Sundays of Advent

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Monday, 20 December 2021 : 4th Week of Advent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as today we listened to the readings from the Sacred Scriptures, we are continually reminded of the truth of what we are going to celebrate in the upcoming Christmas season, as we await the day of the celebration in honour of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, Who willingly came down to us in the human flesh and existence, born as the Son of Man, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, His mother, fulfilling the promises that God Himself had made to us through His prophets and messengers.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard of the encounter between Isaiah and king Ahaz of Judah, in which the king refused to ask for a sign from God, which might be seen as a sign of humility, but in truth was more likely a sign of lack in faith in God’s power and providence, considering that Ahaz was one of the kings of Judah who had not obeyed the Lord and His precepts, and instead, misled the people into the path of sin. The prophet Isaiah therefore spoke prophetically of the Lord’s words, of the great Sign that He would reveal before all, showing the truth about His love for all of His people.

As spoken by the prophet, this now famous prophecy was a direct reference to the coming of the Lord through Mary, the Virgin who would bear a Son, and be a sign to all the nations. It is the revelation of God’s plan of salvation for His people and everything that He had willingly done for our sake, out of His ever most generous love for each and every one of us, without exception. He willingly became incarnate in the flesh, to be born as a Man, in Jesus Christ, the Son of Man and Son of God, to offer on our behalf, as our Eternal High Priest, the perfect and worthy offering for the atonement of our sins.

And all of these came to be thanks to the cooperation and the willingness of Mary, who listened to the wonderful Good News revealed by the Archangel Gabriel, revealing before her what she would become, that is to be the Mother of God herself, to be the bearer of the Holy One of God, God’s own only begotten Son. By the power of the Holy Spirit, she would bear the Son of God Himself conceived in her womb in the flesh. Through her, God’s love become manifest, tangible and visible to us, and by her active cooperation in the works of God’s salvation, Mary brought the Saviour Himself into this world.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we heard of these words from the Sacred Scriptures, we are yet again reminded that all of our preparations this Advent is a time for us to rediscover the true meaning of Christmas. This is something often forgotten even amongst us Christians, as we are often inundated and overwhelmed by the over commercialisation of Christmas all around us. We have seen so many evidence of how secular Christmas has been distracting us from the true meaning and significance of Christmas.

It is not wrong to celebrate Christmas, and indeed, all of us should celebrate Christmas with great joy and revelry. But at the centre of all those celebrations and revelry, there must be Christ, Our Lord and Saviour present, or else our Christmas celebrations are meaningless and empty, and are merely a celebration of our human greed and desire for pleasures and worldly excesses. Many of us sought to outdo each other in the glamour and the details of our Christmas celebrations, and yet we forgot that Christmas is all about Christ and all that He has done for us, so that through Him we may indeed rejoice and be glad because we have been saved.

As we approach ever closer to Christmas, let us all come ever closer to realise just how important Christ is to all of us, the Love of God made manifest and tangible. By being born in the flesh, He has made us all glimpse the Eternal Light and Joy of heaven, and through Him, we who live in a world of darkness are finally able to see the Light of Hope, and a way out of our predicament and sufferings. All these are thanks to the love that God has generously and patiently showed us all throughout time and history, even to this very moment, and to the unforeseeable future.

Then, what are we going to do about it, brothers and sisters in Christ? Are we going to continue to ignore Him and put Him aside in our lives? Are we going to celebrate Christmas with a lot of festivities, but Himself as the One Whom we ought to be celebrating being sidelined and forgotten? Remember how He had loved us and did everything for us, even to stripping Himself of all dignity and glory, of power and majesty, to suffer and die for us on the Cross, so that by His sacrifice and death, all of us may have life through Him. May the Lord be with us all, and may He strengthen us all in each and every moments of our lives, that we may always remain ever faithful to Him, now and always. Amen.

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Monday, 20 December 2021 : 4th Week of Advent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 1 : 26-38

In the sixth month, the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth. He was sent to a young virgin, who was betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the family of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

The Angel came to her and said, “Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” Mary was troubled at these words, wondering what this greeting could mean. But the Angel said, “Do not fear, Mary, for God has looked kindly on you. You shall conceive and bear a Son, and you shall call Him Jesus. He will be great, and shall rightly be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the kingdom of David, His ancestor; He will rule over the people of Jacob forever, and His reign shall have no end.”

