but He will speak of what He hears, and He will tell you of the things to come. He will take what is Mine and make it known to you; in doing this, He will glorify Me.”

“All that the Father has is Mine; because of this, I have just told you that the Spirit will take what is Mine, and make it known to you.”

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Sunday, 24 May 2015 : Solemnity of Pentecost Sunday, World Day of Prayer for the Church in China (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

1 Corinthians 12 : 3b-7, 12-13

No one can say, “Jesus is the Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. There is diversity of gifts, but the Spirit is the same. There is diversity of ministries, but the Lord is the same. There is diversity of works, but the same God works in all. The Spirit reveals His presence in each one with a gift that is also a service.

As the body is one, having many members, and all the members, while being many, form one body, so it is with Christ. All of us, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, have been baptised in one Spirit to form one body and all of us have been given to drink from the one Spirit.

Alternative reading

Galatians 5 : 16-25

Therefore I say to you : walk according to the Spirit and do not give way to the desires of the flesh! For the desires of the flesh war against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are opposed to the flesh. Both are in conflict with each other, so that you cannot do everything you would like. But when you are led by the Spirit you are not under the Law.

You know what comes from the flesh : fornication, impurity and shamelessness, idol worship and sorcery, hatred, jealousy and violence, anger, ambition, division, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. I again say to you what I have already said : those who do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy and peace, patience, understanding of others, kindness and fidelity, gentleness and self-control. For such things there is no Law or punishment. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its vices and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us live in a spiritual way.

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Sunday, 24 May 2015 : Solemnity of Pentecost Sunday, World Day of Prayer for the Church in China (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 103 : 1ab and 24ac, 29bc-30, 31 and 34

Bless the Lord, my soul! Clothed in majesty and splendour. How varied o Lord, are Your works! The earth full of Your creatures.

You take away their breath, they expire and return to dust. When You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and the face of the earth is renewed.

May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in His works! May my song give Him pleasure, as the Lord gives me delight.

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Sunday, 24 May 2015 : Solemnity of Pentecost Sunday, World Day of Prayer for the Church in China (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Acts 2 : 1-11

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. And suddenly out of the sky came a sound like a strong rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. There appeared tongues as if of fire which parted and came to rest upon each one of them. All were filled with Holy Spirit and began to speak other languages, as the Spirit enabled them to speak.

Staying in Jerusalem were religious Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered, all excited because each heard them speaking in his own language. Full of amazement and wonder, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that we hear them in our own native language?”

“Here are Parthians, Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and foreigners who accept Jewish beliefs, Cretians and Arabians; and all of us hear them proclaiming in our own language what God, the Saviour, does.”

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Sunday, 17 May 2015 : Seventh Sunday of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the last of the seven Sundays of Easter and the beginning of the last week of the Easter season. Next Sunday will be the Solemnity of the Pentecost, when we celebrate the great ending of the season of Easter, by recalling the birth of the Church through the sending and the descent of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and disciples of Christ.

And today we heard about how Jesus cares for all those who are under His care and protection. He prayed to His Father to bless and protect all those whom He had chosen and called, and to preserve them in His love so that they would not be lost, unless they themselves choose to be lost. This is to reflect the events that were about to happen at that time, when Judas, the faithless disciple betrayed Jesus and chose the greed of the world and money over faith to the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us must understand that the fundamental part of our faith in God is to understand and comprehend the wholeness of the love of God. And this love is so great and so unconditional and selfless in nature, that for us all mankind who are used to the kind of selfish love and desires in the world, it is indeed difficult to understand the extent and nature of the love that God has for all of us.

But that is why our faith in God should be filled with the attempts by us to understand more about this love, which God had shown us, for God Himself is Love, and if we claim to know what love is, then we have to know what God has done for us. For we are all sinners and wicked in nature, through what we have done in our respective lives, be it in small or great things. And yet, God continues to love us and care for us, the love which He showed us by sending Jesus to our midst, that He may dwell among us, His beloved people and save us.

This celebration of Easter is truly a celebration of God’s love, which had been made real and concrete through Jesus, our Paschal Lamb, the Lamb of God who had willingly given Himself up to be sacrificed on the cross for us. From the cross He had offered up His Body and shed His Blood, as the perfect sacrifice for the atonement of our sins, and by His Blood and His death therefore, we have been cleansed and made holy by the Lord Himself.

At the times past, after the Exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt, the people of Israel made a covenant with the Lord their God through Moses, who offered animal sacrifices on the altar at the foot of God’s holy mountain, and the blood of the lambs and goats sacrificed were sprinkled onto the people, who then became part of God’s covenant and became partakers in His grace and blessings.

Remember then, when our Lord Jesus Christ spoke at the Last Supper, the moment when He uttered the prayers we heard in today’s Gospel? Yes, the moment when He gave the bread and wine He blessed and transformed into His own real Flesh and Blood? He said, this is My Body which is given up for you, and this is My Blood, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins and as the seal of the new Covenant which God made with us all through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Jews who cried out for His death, asking for the crucifixion of the Saviour before Pilate, the Roman governor, spoke of how they would bear the Blood of the One they had condemned to death upon themselves and their own children, without realising the importance of these words. And often, we ourselves also overlook the importance of these words for our salvation. For this shows how by the Blood of the Paschal Lamb, Christ, we have been sanctified and consecrated to the Lord.

