Temple of Jerusalem

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Friday, 27 September 2013 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Vincent de Paul, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Haggai 1 : 15b – Haggai 2 : 9

It was the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month. On the twenty-first day of the seventh month of the second year of the reign of Darius, this word of YHVH was sent through the prophet Haggai, “Give this message to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the high priest, and to all the people :

Is there left among you one of those who saw this House long ago in the time of its glory? What do they think of what they see now? Is it not a very little thing? But I say to you, Zerubbabel, Joshua, and My people : do not be discouraged. Begin to work, for I am with you, says YHVH. Do not be afraid, for My Spirit is in your midst.

Thus says YHVH of hosts, within a short while I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the continents. Then I will shake all the nations and bring in the treasures of the whole world. I will fill this House with glory, says YHVH. I will have as much silver and gold as I wish. The renown of this Temple will be greater than before, and in this place I will give peace,” says YHVH of hosts.

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Thursday, 26 September 2013 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Saints Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red

Haggai 1 : 1-8

In the second year of the reign of Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, a word of YHVH was directed to the prophet Haggai for the benefit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest.

“So says YHVH of hosts : This people claim that the time to rebuild the House of YHVH has not yet come. Well now, hear what I have to say through the prophet Haggai : Is this the time for you to live in your well-built houses while this House is a heap of ruins? “

“Think about your ways : you have sown much but harvested little, you eat and drink but are not satisfied, you clothe yourselves but still feel cold, and the labourer puts the money he earned in a tattered purse.”
“Now think about what you must do : go to the mountain and look for wood to rebuild the House. This will make Me happy and I will feel deeply honoured, says YHVH.”

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Wednesday, 25 September 2013 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ezra 9 : 5-9

I remained seated and dismayed until the evening sacrifice; and then, at the time for the evening offering, I rose from my fasting, and with my clothes and mantle torn, I knelt down, spreading out my hands to YHVH, my God.

I said, “My God! I am ashamed and confused, my God, I do not dare raise my eyes to You for our sins have increased over our heads and our crimes reach up to the heavens.”

“From the days of our ancestors to this day, our guilt has been great. We, our kings and priests have been given into the hands of foreign kings because of our crimes; we have been delivered to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and put to shame as on this day.”

“However, for a brief moment, the mercy of YHVH, our God, has been shown to us. He made a remnant of our people survive, and allowed the survivor to settle once again in His Holy Place; He has given us joy and life, though we are in bondage.”

“We are no more than slaves, but in the midst of our slavery, God has not abandoned us, He has extended a merciful hand over us to support us before the kings of Persia. He has revived our life, enabled us to rebuild the House of our God, and to have walls in Jerusalem and in the other cities of Judah.”

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Tuesday, 24 September 2013 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we hear a very profound message from our Lord Jesus, that He had made all those who are righteous and do the will of God, being obedient to the Law as His own, as the ones counted among those to whom He gives His everlasting care and attention.

Yes, Jesus had come down from heaven, God incarnate as Man, so that He can be with us, and claim us from the darkness that enslaved us all. He revealed to all the children of God, even today, on the nature of God’s love for us, so much so that He sent His only Son, that we may be saved and have life in Him.

Being the children of God, as the most beloved and precious of His creations, mankind has long been destined for great things. For even the stewardship of this world was entrusted to us through our ancestors, through God’s commands to Adam and Eve, his wife. Yet, we have fallen from grace by our corruption with sin and no longer worthy to call God, our Father.

That is where Christ came in, and His coming into this world had reestablished that link between us and the Father. He had become one of us, that our links with God become ever more tangible, and He who is God, lives within us and is present within us, we who receive the gifts of His Most Precious Body and Blood through the Holy Eucharist in the Mass.

Yes, now that the Lord is in us, and we in Him, we have been made and marked as truly belonged to the Lord, and freed from the bonds and slavery under sin. All this, if we would accept Christ as our Lord and Saviour, and most importantly, showing it in a concrete manner, by following the will of God, that is loving one another, and through that, loving God with all our strengths.

