Sundays after Epiphany

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Monday, 27 July 2026 : 17th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day all of us heard the readings from the Scriptures in which we heard the manifestation of God’s anger at His people’s disobedience and lack of faith as they constantly and consistently refused to listen to Him and continued to follow the path of sin instead of the path of the truth. Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord wanted to make it clear to His people that it was by their stubbornness and refusal to believe in Him that they would face ruin and destruction, their constant and continued disobedience against everything that God Himself has shown and taught them throughout their history.

And the destruction did come upon the people of God, of both Israel and Judah, crushed by their enemies and exiled from their lands, as a result of them putting their trust in their own might and power, in worldly power and alliances, in their pagan idols and gods rather than to trust in God. God had sent so many prophets and messengers to them, showed them signs and revelations and yet they still would not believe, and kept on following the path of rebellion and disobedience, hardening their minds and hearts against God and His servants, refusing to accept the fact that they could have erred and made mistakes in their paths and choices in life. 

In our Gospel passage today, we heard something similar to this as the Lord spoke to His people in parables, teaching them about the kingdom of heaven and its meaning. And the Lord highlighted to His disciples that He always taught in parables and spoke in cryptic terms so as to both reveal the meaning of the truth He brought to those who are willing to listen to them, and to hide them from those who have hardened their hearts and refused to listen to Him. It was not that God purposefully wanted to make it difficult for the people to understand Him, but for those who have hardened their hearts and minds against Him, not even the clearest and easiest things to be understood can be accepted.

This brings us then into the realisation that unless we are willing to embrace the Lord and His ways, then we will not be able to appreciate fully His truth and love, and we will not be able to embrace Him fully as we should have. Our hardened hearts and minds would have been closed to the Lord nonetheless, and still, we have to realise just how great God’s love for us has been, that He is still always ever willing to reach out to us all with His ever generous love and kindness. And this is also shown through the parable that the Lord used in explaining the kingdom of heaven, the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the yeast and three measures of flour. 

In all these parables, the Lord brought forth the fact of how those little things like mustard seed and yeast, mustard seed being one of the smallest among the seeds and yeast being very small and microscopic in size, were able to grow into immense proportions beyond imagination. The mustard seed grow into a relatively large tree with many branches while the yeast allow the dough to rise quite significantly in size. Similarly that yeast can make the dough to rise to much greater proportions. It is something that many people would not have expected, that some of those things, so small and seemingly so insignificant can be the harbingers of things so magnificent, great and amazing in the end of the day.

The significance of this is such that subtly, the Lord is telling us that we need to make ourselves small and insignificant before God, minuscule and tiny, if we want to grow and be truly great before Him. It is by discarding all sorts of pride and greed, ego and ambition, selfishness and hubris, and instead embracing humility and meekness that we will be able to grow in faith. Unless we humble ourselves, we will be too full of ourselves to be able to nurture ourselves with the love of God, and there will be no space for the Lord within our hearts, within our minds and within our lives.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, then, similarly, for the mustard seeds to grow and for the yeast to be able to make the dough to rise, they require specific conditions that if not fulfilled, then those things will not be able to happen. The mustard seeds need water, the right temperature and oxygen in the air to germinate, and later on will also need nutrients from the soil and sunlight to grow well into a great tree. Similarly, yeast also need the absence of oxygen and warm conditions for them to be able to function and make the dough rise. If the conditions are not fulfilled for either of them, then nothing good would have come out of them.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, are we able to live faithfully in God’s presence so as to provide the best condition for ourselves to grow in the sight of God, to grow like the mustard seed and to rise like the dough with yeast? We are all called to be good and fruitful Christians in life, and we should indeed do what we can to serve God and to dedicate ourselves to Him and to His ways, to be righteous and to be exemplary in how we act in our everyday living that by our faith, we become God’s shining examples, in living up to our Christian faith most sincerely and with great dedication so that we may inspire and help lead many others towards God and the salvation in Him.

Let us all therefore not harden our hearts and minds as what the people of God had once done, and instead, allow God to enter into our hearts and minds by making ourselves small before Him, humbling ourselves and dedicating ourselves to Him with all of our heart and with all of our strength. May the Lord be with us always and may He strengthen us all each and every moments of our lives that we may truly grow well in the faith and bear wonderful, bountiful fruits, now and always. Amen.

