teaching the faith

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Wednesday, 26 March 2014 : 3rd Week of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Deuteronomy 4 : 1, 5-9

And now, Israel, listen to the norms and laws which I teach that you may put them into practice. And you will live and enter and take possession of the land which YHVH, the God of your fathers, gives you.

See, as YHVH, my God, ordered me. I am teaching you the norms and the laws that you may put them into practice in the land you are going to enter and have as your own. If you observe and practice them, other peoples will regard you as wise and intelligent. When they come to know of all these laws, they will say, “There is no people as wise and as intelligent as this great nation.”

For in truth, is there a nation as great as ours, whose gods are as near to it as YHVH, our God, is to us whenever we call upon Him? And is there a nation as great as ours whose norms and laws are as just as this Law which I give you today?

But be careful and be on your guard. Do not forget these things which your own eyes have seen nor let them depart from your heart as long as you live. But on the contrary, teach them to your children and to your children’s children.

 

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Monday, 17 March 2014 : 2nd Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Patrick, Bishop (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Brothers and sisters in Christ, once again we are exhorted to practice our faith and be genuine and active in living up our faith, through action and devotion, particularly through the act of mercy, by forgiving others who had done wrong to us, and by giving of our love to them, and to those who had hated us and resented us.

Today, brethren, we celebrate the feast of St. Patrick, the Bishop and Patron saint of Ireland. Patrick was born in the Roman Britain, and was initially a pagan shepherd, who was captured by Irish raiders and was made a slave. During his slavery, St. Patrick learnt about the faith through missionaries, and he had a change of heart.

St. Patrick learnt much about the faith and spent his time knowing more and more about God. He was released from his captivity after a few years and returned to his homeland, but not before knowing from God that he will one day return to the land of his enslavement to bring it to the hand of God through conversion.

Eventually St. Patrick returned to Ireland and set about doing many good things there, preaching about the faith and teaching the people about God. St. Patrick performed many miracles and great feats, which helped to bring the people to greater understanding of the greatness and the nature of God and faith in Him.

St. Patrick and his works laid the foundation for the faith in the once untamed and pagan land, where all the people worshipped the spirits of the land. He used many methods to teach them how to devote themselves to God, using shamrock leaves with their three lobes to describe the concept of the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And despite all the oppositions and works arrayed against him during his missionary works, St. Patrick prevailed and continued to baptise thousand upon thousands, converting many to the cause of Christ, even among the nobles, lords, and kings and princes. He made the spread of the faith in that godless land possible.

What is most important from St. Patrick and his actions was that he practiced his faith and do the things that he had said. That was why so many people listened to him, and finding the good things that he had taught them, they believed and were saved through baptism. St. Patrick had a solid and living faith in God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are called to also be witnesses for the Lord, to be the ones showing God and His teachings to those who had yet to know Him, much as what St. Patrick had done. Shall we follow the example of St. Patrick and did what he had done for the glory of God?

Let us be righteous, loving and merciful as the Lord had taught us through Jesus, that we may truly be seen as the children of God, and through our actions, may other people see the love of God and know Him through us. God bless us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 21 December 2013 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Peter Canisius, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Priests)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast day of one of the great saints of the past centuries, that is of St. Peter Canisius, also known as Peter Canis or Petrus Canisius. He was a German who joined the then growing and newly established Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola. St. Peter Canisius also happen to be the saint whose name, together with that of St. Peter the Apostle, I adopted as my own name at baptism, because both of them are truly inspiring role models to me.

St. Peter Canisius lived during a time of great difficulty for the Church, because at that time, numerous people were swayed under the heresy of Protestantism, which spread like wildfire, based on ignorant and fallacious teachings and ideas of men. These ideas were manipulated by some to gain followers and broke apart the unity of the Church. This was particularly bad in Germany, where numerous occurrences of the mentioned heresies happened.

Yet St. Peter Canisius was not to be daunted by challenges, and he put his full trust in the Lord and spearheaded the efforts countering the damaging effects of the Protestant heresy. He and several other leaders such as St. Ignatius of Loyola were crucial in the process of Counter-Reformation, where these courageous leaders fought to stem the tide of corruption on the faithful and return them to the one true faith in God.

The problem was that we have grown lax in our faith, and we no longer stay truly faithful to the Lord. And neither did we put our trust in the Lord, trusting rather more the forces of this world, and our own feeble abilities and desires. Faith is weakened when we no longer put ourselves completely in God’s hands, and evil may enter our hearts. The same, then, happened as it had, during the heresy, which sadly continues all the way until even today.

