Sundays after Epiphany

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Monday, 10 September 2018 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Corinthians 5 : 1-8

You have become news, with a case of immorality, and such a case, that is not even found among pagans. Yes, one of you has taken, as wife, his own stepmother. And you feel proud! Should you not be in mourning, instead, and expel the one who did such a thing?

For my part, although I am physically absent, my spirit is with you and, as if present, I have already passed sentence on the man who committed such a sin. Let us meet together, you and my spirit, and in the Name of Our Lord Jesus, and with His power, you shall deliver him to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit be saved in the day of Judgment.

This is not the time to praise yourselves. Do you not know that a little yeast makes the whole mass of dough rise? Throw out, then, the old yeast and be new dough. If Christ became our Passover, you should be unleavened bread. Let us celebrate, therefore, the Passover, no longer with old yeast, which is sin and perversity; let us have unleavened bread, that is purity and sincerity.

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Sunday, 9 September 2018 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we listened to the word of God being spoken to us through the Scriptures, about the hope and encouragement that God has given to all of us, His beloved people, in how He has blessed us and given us a new hope, by healing us from our afflictions, our sicknesses and shortcomings. God has promised and fulfilled the promise He has made, to made whole again the people He had created out of love.

First of all, our first reading today taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah spoke about the coming of God’s healing to His people, as the signs He would show when He sent His Saviour into the world. The prophet Isaiah was sent to the people of Israel at the time when many in Israel have abandoned the Lord and His ways, and they have consequently suffered at the hands of their enemies, scattered and exiled away from their homeland.

The prophet spoke of a new hope for the people of Israel, who were surely downtrodden and despairing, remembering the time of their suffering in Egypt, when they were enslaved by the Pharaoh and the Egyptians for hundreds of years. They longed for the coming of the Deliverer, Whom the Lord has promised for many years through His prophets and messengers, that deliverance would come for them.

The prophet spoke of the signs of what would happen when the Messiah of God came into the world. He would make the blind people see again, the deaf people to be able to hear again, the mute people to be able to speak again, the lame and the paralytic to be able to walk and to be active again. And all of these would happen as signs of the coming of the One Whom God has promised.

And in the Gospel passage today, we heard of the moment when the Lord Jesus healed a man who was both deaf and mute. He touched his ears and mouth, and by His words, “Ephphata!” meaning, “Be opened!”, the Lord healed the deaf and mute man, who could immediately hear and speak once again. The man praised the Lord and the whole people who witnessed the great miracle also were astonished and glorified God.

It was the fulfilment of what God Himself has promised to His people, that through His Saviour, He would restore His people, from all their afflictions and disabilities, from all of their shortcomings, pains and sufferings. It was through the Lord Jesus, God’s own begotten Son, that the plan of Salvation was completed to its perfect fulfilment. But it was not all the physical healing of the people that were the focus of Christ’s objective in this world, but rather, the healing of our true sickness that has made us all to be sick.

What am I referring to, brothers and sisters in Christ? I am referring to the sickness caused by our sins. Sin is caused by our disobedience and refusal to obey God, which have afflicted each and every one of us mankind, ever since Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, were tempted and failed to resist the temptations of Satan, to disobey God’s will and commands.

Ever since then, we have been afflicted by sin, which is truly a disease and corruption upon our entire being. Sin is the disease that affects first the soul, and then from the soul, to the heart and mind, and eventually our physical self and the whole body will be affected as well. We may be physically healthy and unafflicted by any physical diseases or sicknesses, but in truth, deep inside us, we are sick and dying because of this sickness of our sins.

And unlike all other physical diseases and sicknesses, which can be cured or halted to a certain extent by medicines and treatments, there is no cure for sin, save for that of the Lord’s mercy and grace alone. None but the Lord is capable of forgiving our sins, and no one but the Lord is able to free us from the bondage to our sins and therefore, to our fated destruction and death.

What is the significance of all these to us, brothers and sisters in Christ? Every single one of us as Christians, who have been baptised in the Name of the Lord, have gone through the rite of the Sacrament of Baptism, in which one part was the symbolic Ephphata Rite, recalling the precise moment mentioned in the Gospel passage today, when the Lord Jesus opened the ears and loosened the tongue of the deaf and mute man.

And more still, that through the holy water of baptism, all of us have been made to be sharers and partakers of God’s New and Everlasting Covenant, which He has made with all of us through the action of His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. By that water of baptism, we have been cleansed of our past sins and our original sins, and we were purified from our wickedness and unworthiness.

Therefore, as all of us have received the inheritance from God, of faith, hope and love, by sharing in the death of His Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross, dying to our past sins, and now, having shared in the hope of the glorious resurrection from the dead that He has shown us, each and every one of us as Christians have been called to be active in our faith, to be the ones to bear the Lord’s truth to all the peoples of all the nations.