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Monday, 27 July 2026 : 17th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 13 : 31-35

At that time, Jesus offered His disciples another parable : “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is smaller than all other seeds, but once it is fully grown, it is bigger than any garden plant; like a tree, the birds come and rest in its branches.”

He told them another parable, “The kingdom of heaven is like the yeast than a woman took, and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole mass of dough began to rise.” Jesus taught all these things to the crowds by means of parables; He did not say anything to them without using a parable. This fulfilled what was spoken by the Prophet : ‘I will speak in parables. I will proclaim things kept secret since the beginning of the world.’

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Monday, 27 July 2026 : 17th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Deuteronomy 32 : 18-19, 20, 21

They have disowned the Rock Who fathered them; they have forgotten the God Who gave them birth. The Lord saw this, and in His anger rejected His sons and daughters.

He said, “I will hide My face from them and see what will become of them. They are so perverse, so unfaithful!”

“They made Me jealous with their false gods and angered Me with their idols. I will, therefore, make them envious of a foolish people, I will provoke them to anger with an empty-headed nation.”

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Monday, 27 July 2026 : 17th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Jeremiah 13 : 1-11

This is what YHVH said to me : “Go! Buy yourself a linen belt and put it around your waist; do not put it in water.” So I bought the belt as YHVH ordered and put it around my waist. The word of YHVH came to me a second time, “Take the belt you bought, the one you put around your waist, and go to the torrent Perah; hide it there in a hole in the rock.”

I went and hid it as YHVH instructed me. After many days YHVH said to me, “Go to the torrent Perah and get the belt I ordered you to hide there.” I went to the torrent and dug up the belt but it was ruined and good for nothing; and YHVH said to me, “In this way I will destroy the pride and great glory of Judah, this wicked people who refuse to heed what I say, this stubborn people who go after other gods to serve and worship them. And they shall become like this belt which is now good for nothing.”

“For just as a belt is to be bound around a man’s waist so was the people of Israel and Judah bound to Me – it is YHVH Who speaks – to be My people, My glory and My honour; but they would not listen.”

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Sunday, 26 July 2026 : Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us are reminded by the passages of the Sacred Scriptures for us all to seek the true treasures of our lives that can be found in the Lord our God alone. Each and every one of us are reminded that as Christians, all of us have been called and chosen by the Lord to be His own beloved people, and we have also responded to this call through our baptism and initiation into the Church of God. All of us are brought into the presence of God, and have been blessed with the many gifts and blessings, rich graces and wonders, through the Wisdom that He has bestowed upon us, in the Holy Spirit that has come to dwell upon each one of us, as the members of His Church. The Wisdom of God has come to dwell in our midst, granting us the knowledge and understanding of truth, much as how God has blessed King Solomon with great wisdom and understanding unparalleled in his time.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Kings of Israel and Judah, the account of the moment from the youth and early days of the reign of King Solomon of Israel, just shortly he ascended to the throne following the death and passing of his father, King David of Israel. Both King David and King Solomon are remembered for their great and righteous rule, as great and noble kings, who ruled over great and golden era of the Kingdom of Israel, as righteous and just rulers over the people of God. King Solomon in particular was renowned for his great wisdom, his great riches and glorious rule over a vast kingdom, which were presented unto him by God, as we heard in that passage today. Solomon was initially still young and inexperienced, unsure about his rulership and uncertain about the challenges and other obstacles that he might have to face, and hence, he sought for God’s help, praying and asking Him for the gift of wisdom to help him in being a good and worthy ruler over God’s people.

And as we heard, that it was because of this request that God has blessed Solomon even more wonderfully and greatly, because he did not ask for any kind of worldly glory, greatness or material wealth, and all sorts of things that people may often be asking for. Instead, Solomon asked for the grace and the guidance to know what is right and just, the discerning and intuitive mind to do what is right and appropriate, the wisdom and intellect to do God’s will and to ability to govern the people of God well and with responsibility. Therefore, as Solomon was not asking for a selfish desire and want, and he was selflessly asking for a gift that was meant for the good of others, God granted him his wishes, and blessed him even far more than what he has ever asked. God blessed Solomon with such great wisdom and wealth, power and glory, that his name became famous throughout the world.