Through Christ, we have been remade, and made pure and wonderful again in the presence of the Lord. Through Him, we cast aside our old and sinful selves and embrace new and loving life, life anchored in faith and love towards God who also loves us dearly. It is precisely like what we read today in the first reading, on the efforts of the rebuilding of the House of God, the Temple, in Jerusalem, after the return of Israel from the exile in Babylon.

The people of Israel had done things abhorred by God and rebelled against His love, and therefore, was punished by being given over to their enemies. They suffered in exile, separated from the land God had promised them, because they had broken the covenant their ancestors had established with God, ever since the days of Abraham.

Yet, God showed them His mercy, and through His power exercised via Cyrus and Darius, the rulers of the Persian Empire, the people of God was allowed once again to walk on the land God had given them and dwell in it. The first Temple and House of the Lord, the one King Solomon had made was destroyed with Jerusalem when the Babylonians took over the city, and yet, in the first reading today, we hear about the rebuilding of the Temple, which would become the Second Temple, still standing by the time of Christ, and was the place where He often taught the people during His earthly ministry.

In the same way, the Lord had established a new Temple, that is the Temple of His Body, that even when the physical Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed soon later by the Romans, the real Temple of God, that is His house, remains. Each one of us who have faith in Christ and obey the will of God, are these new Houses of the Lord, the Holy Temple in which God resides.

And now because we are the Temples of the Lord, then within each one of us had been entrusted with a great light of God. That is why it is important that we do not hide that light, but reveal it for all to see. If we do things that are wicked and against the Lord’s wishes, essentially what we have done is that we have been corrupting that Temple that is our body and our being.

Therefore, the light that is within us will not be able to shine brightly, as it is hidden behind screen of darkness and evils, which marred the light God had given to all of us. Hence, dear brethren, let us from now on respond to this matter, and most importantly, have the resolve to break free from this prison of darkness and returns to the light.

Let us, from this moment onward, no longer fear to show the light that is in us to the world, to all those who are around us. Let us be the light placed on the lampstand, to be shown to all peoples, the bright light within us that can never be dimmed. Remember, that Christ, the Light of the world, is also lifted up high above the earth, that He was seen by all. That all who sees that Light, may have a new hope, that is an eternal life of happiness and true joy with God.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, because we who have accepted and received Christ into ourselves had already had Christ within each and every one of us, therefore, we as the possessions of Christ, should also reflect His light in us, and show it to the world, as the light that nurtures and show the way to others still lost in the darkness.

Let us not be fearful and be courageous to take up the challenge God had given us, to shine brightly and show our faith to the world without hesitation. Be like Christ who showed His love for all, and yes, indeed, for all to see, that all who saw Him receive new life through salvation. May the Lord strengthen us and empower us to love, to love both Him and one another. Amen.

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Tuesday, 24 September 2013 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 121 : 1-2, 3-4a, 4b-5

I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord! And now we have set foot within your gates, o Jerusalem!”

Jerusalem, just like a city, where everything falls into place! There the tribes go up.

The tribes of the Lord, the assembly of Israel, to give thanks to the Lord’s Name. There stand the courts of justice, the offices of the house of David.

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Tuesday, 24 September 2013 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ezra 6 : 7-8, 12b, 14-20

Let the governor of the Jews together with their leaders build the House of God on its former site. This is the command I give as to what you should do to help those Jewish leaders rebuild the House of God : pay the expenses in full and without delay, with the income from taxes of the province at the other side of the River which is allotted to the king. I, Darius, give this command. Let it be carried out at once.

And the leaders of the Jews continued to make progress in building, encouraged by what Haggai, the prophet, and Zechariah, the son of Iddo, had said; and they finished the work according to the command of the God of Israel and the decrees of Cyrus and Darius. The House was finished on the third day of the month of Adar in the sixth year of the reign of Darius.