Then Mary said to the Angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” And the Angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the Holy Child to be born of you shall be called Son of God. Even your relative Elizabeth is expecting a son in her old age, although she was unable to have a child; and she is now in her sixth month. With God nothing is impossible.”

Then Mary said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me as you have said.” And the Angel left her.

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Monday, 20 December 2021 : 4th Week of Advent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 23 : 1-2, 3-4ab, 5-6

The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord, the world and all that dwell in it. He has founded it upon the ocean and set it firmly upon the waters.

Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who will stand in His holy place? Those with clean hands and pure heart, who desire not what is vain.

They will receive blessings from the Lord, a reward from God, their Saviour. Such are the people who seek Him, who seek the face of Jacob’s God.

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Monday, 20 December 2021 : 4th Week of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 7 : 10-14

Once again YHVH addressed Ahaz, “Ask for a sign from YHVH your God, let it come either from the deepest depths or from the heights of heaven.”

But Ahaz answered, “I will not ask, I will not put YHVH to the test.” Then Isaiah said, “Now listen, descendants of David. Have you not been satisfied trying the patience of people, that you also try the patience of my God? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign : The Virgin is with Child and bears a Son and calls His Name Immanuel.”

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Sunday, 19 December 2021 : Fourth Sunday of Advent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday is the last Sunday in the season of Advent, and on this Sunday we focus our attention to the last of the four Advent themes. After going through the theme of Hope, Peace and Joy in the previous three Sundays of Advent, today finally we focus on the theme of Love. As we prepare ourselves for the great celebration of Christmas in just a few days’ time, we are all called to remember why Christmas is there in the first place. That reason is because of God’s love for each and every one of us.

Christmas is not just about having festivities and celebrations, and not just about parties, merrymaking and all the paraphernalia often associated with it. Instead, as Christians all of us should fully know and realise that first and foremost, Christmas is a celebration of love, of the love that is always enduring and pure, that has been given to us from God, from His heavenly abode. God loves us all so much that He has given us His only beloved Son, the Divine Word Incarnate, Whose coming and appearance into this world is what we celebrate at Christmas.

Why love, brothers and sisters in Christ? That is because God Himself is Love, and by His incarnation, in taking up the humble existence of our human flesh and by lowering Himself to be born into this world, He has shown us what true love is all about. His love is what made Him to create all of us, because He wanted to share with all of us, with all of creation, the perfect love that He Himself has, in the perfect love of the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. That overflowing love has always been intended for us, to be filled with every grace and blessings.

However, it was because of our disobedience and the weakness of our flesh that our ancestors chose to listen to the devil instead of holding on to the truth of God and keeping their faith in Him. They chose to listen to his lies, and allowed themselves to be persuaded and convinced to disobey God’s direct commandments. As a result, we have been found guilty and corrupted by sin. We were made perfect, blameless and without fault, and should have shared in the everlasting joy and true happiness in God’s presence. Unfortunately, our sins and the corruptions in us sundered us from His grace and love.

But God did not give up on us, and His love for us yet endured. He has devised for so great a plan and prepared everything for us, waiting for the time this plan would be revealed to all of us. He has given assurances and glimpses of this truth and the Good News through His prophets and messengers, and eventually, as we heard in our first reading taken from the Book of the prophet Micah, God revealed how He would come to His people, through the small town of Bethlehem Ephrata, the small town of David, where the great king of Israel hailed from, from his humble origins as a shepherd, the youngest son of Jesse of Judah.

God sent His Saviour, His own Son, born into this world in that town, on that day which we celebrate as Christmas, which therefore is the full and perfect manifestation of His love in the flesh. God’s love has become tangible and accessible to us, since no longer that God is One that we cannot see and perceive. Having shown Himself through His Son, God has shown us just how much He loves us and just how amazing His commitment has been to the Covenant that He has established with us.