For you see, brothers and sisters, our Christian faith is one that requires us to be active, to be missionary and to reach out to others about the faith which we have in God. We cannot be complacent or inactive and passive in the practice of our faith. We have been freed from the tyranny of sin and death, and the veil of sin has been lifted up from us. We have experienced God Himself being present in us, so what is stopping us from truly proclaiming the Lord in our lives?

Very often, it is because of our own lack of faith and our own lukewarm attitude towards what we believe in the Lord. But do we realise that there are still many out there who are still living in the darkness and ignorance of the Lord’s truth and salvation? If we ignore them and do nothing to help them, then they may fall into eternal damnation in hell, a fate which we ourselves will share because the Lord will hold us accountable for our failure to act.

We have received this faith and the promise of eternal life from God, and it is only natural that we should share this hope and faith with all those who have not yet received them. And the way for us to do so, is by being true Christians in our respective lives, meaning that we must practice what we believe in our own life, through our actions and deeds, and not just through words.

Unfortunately, many of us Christians have shown otherwise, as we act in manner that causes divisions and scandals, by our refusal to obey the will of God and continuing to fall into temptations, of pride, of worldly wealth and power, of influence and fame, that even within the Church and in our various ministries, we have seen so many actions that were inconsistent and unbecoming of our faith, in how we jockey for influence and power, and in how we treat each other, not in the manner of our true Christian fellowship.

How can we expect others to believe in God and to receive our Christian faith, if we ourselves are not exemplary in how we live our lives in faith? Instead of bringing the people closer to God, we will instead end up causing more and more people to be turned away from salvation. Thus, it is important that we realise the gravity of our actions in our lives, and how they can be crucial in our role as disciples and bearers of God’s truth.

Let us therefore strive to be true disciples of Christ from now on, by truly living up to our calling as those whom the Lord has chosen out of the world, having been given the truth and the promise of eternal life. Let us go forth and preach this truth to many more people, through our words, our deeds and actions, that in everything we say and do, we will always proclaim the glory of God and call many more to come to the Lord and be saved.

May the Lord continue to guide us and bless us in all of our endeavours, and may He continue to watch over us as we continue to carry on living this life with all the zeal and courage to be true Christians in every moment of our lives. Amen.

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Sunday, 9 September 2018 : 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, and put His fingers into the man’s ears, and touched his tongue with spittle. Then, looking up to heaven, He said with a deep sigh, “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, 9 September 2018 : 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, 9 September 2018 : 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 loves the virtuous, but He brings to ruin the way of the wicked. The Lord protects the stranger.

He sustains the widow and the orphan. The Lord will reign forever, your God, o Zion, from generation to generation. Alleluia!

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Sunday, 9 September 2018 : 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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Saturday, 8 September 2018 : Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate together with the whole Universal Church the occasion when Mary, the Most Blessed Mother of Our God, Jesus Christ, was born into this world, after she was conceived in her mother’s womb and grew there for the nine months of pregnancy. She was born from her mother, St. Anne, pure without sin, just as she was prepared by God specially since the moment of her Conception.

In today’s readings we heard about the fulfilment of God’s long prepared plan to save His people, by the sending of the Messiah, through Whom He would gather all of His people and reconcile them to Himself, saving them from their predicament and fated destruction because of their disobedience and thus, their sins. And God would make this salvation a reality, through none other than the cooperation of Mary, a human being whom God had especially chosen and blessed, to be the Mother of Our God and Saviour.

In today’s Gospel passage, we heard the long citation of the genealogy of Our Lord Jesus Christ, beginning from Abraham, the father of many nations and the ancestor of the Israelites, who himself was the descendant of Adam and Eve, our first ancestors. Through Abraham was born Isaac and then from Isaac, Jacob, and later on through the generations, king David and his successors, to whom God has promised that his descendants will rule forever and his kingdom will never end.

And in the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we have seen the perfect fulfilment of God’s promise to us mankind, first of all, to Adam and Eve, that the reckoning would come for the deceit of Satan who tricked them to sin, and to Abraham, as through the Lord Jesus Christ, all of mankind have been gathered together as one people, all who looked up to Abraham as their father in faith, to king David as mentioned, for Christ is the one true Heir of David’s kingdom.

All of these came about because of the plan and works which God had carried out to its perfect completion, by the cooperation, faith and commitment which one woman, Mary, showed before all of us, by her obedience to God’s will, and by her willing collaboration throughout her life that God’s saving works are carried out to its perfect completion through Christ, her Son.

As mentioned, Mary was prepared and designed to be special, distinct from all other men and women, by the singular grace of God, that she alone of the children of man is preserved from the taints of original sin that has affected all other men and women. She was conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, pure and immaculate, free from sin and perfect, blameless and worthy, in the Dogma that the Church upholds as the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

Therefore, as we remember Mary’s birth into this world on this day, we should reflect on the coming of this beacon of hope into our world. When Mary came into the world, it was the first time since the beginning of time, that a man walked in this world, free and unbound by the chains of sin and death. For ever since Adam and Eve first disobeyed God and sinned against Him, sin has ever since enthralled us all mankind.