The children of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of those who had returned from exile celebrated the consecration of this House of God with rejoicing, offering on this solemnity one hundred young bulls, two hundred rams, and four hundred lambs; and twelve he-goats as a sin offering for all Israel, according to the number of the tribes of Israel.

Then they installed the priests according to their ranks, and the Levites according to their classes, for the service of the House of God in Jerusalem, as it is written in the book of Moses. Those who had returned from exile celebrated the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month, for the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together, and all of them were clean.

So, they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all who had returned from exile, for their fellow-priests and for themselves.

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Monday, 26 August 2013 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 23 : 13-22

Therefore, woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door to the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor do you allow others to do so.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You devour widows’ houses, even while for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you shall receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel by sea and land to win a single convert, yet once he is converted, you make him twice as fit for hell as yourselves.

Woe to you, blind guides! You say : To swear by the Temple is not binding, but to swear by the treasure of the Temple is binding. Blind fools! Which is more worth : the gold in the Temple, or the Temple which makes the gold a sacred treasure?

You say : To swear by the altar is not binding, but to swear by the offering on the altar is binding. How blind you are! Which is of more value : the offering on the altar, or the altar which makes the offering sacred? Whoever swears by the altar, is swearing by the altar and by everything on it. Whoever swears by the Temple is swearing by the Temple and by God who dwells in the Temple.

Whoever swears by heaven is swearing by the throne of God, and by Him who is seated on it.

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Monday, 12 August 2013 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Religious (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we hear about the obligations we have in our lives, the obligations we have to this world, to our nations and our states, and most importantly, the obligation we have to the One True God, our Lord in heaven. Today’s Gospel reading is related to the similar case when the chief priests and the Pharisees attempted to trap Jesus in His own words, by asking whether the people should or should not pay tax to Caesar as the Romans imposed on all their subject peoples.

Christ answered the Pharisees aptly, and similarly in this case, when He showed His great wisdom and understanding, which shows the same kind of answer presented to the challenge and test made by the Pharisees aimed at trapping Jesus in His own words. Christ showed that we should obey the law be it divine law or the law of the world, by respectively paying what is due to us to each of these laws and fulfill our obligations respectively.

Yes, that means, as in Christ’s own words, what is due to Caesar, give it to the Caesar, and what is due to the Lord, give it to the Lord. If the people of Jesus’ time are obliged to pay taxes to the Romans because of their position as subject of the Roman Empire, then so be it. But even more importantly, they are also at the same time, the subjects, the servants, and the people of the One, True God, and therefore, they too, should serve the Lord their God and give to Him what is expected by the Lord from all of them.

If we pay taxes to our world authorities, our nations and our governments, the analogues we have today with the Roman Empire of Jesus’ time, with money, with gold and silver, with worldly possession, then how do we pay our due to the Lord our God? We pay our God with our love, with the love that we pour out of our hearts towards Him, and towards our fellow brothers and sisters, the same children of God. That is what He truly wants from us, the love and dedication from us, and not just mere sacrifice or words.

Our nation, our government had given us much, through money, goods, security, care, and many other ways that they can make our lives in this world more comfortable, more convenient, and more relaxed. Through their works and services we had benefited much, just as what had happened during the time of the Roman Empire. Indeed, the Jews did suffer under the rule of the Romans, but they also enjoyed much from the rule by the Romans.

The Romans brought stability to the region and better livelihood to the Jews, who had been living in a turbulent time, in a region fought between the successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great’s Empire. Those who read the Book of the Maccabees will certainly know of the difficulties and struggles faced by the people before the time of Jesus, when the region of Judea was under constant warfare and conflicts. The Romans gave stable livelihood and relative peace to the people that the society of the Jews during the time of Jesus was roughly at peace.