And unlike the blood of lambs and goats of the old days and times, this Blood is none other than the Most Precious Blood of our Lord and Saviour, and together with His Most Precious Body, we all have shared in them and become partakers in God’s new Covenant and therefore, receive the fullness of His blessings and grace. And all of us Christians that belong to the one and only Church of God, have been part of this new Covenant and sanctification that Christ mentioned, since the day of our baptism.

Regardless whether we were baptised as infants or as fully conscious adults, on the day of our baptism, we have cast aside our old life and our worldliness, and either by our conviction or by the conviction of our parents and godparents, we have made the decision to reject Satan and all of his evil and wicked lies, and vow to preserve the faith, the true faith and understanding of the Lord and His ways which have been passed down to us through the Church.

And by the waters of baptism, we are reborn anew, that is to be born again in the Lord. We have shared in the death of Christ, and we leave behind our sickened and corrupted old past, and then were raised again into a new life, sharing in our Lord’s resurrection. This is the essence of Easter and why we celebrate it with so much joy, because indeed it is inseparable from our own history of being saved in the Lord.

And then we also receive the Holy Spirit and its power and encouragement through the Sacrament of Confirmation, when our faith in the Lord is affirmed and strengthened. And we share in the Most Holy Eucharist, by receiving our Lord’s own Body and Blood, and thus become full participants and sharers in God’s Covenant that He has sealed with His own Blood and His own sacrifice on the cross.

We have all been consecrated and sanctified for the Lord, and He has chosen us all, to be loved by Him and to receive the fullness of His grace and love. As I have mentioned earlier, the Lord Himself is love, and by His love, the perfect and selfless love, He has willed for us all to repent and to change from our sinful ways, into new lives blessed by Him. And this is what had happened to us all.

But then, this then should remind us of what we need to do from now on. Christ is our Teacher, our Lord and our High Priest, and by the baptism we received, we have shared the same mission, the priestly, kingly and godly nature of our Lord. Therefore, we have a mission before all of us, that Christ Himself had entrusted to His Apostles and disciples, and therefore to all of us.

We have to carry the message of our Lord’s salvation to the nations, preaching His love and the care which He has shown us, to all the peoples, that they too may realise how great is the love that God has for them, just as He had shown us. God loves everyone, and it will indeed be very troubling if we have people who failed to be saved and rescued if it is within our power and ability to help them.

Let us therefore remember that we have been marked and chosen by our Lord to be saved, and we have been sanctified and prepared by Him, for a mission to continue His good works in this world, that is to save as many souls as possible from the darkness and sin, and from the depredations of Satan and all of his forces. Let us renew our commitments and efforts to help each other in reaching out towards salvation, and let us not be apathetic to the cries of our brethren who long to see and listen to the word of God. May God be with us all and with all of our endeavours. Amen.

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Sunday, 17 May 2015 : Seventh Sunday of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 17 : 11b-19

At that time, Jesus prayed to His Father, saying, “Holy Father, keep those you have given Me in Your Name, so that they may be one, as We also are. When I was with them, I kept them safe in Your Name; and not one was lost, except the one who was already lost, and in this the Scripture was fulfilled.”

“And now I come to You; in the world I speak these things, so that those whom You gave Me, might have joy – all My joy within themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to remove them from the world, but to keep them from the evil one.”

“They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. I have sent them into the world as You sent Me into the world; and for their sake, I go to the sacrifice by which I am consecrated, so that they too may be consecrated in truth.”

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Sunday, 17 May 2015 : Seventh Sunday of Easter (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 John 4 : 11-16

Dear friends, if such has been the love of God, we, too, must love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us, and His love comes to its perfection in us.

How may we know that we live in God and He in us? Because God has given us His Spirit. We ourselves have seen and declare that the Father sent His Son to save the world. Those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in them and they in God.

We have known the love of God and have believed in it. God is Love. The one who lives in love, lives in God and God in him.

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Sunday, 17 May 2015 : Seventh Sunday of Easter (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 102 : 1-2, 11-12, 19-20ab

Bless the Lord, my soul; all my being, bless His holy Name! Bless the Lord, my soul, and do not forget all His kindness.

As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His love for those fearing Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove from us our sins.

The Lord has set His throne in heaven; He rules, He has power everywhere. Praise the Lord, all you His angels.

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Sunday, 17 May 2015 : Seventh Sunday of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 1 : 15-17, 20a, 20c-26

It was during this time that Peter stood up in the midst of the community – about one hundred and twenty in all – and he said, “Brothers, it was necessary that the Scriptures referring to Judas be fulfilled. The Holy Spirit had spoken through David about the one who would lead the crowd coming to arrest Jesus. He was one of our number and had been called to share our common ministry.”

“In the book of Psalms it is written : ‘May another take his office.’ Therefore we must choose someone from among those who were with us during all the time that the Lord Jesus moved about with us, beginning with John’s baptism until the day when Jesus was taken away from us. One of these has to become, with us, a witness to His resurrection.”

Then they proposed two : Joseph, called Barsabbas, also known as Justus, and Matthias. They prayed : “You know, Lord, what is in the hearts of all. Show us, therefore, which of the two You have chosen to replace Judas in this apostolic ministry which he deserted to go to the place he deserved.”

Then they drew lots between the two and the choice fell on Matthias who was added to the eleven Apostles.