King Solomon was filled with God’s wisdom and grace, and his kingdom was great because of that. However, this does not mean that he was impervious to faults and mistakes, and he was neither perfect nor infallible. While mostly having reigned with great justice, wisdom and faith in the Lord, building up the great Temple dedicated to God in Jerusalem and leading God’s people and kingdom to its magnificent days, but later on in his life, King Solomon allowed himself to be swayed by the temptations and the attachments of worldly corruptions and pleasures. He had a large number of wives and concubines according to the later part of the Book of Kings, many hundreds of them, with many of them coming from the various peoples living in the lands surrounding the kingdom of Israel, and who brought pagan practices and wickedness into the king’s court.

Thus, while Solomon was guided by the Wisdom of God in the early and middle part of his reign, but later on, he allowed worldly glory, pride, wealth and all of his greatness to cloud his judgment and wisdom, and mislead him and the people into the wrong path, the path of evil and sin. That is why, linking to what we have heard in our Gospel passage today, in the Lord’s words to His disciples, speaking to them regarding what it means to come and seek the kingdom of God, to seek the true treasures that can be gained and found in the Lord alone. We should not allow ourselves to be deluded and tricked by the many false treasures present all around us, which offered us temporary and ultimately disappointing results and outcome, and which pleasure and joy do not truly lead to true satisfaction and happiness, unlike what is found in God.

For example, King Solomon himself, in his pursuit of power and glory, likely sought to gain alliances and worldly renown, as well as great prestige and fame from having so many marriages and concubines, as part of the customs of the world at that time. But instead of solidifying his rule and dominion, it led to the fracturing of his united kingdom shortly after his death, as the ten tribes of the Israelites broke free to form the northern kingdom of Israel, leaving just the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the southern kingdom of Judah for the House of David, to Solomon’s descendants. And despite of his massive armies and huge armada of chariots according to the Scriptures, all of these came to naught, and the kingdoms after Solomon would fall apart due to civil wars, conflicts and would eventually be crushed and conquered by their enemies.

Through all of those examples and many other historical evidences in our world history, the Lord has shown us time and again how those who seek Him should commit themselves wholeheartedly to Him, and place Him at the centre and as the main focus of their lives. All of us are reminded of the limitations of our human power, abilities and intellect, all of which pale in comparison with the power and wisdom of God. The value and worth of following the Lord and His path, knowing and appreciating His truth and love are far beyond any treasures that this world can offer us, as while the treasures of this world can only offer us temporary joy in this world, and in accordance with what the Lord Himself told His disciples, that those could perish and be destroyed by fire and by the other forces of the world, there is nothing that can destroy or affect the true treasures that we can find in God alone.

Now, just as we all have heard it from the Gospel passage today where the Lord Himself used the parable of the precious pearl to highlight the true treasure that is in the kingdom of God, and the other comparisons which highlighted how the followers of the Lord ought to seek this true treasure, let us all ask ourselves what is our treasures in life and what it is that we are seeking for in our lives. Are these treasures referring to any kind of worldly glory, fame, wealth and other material goods and pleasures of this world? Are we looking for and being obsessed with all those desires and temptations being present all around us? Or do we rather seek the treasures of the Lord, the righteousness, justice and virtues in God?

Do we rather seek the certainty and guarantee of God’s love and compassion, in everything that God has always been faithful and committed in providing to us, as He has proven yet again and again, in fulfilling the Covenant which He had made with each one of us. St. Paul in our second reading today, in his Epistle to the Romans also reassured us by reminding us of the ultimate gift of love from God, the gift of His own Firstborn Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour and King, delivering us from the tyranny of sin and death, and into eternal life. That is what each and every one of us should be aspiring towards, what we should be focusing our attention towards in our daily living.

And nothing can truly separate us from the love of God, as not even sin and death can do that, less so even those worldly forces that can destroy any other false treasures of this world, but can never bring us apart from the Lord, Who willingly sought us out and did His best to reconcile us to Himself, by the most selfless sacrifice that His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, offered on the Altar of His Cross. All of us have been truly blessed to be beloved by the Lord in such a manner, and we have to be thankful for all that He has given and blessed us with, all these while. That is why we should strive from now on to live our lives no longer under the sway of any worldly temptations and desires, or influenced by the corrupt forces being present all around us. Let us all as Christians be exemplary in all of our actions, our way of life and our deeds that we may truly be worthy of the Lord and everything that He has assured and promised us all through His Son.