But sin has no hold or sway over Mary, for she was without any sin, and remained free from sin throughout her life. Mary lived an exemplary life, filled with love and faith in God, as evident in how she loved her own Son, the Divine Word incarnate. Mary’s love for God was so perfect, as shown by the perfect, motherly love she has shown for her Son, and her obedience to the will of the Father, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in her, that Satan and his wicked forces have no hold whatsoever over her.

Rightfully, Satan was afraid of her, as she was the fulfilment of what God had Himself declared to him at the moment of the fall of Adam and Eve into sin. God said that while Satan will strike at the children of mankind, but the Woman will crush him under her feet. This was a reference to what Mary, the Woman mentioned by God, would do to Satan, for through her role in the bringing of the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ, into this world, she has crushed for eternity, Satan’s power and kingdom.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us as Christians are called to reflect on our own role in the works of God’s salvation. We should look upon Mary as the perfect role model and example for our own faith and in how we should live out our own lives in accordance with God’s ways. Mary has loved the Lord with all of her heart, and devoted herself so completely to God, in a state of total surrender to the will of God. Many of us can follow her example in how we should be faithful to God.

Why is that so? That is because many of us are still burdened by the temptations of our pride, our greed and human desires, and by all the temptations and hurdles that kept us from truly being able to dedicate ourselves to God. And many of us grew distant from God, because we did not build up a good relationship with Him, as we are often too preoccupied in life, by our careers, studies, and all other things that made us to forget to spend quality time with God.

Let us therefore turn towards God, through Mary, His most blessed and beloved mother, who is our perfect role model as the ideal Christian, in following the Lord’s ways and in how she has walked faithfully and obeyed God all her life. Let us all also ask Mary to intercede for us, for being the Mother of God, she is the greatest of all saints and the one who is closest to her Son, at the very side of His throne, interceding for us sinners.

Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, conceived and born without sin, pure and immaculate, pray for us all sinners, and bring us all closer to your Son, that we too one day, may be worthy as you are, to be with God, your most beloved Son, Our Lord and Saviour. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Saturday, 8 September 2018 : Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 1 : 1-16, 18-23

This is the account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (their mother was Tamar), Perez was the father of Hezron, and Hezron of Aram. Aram was the father of Aminadab, Aminadab of Nahshon, Nahshon of Salmon.

Salmon was the father of Boaz. His mother was Rahab. Boaz was the father of Obed. His mother was Ruth. Obed was the father of Jesse. Jesse was the father of David, the king. David was the father of Solomon. His mother had been Uriah’s wife. Solomon was the father of Rehoboam. Then came the kings : Abijah, Asaph, Jehoshaphat, Joram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah.

Josiah was the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon. After the deportation to Babylon, Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel and Salathiel of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud, Abiud of Eliakim, and Eliakim of Azor. Azor was the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, and Akim the father of Eliud. Eliud was the father of Eleazar, Eleazar of Matthan, and Matthan of Jacob.

Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and from her came Jesus Who is called the Christ – the Messiah. This is how Jesus Christ was born : Mary His mother had been given to Joseph in marriage, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, made plans to divorce her in all secrecy. He was an upright man, and in no way did he want to discredit her.

While he was pondering over this, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. She has conceived by the Holy Spirit, and now she will bear a Son. You shall call Him ‘Jesus’ for He will save His people from their sins.”

All this happened in order to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet : The Virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and He will be called Emmanuel, which means God-with-us.

Alternative reading (shorter version)

Matthew 1 : 18-23

This is how Jesus Christ was born : Mary His mother had been given to Joseph in marriage, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, made plans to divorce her in all secrecy. He was an upright man, and in no way did he want to discredit her.

While he was pondering over this, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. She has conceived by the Holy Spirit, and now she will bear a Son. You shall call Him ‘Jesus’ for He will save His people from their sins.”

All this happened in order to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet : The Virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and He will be called Emmanuel, which means God-with-us.

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Saturday, 8 September 2018 : Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 12 : 6ab, 6cd

But I put my trust in Your unfailing love, my heart will rejoice on seeing Your salvation.

I will sing to YHVH, for He has been good to me!

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Saturday, 8 September 2018 : Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Micah 5 : 1-4a

But you, Bethlehem Ephrata, so small that you are hardly named among the clans of Judah; from you shall I raise the One Who is to rule over Israel. For He comes forth from of old, from the ancient times.

YHVH, therefore, will abandon Israel until such time as she, who is to give birth, has given birth. Then the rest of His deported brothers will return to the people of Israel. He will stand, and shepherd His flock with the strength of YHVH, in the glorious Name of YHVH, His God.

They will live safely, while He wins renown to the ends of the earth. He shall be peace.

Alternative reading

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.