At that time, indeed, the Church had grown powerful, and it had gained many worldly properties and accumulated much influence and wealth. That was when human desires and the corrupting power of Satan entered into the Church. The Church became a nest of impurities, debauchery, and sinfulness, far from being the holy congregation of the Lord’s faithful ones. Popes, cardinals, bishops and priests were influenced by the forces of the world and quite a few of them were corrupted.

Indeed, many of those who had submitted themselves to Protestant heresies, would argue that the very reason why they broke away from the one and only Church of God was because of its impurities, such that as if the Church no longer had any legitimacy or spiritual authority over the faithful. They elected their own leaders and established their own so-called ‘churches’ in the delusion of righteousness that they experienced.

Yes, that delusion in fact served the purposes of the devil. Some of the proponents and leaders of the heresies had truly noble intents in their actions, but many if not all were eventually succumbed to the designs of the evil one. Instead of helping to reform the Church and purge the impurities out of the holy Church, they succumbed to their own human vanity, pride, and stubbornness, and broke apart the unity of the One Body of Christ, that is the Church.

Remember what the Lord had said, that He is the vine and we are the branches. In the unity of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, the one and only Church, that is our Church, we live in grace and love because of the love and life-giving strength that God bestowed upon us through that unity. Broken and torn apart from that unity, those splinters withered and died, just as history itself had proven to us.

“There were as many churches as there were heads.” Such was the sayings that time, when numerous churches were founded and established, and each with their own ideas and own way of interpreting the messages of the Lord, and therefore, confirming further the devil’s hold on many souls and on the hearts of mankind. Many of these ‘heads’ could not agree upon each other on what they were to believe in God and about God.

They quarrelled, fought, debated, and wasted much energy doing nothing but attacking each other and badmouthing each other, blaspheming that in doing so, they obeyed and followed God’s will. The devil sowed the seeds of distrust, division, and strife among the people of God. Instead of the intended good, only evil and division came out of the events.

That was what St. Peter Canisius was so eager to combat, the divisions within the Church and among the faithful ones. He championed both the reform within the Church as well as the deliverance of those who had lapsed and went outside of the saving grace of Christ in the Church. He led the Jesuit order to restore the faith in his native Germany. And he made great successes there, converting many thousands upon thousands back to the true faith.

St. Peter Canisius stemmed the tide of heresy, from what is an unstoppable wave into a controllable tide. He championed reaching out to those who had fallen away from the faith and explaining to them in great clarity and truth, the truth about the One and True faith, our Catholic faith. That was why St. Peter Canisius was also well known for his contribution to Catholic education. He educated the faithful of the future, as well as future zealous and dedicated teachers of the faith who would bring back the faithful back into the Church.

The Catechisms written by St. Peter Canisius helped many to return to their true faith in God, explaining the faith in clear terms to the people. His Mariology and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary was also exemplary, and in fact laid the foundations of much of the devotion to the Blessed Mother of God as we know today. It was he who included the phrase, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners” to the Hail Mary prayer.

Indeed, seeing the examples of the life of this saint, St. Peter Canisius, we see how much we need to come closer to God, and dedicate ourselves even more intimately to Him. We cannot separate ourselves from the Lord, or we risk the corruption of evil, through the ways of this world. To keep ourselves close to the Lord, with the help of His Blessed mother, is to keep our faith pure and acceptable to the Lord.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we come even closer to the celebration of Christmas, and as we rejoice in this feast day commemorating the great Doctor of the Church and the Defender of the Faith, St. Peter Canisius, let us heed the lesson on the importance of our faith, and how important it is to make sure that we adhere to the teachings and to the will of God, putting aside our human ego, our human weaknesses, and all the temptations of the world.

Instead, let us open ourselves fully and completely to the Lord, and the Lord who loves us completely and dedicatedly will grant us His endless blessings and graces. Let us also follow in the footsteps of St. Peter Canisius, preaching the truth about the Lord, especially to our separated brethren. Proclaim the truth to them and reveal to them the fullness of the Lord’s saving power, and what is true faith in the Lord, that is in the teachings of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, the one and only Church of God.

St. Peter Canisius, pray for us, and help us that we may be strong in our faith and remain vigilant against the powers and temptations of the evil one. May the Lord too watch over us, and love us dearly and tenderly as He had always done. May the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ, Ut Omnes Unum Sint, that they all may be one, come true, that all the faithful ones in God can be reunited once again, purging themselves of all the errors of human judgments, emotions, and thinkings. Amen.