He came into this world through Mary His mother, dwelling in her hallowed womb for nine whole months before being born into this world. And as we heard in our Gospel passage today, even the mother of St. John the Baptist, Elizabeth, who was Mary’s relative, recognised the Lord present in Mary’s womb, and both of them praised God for everything that God had done for them. The miraculous nature of the pregnancy for Elizabeth, which happened in her advanced age, and for Mary, whose pregnancy happened before she consummated her marriage with St. Joseph her husband were proof of God’s intervention and the fulfilment for the plan of His salvation for all of us.

But even more than that, the Lord through that action of becoming Incarnate in the flesh, to be born as a Man, was an act of supreme love and compassion, which He generously showed towards all of us sinners. And why is that so, brothers and sisters in Christ? That is because the Lord came to us in the human form and existence in order to share with us our humanity, to be the New Adam that would overturn the past sins and mistakes committee by the first Adam which led us all into sin.

And in the most important action He did for our salvation, done out of His ever generous and enduring love for us, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, willingly took upon Himself the punishments and the consequences of our sins. He took up His Cross and endured the most humiliating conditions and punishments, suffering for us on our behalf, in perfectly obeying the will of His Father, showing us what God’s love is all about, and how we ought to love God as well. As we heard in our second reading today, from the Epistle to the Hebrews, that is all that God wants from us as well.

He does not require from us offerings and sacrifices, referring to the ritual sacrifices done up to that time according to the Mosaic Law. It truly means that He does not require from us mere formality of faith and worship, and neither did He desire lip service from us His people. Instead, what He wants is a total commitment made with love and real genuine love we have for Him, as Christ Himself, in bearing His Cross has shown us. In that supreme act of self-sacrifice and selflessness, God Himself, the Son of God and Son of Man, the Divine Word Incarnate in the flesh, the One born on Christmas Day, showed His love for us, and His love for His heavenly Father, as part of the Holy Trinity of perfect Love with the Holy Spirit.

And that is what we ought to recall today, brothers and sisters in Christ, remembering the great love and the ever enduring patient love and compassion that God has always ever lavished on us, all these while. That is why this Sunday, we focus our attention on the what is arguably the most important of all the four Advent themes, that is Love. For without love, the love that God has for us, then we could never have been saved, and there could have been no hope for us at all. It was God’s Love for us that made all these possible.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, having come to realise God’s most amazing love for us, are we going to show Him the same kind of genuine love? Or are we going to continue to be stubborn in shutting Him out from our lives and in ignoring His loving presence in our midst? And most importantly, are we going to continue sidelining and forgetting about Him in our festivities and celebrations in and throughout the entire season of Christmas? We have to reflect and remember on what Christmas is truly all about.

Today, as we recall God’s loving presence in our midst, let us all strive to do our best to love the Lord with new hearts full of devotion and dedication to Him. If we have once ignored and abandoned Him for other idols and distractions in the world, let us now seek Him again with ever greater zeal and commitment. Let us all rediscover that love that each and every one of us ought to have for the Lord. And may the Lord, our ever loving God continue to love us and bless us, and may His love continue to be poured upon us, most generously, that we may also grow in our love for Him.

May all of us strive to celebrate Christmas worthily and remind one another what Christmas is truly all about, of a celebration of God’s most amazing love for His beloved ones, all of us, His children and His people, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 19 December 2021 : Fourth Sunday of Advent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 1 : 39-45

Mary then set out for a town in the hill country of Judah. She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leapt in her womb.

Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and, giving a loud cry, said, “You are most blessed among women; and blessed is the Fruit of your womb! How is it, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? The moment your greeting sounded in my ears, the baby within me suddenly leapt for joy. Blessed are you, who believed that the Lord’s word would come true!”

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Sunday, 19 December 2021 : Fourth Sunday of Advent (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Hebrews 10 : 5-10

This is why, on entering the world, Christ says : You did not desire sacrifice and offering; You were not pleased with burnt offerings and sin offerings. Then I said : “Here I am. It was written of me in the scroll. I will do Your will, o God.”

First he says : Sacrifice, offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not desire nor were You pleased with them – although they were required by the Law. Then he says : Here I am to do Your will. This is enough to nullify the first will and establish the new. Now, by this will of God, we are sanctified, once, and for all, by the sacrifice of the Body of Christ Jesus.

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Sunday, 19 December 2021 : Fourth Sunday of Advent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 79 : 2ac and 3bc, 15-16, 18-19

Listen, o Shepherd of Israel, You, Who sit enthroned between the Cherubim. Stir up Your might and come to save us.