Let us all reject the path of sin and evil, and embrace anew the path of God’s righteousness and virtue, and entrusting ourselves anew to the Lord, like King Solomon of old, that God’s Wisdom may guide us and keep us firm in faith, and guard us against any forms of worldly excesses and wickedness that had brought about the downfall of many among our predecessors. May God be with us always and may He continue to show us His Wisdom, so that we may always be His most worthy and wise disciples and followers, whose actions and works, efforts and endeavours are for His greater glory alone. Amen.

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Sunday, 26 July 2026 : Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 13 : 44-52

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, hidden in a field. The one who finds it, buries it again; and so happy is he, that he goes and sells everything he has, in order to buy that field.”

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a trader, who is looking for fine pearls. Once he has found a pearl of exceptional quality, he goes away, sells everything he has and buys it.”

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a big fishing net, let down into the sea, in which every kind of fish has been caught. When the net is full, it is dragged ashore. Then they sit down and gather the good fish into buckets, but throw the bad away.”

“That is how it will be at the end of time; the Angels will go out to separate the wicked from the just, and to throw the wicked into the blazing furnace, where they will weep and gnash their teeth.”

Jesus asked, “Have you understood all these things?” “Yes,” they answered. So He said to them, “Therefore, every teacher of the Law, who becomes a disciple of the kingdom of heaven, is like a householder, who can produce from his store things both new and old.”

Alternative reading (shorter version)

Matthew 13 : 44-46

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, hidden in a field. The one who finds it, buries it again; and so happy is he, that he goes and sells everything he has, in order to buy that field.”

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a trader, who is looking for fine pearls. Once he has found a pearl of exceptional quality, he goes away, sells everything he has and buys it.”

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Sunday, 26 July 2026 : Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Romans 8 : 28-30

We know that in everything, God works for the good of those who love Him, whom He has called, according to His plan. Those whom He knew beforehand, He has also predestined, to be like His Son, similar to Him, so, that, He may be the Firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

And so, those whom God predestined, He called; and those whom He called, He makes righteous; and to those whom He makes righteous, He will give His glory.

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Sunday, 26 July 2026 : Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 118 : 57 and 72, 76-77, 127-128, 129-130

You are my portion, o YHVH; I have promised to obey Your word. Your law is more precious to me than heaps of silver and gold.

Comfort me then with Your unfailing love, as You promised Your servant. Let Your mercy come, to give me life; for Your law is my delight.

I love Your commandments more than gold – the finest gold. Because my steps are guided by Your precepts, I hate all false ways.

Wonderful are Your decrees; my soul cannot but keep them. As Your words unfold, light is shed, and the simple-hearted understand.

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Sunday, 26 July 2026 : Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Kings 3 : 5, 7-12

It was in Gibeon, during the night, that YHVH appeared to Solomon in a dream and said, “Ask what you want Me to give you.”

Solomon said, “And now, o YHVH, my God, You have made Your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a young boy who does not know how to undertake anything. Meantime, Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen – a people so great that they can neither be numbered nor counted.”

“Give me, therefore, an understanding mind in governing Your people that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to govern this multitude of people of Yours?”

YHVH was pleased that Solomon had made this request. And He told him, “Because you have requested this rather than long life or wealth or even vengeance on your enemies; indeed, because you have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, I shall grant you your request. I now give you a wise and discerning mind such as no one has had before you nor anyone after you shall ever have.”

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Saturday, 25 July 2026 : Feast of St. James, Apostle (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Church celebrates the Feast of one of the Lord’s great Twelve Apostles, namely St. James the Greater, the elder brother of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, and one of the sons of Zebedee who followed the Lord Jesus since the very beginning of His ministry. St. James was also one of the closest among all of the Lord’s disciples, part of the three disciples that the Lord often brought with Him in important occasions, together with St. Peter, the leader and chief of all the Apostles, and St. John himself, St. James’ younger brother. All the three of them were present at every major occasions in the Lord’s ministry, such as at the Transfiguration of the Lord, the healing and the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, the synagogue official, as well as the moment of the Lord’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, among others.

And as compared with St. John the Apostle, his brother, St. James was also notable as being likely the first among the Apostles to die of martyrdom, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, with Apostolic and Church traditions placing his martyrdom just a decade or so from the time of the Lord’s death and Resurrection. On the other hand, St. John was the last of all the Apostles to pass away, and the only one among all of them who did not die of martyrdom, although he did suffer a lot of persecution, sufferings and oppressions throughout his many years of life. Nonetheless, both brothers have followed the Lord faithfully and with great dedication to the very end, enduring many challenges and hardships, struggles and difficulties throughout their ministry, and they did all that they could to proclaim the Good News of God.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the same two brothers St. James and St. John, who came together with their mother, and at that time, their mother asked the Lord to grant the two of them the places of honour by the left and the right hand side of the Lord. As we heard, this action brought about a lot of insecurities and jealousy from the other disciples of the Lord, and it highlighted to us the dangers of temptations of worldly power and glory, and one which we should resist or else we may end up falling into the wrong paths in life, and not the path that the Lord has shown us. Then, we must understand the context that at that time, many of the people living at the moment of the Lord’s work and ministry thought that the Messiah, that is the Saviour to be sent by God, would be a great conquering King and Ruler, born of the House of David so that the Kingdom of Israel of old can be restored.

That was why among many of the disciples of the Lord, there might have been many who hoped that the Lord Jesus, Whom they considered as the Messiah, would be the One to bring back the glorious days of the Kingdom of Israel, and liberate them all from the hands of their foreign oppressors and rulers, the Romans as well as the foreign rule of the Idumaean Herodian kings. Therefore, when the mother of St. James and St. John made such a request, and the displeasures and jealousy of the other disciples at that time, were all borne out of the misguided ideas and misunderstandings regarding what the Lord’s mission truly was, and what His disciples and followers would have to go through and experience in the midst of their own ministries and works. Thus, the Lord told the two brothers, St. James and St. John, that it was not for Him to decide Who should sit on His left and right, and if they would be able to drink of the cup of suffering that He Himself was about to drink.

Through this, the Lord Himself wanted to reveal the kind of hardships and sufferings, challenges and trials that St. James and St. John and also all the other Apostles and disciples of His, may have to undergo and endure in the midst of their ministries and works. St. James himself eventually was to go on his missionary works and trips, proclaiming the Good News to the far ends of the world, most well-known of which is in the region of Hispania, in what is now parts of Spain, where he proclaimed the Lord and His Good News to many of the people there, and to whom Our Lady herself, Mary, the Mother of God, appeared to in order to encourage and strengthen him, in the apparition known now as Our Lady of the Pillar. St. James’ ministry is the reason why his greatest shrine is now located at the place of his former ministry, in what is now known as Santiago de Compostela, named after the Apostle himself.

St. James eventually would be martyred after that in Jerusalem, as we heard in the Acts of the Apostles, when king Herod Agrippa who wanted to gain favour with the Jewish leaders and elders, persecuted the Christians and their leaders, arrested St. James and then executed him. He was thus likely the first of the Apostles to die in martyrdom, and many of the other Apostles would also suffer and die in the subsequent years and decades. Nonetheless, their faith and commitment to God remained firm and strong even throughout those difficult years, and that faith is something that all of us as Christians should also be inspired with, and be strengthened from. And we have also been constantly reminded that the works of the Lord which He had begun and entrusted to His Apostles like St. James and others, have not yet been completed, and there are still many areas and circumstances where we are called to be like the Apostles in proclaiming the truth of God, His Good News and salvation.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore be strengthened by the examples and dedication shown by St. James the Apostle, all his work and ministry, and in his courage to spread the word of God and the faith, and in having indeed drunk of the cup of suffering and martyrdom that the Lord Himself had drunk from. Let us all be genuine and committed disciples of the Lord ourselves and let us all seek to do what the Lord had called us to do, and be ever more faithful to Him in all of our ways. Let us all be exemplary and good in our every words, actions and deeds, in our every interactions and relationships with one another. We are all parts of the Church and its mission to evangelise and to proclaim God’s truth, salvation and Good News to all the whole world, and each one of us have to commit ourselves to this mission in whichever areas and parts that we are able to contribute in, as God has entrusted to us all.

May the Lord continue to strengthen and guide each one of us, and may the intercession of St. James, His Apostle continue to help us in our journey, and empower us all should we face many challenges and trials throughout our journey of faith and life so that we may always be strong and faithful even through the most difficult and challenging moments. May God bless us all and may He bless our every works and good deeds, efforts and endeavours, now and always. Amen.