Turn again, o YHVH of hosts, look down from heaven and see; care for this vine, and protect the stock Your hand has planted.

But lay Your hand on Your instrument, on the Son of Man Whom You make strong for Yourself. Then we will never turn away from You; give us life, and we will call on Your Name.

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Sunday, 19 December 2021 : Fourth Sunday of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

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.

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Saturday, 18 December 2021 : 3rd Week of Advent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scripture, we are reminded as we get ever closer to Christmas, of how the Lord has fulfilled His promises to us and gave us the perfect love that He manifested in the flesh, in our midst, in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God Most High and the Son of Man, born of Mary, His mother and part of the family of St. Joseph, His foster-father and becoming the Heir and Son of David, King of Israel.

As we heard from our first reading today from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah, God promised His people that He would come to bring them liberation and salvation from their many troubles. And as God has revealed to them all throughout the past history, through many prophets and messengers, He would send His deliverer, the Saviour to come as the Heir of David, sending His only begotten Son to be the One to lead all of His beloved ones out of the darkness and into the Light of His salvation and truth.

God did not give up on us all, His beloved ones and He did everything He could to gather us all in, scattered throughout this darkened world full of sin and evil. He has always reached out to us, calling on us all to return to Him and to find our way to His presence. He wants to forgive us all our sins, and that is why, He gave us so great a deliverance and a Deliverer through Christ, Who came to us by the power of the Holy Spirit, indwelling in Mary, His mother, as told by the Angel of the Lord to St. Joseph, Mary’s legal husband and foster-father of the Lord.

By this action, God Himself has descended into the world, to live in our midst, Emmanuel, God is with us, a reminder that all of us are truly precious to God and greatly beloved by Him. God so loved the world that He has given us all His only Son, that through Him all will have life and be saved. That is the truth about the Good News that God has brought to us and revealed before all of us. And this is what we have to remind one another as we continue to progress through this season of Advent, to prepare ourselves so that we may celebrate Christmas worthily and appreciating the true significance and meaning of Christmas.

Let us spend some time to look at how we usually look at Christmas, how we perceive it and treat it year after year. Doubtless to say, many among us treat is as a festive and joyous occasion, but too often we are distracted by the many temptations of worldly excesses, as surely we know how we are often inundated by the commercialised perception and marketing of the secular Christmas. These are distracting us from the true essence and meaning of Christmas, as the One Whom we should be focusing on and celebrating about has often been sidelined and forgotten.

Instead, we treat Christmas as a time of feasting, merrymaking and celebrations to entertain ourselves, our ego and our desires. We seek to outdo one another in the grandness of our celebration and in the expenses we spent to celebrate, as well as desiring for many good things to please ourselves, whether in the celebrations themselves, in the company of people whom we celebrate with, and in the presents we exchange and receive, desiring and hoping to get better things for ourselves, or to revel in all the festive mood and all.

But we forget entirely why we celebrate Christmas in the first place. We forget why we, as Christians, are called to focus above all, Christ and His saving work, His kindness and compassionate mercy, the wonderful love by which He made fully manifest God’s enduring love and providence for all of us His people, through His ministry and work, His revelation of God’s truth, and finally, through His own volition, embracing a most painful suffering and death for our sake, by taking up His Cross. He suffered and died so that through those, we may all be saved.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in the remaining time we have in this season of Advent, as we are coming ever closer to Christmas, let us all spend some time to reflect on how we perceive and plan to celebrate this Christmas. It is indeed right and proper for us to celebrate in Christmas as we should. However, we have to celebrate it with proper understanding and appreciation of God’s love for us made evident and clear in the flesh, through Christ His Son, that our celebrations are centred on the One Whom we ought to be rejoicing about.

Let us all therefore do our best to inspire one another to renew our Advent journey and reflection, so that we may come ever closer to greater appreciation and understanding of God’s work of salvation and love for us, in all that He had done for our sake. Let us all turn towards Him with genuine love and devotion, and do what we can to live a good and faithful Christian life, so that in whatever we say and do, we will always strive to be worthy of God, in all things, and worthy to welcome Him into our hearts and our lives, as we should do, this Christmas. May God bless us all and be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.