Then, without delving too much into the history of the land, why then do we pay tribute to our Lord and God, the way that we had given tribute to the secular and worldly authorities? That was because just as the governments, authorities, and nations had taken care of us and done good things for us, the Lord our God had done even greater things for our sake, brothers and sisters in Christ.

Yes, He had given much to mankind, and He had poured out His love and grace to His beloved people, and not least of all, the descendants of Abraham His servants, that is the people of Israel themselves, whom He cared for and watched from generations to generations. He gave them all that they needed, and He delivered their enemies into their hands to be destroyed, as well as bringing them from the land of their slavery into the land He had promised their fathers. And even when they disobeyed Him and rebelled against His will, He remained faithful and loving to them, and even gave then a new hope, the long-awaited Messiah, the Saviour of the world.

It is therefore to this wonderful and ever-loving God that we give thanks and our wholehearted dedication. It is truly to The Lord that we must give our true allegiance and obedience, to His laws and commandments, superceding any other laws even those of this world. However, this does not mean that we should disobey any kind of worldly authorities that our governments and nations have over us. Instead, just as Christ had done Himself, in advocating to pay taxes to the Emperor and to the Temple, He taught all of us to obey our caretakers in this world as well as our Lord, as long as those caretakers do the duties entrusted to them by God dutifully and do not veer away from the path of the Lord.

Today, brethren, we commemorate the feast of a wonderful and holy saint, that is St. Jane Frances de Chantal. She left all that she had after the death of her husband at the end of the sixteenth century France, and joined the religious life, eventually setting up a religious order on her own, and opened many chapters and branches which works extended to the poor and the unloved ones of the society, giving them love, care, and compassion.

St. Jane Frances de Chantal gave her all in loving her fellow brethren in faith, and she wholeheartedly gave her full dedication to them, and therefore, at the same time, showing her own love and dedication to the Lord our God. That is her way of showing her gratitude and ‘paying her due’ to the Lord. She gave the Lord the wonderful offering of her love, both for Him and for His children, particularly the least of all of them. Yet, she was also dutiful to her own dedication to the society, remaining faithful to the laws of the land, that is the laws of the world.

Through the example set by St. Jane Frances de Chantal, let us be more inspired to do more for the Lord, for our fellow brethren, and for our society, giving our heart, our love, and our dedication to all of them, and in the process making sure that we always put the Lord our God before everything, and always keep Him in our hearts as we proceed with our daily lives and activities. May the Lord who bless us daily and protect us with the power of His hands strengthen us, and renew our faith, our hope, and our love for Him and for all of His people, that is all of us. God bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 1 August 2013 : 17th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we again listened to the continuation of the story of how the kingdom of God is like, of how the reign of Christ will be like, as it will be at the end of times. He will separate those who are wicked from those who are righteous, those who had followed faithfully the will and commandments of the Lord from those who rebelled against the Lord, and those who had shown love as opposed to those who had instead shown hatred for their brothers and sisters.

Yes, brethren, that is how the Lord will separate us from His seat at the throne of judgment, the Great Judge of all creation. And like a fisherman, He will separate the good fish from the bad fish, the fresh ones from the rotten ones, and like a shepherd, He will separate the sheep and lambs from the goats, the unblemished lambs from the blemished ones. He will differentiate those who had been His and had accepted Him as their Lord and God from those who had disobeyed Him and disregarded Him and His offer of salvation.

But our Lord cares for us, and He loves us, in the same way that He had once loved and cared for Israel, His people in the desert and beyond. He wants us to be reunited with Him, and that was why, throughout the history of mankind, He had approached our ancestors, from Noah and how He saved him by instructing him to build the Ark, and Abraham, our father in faith, with whom the Lord had made a covenant with, the first covenant of God and man.

The covenant which God had renewed by bringing His people, the children of Abraham out of Egypt with His mighty hand, and brought them to the land He had promised their fathers. He cared for them so much that He sent them many prophets and leaders to continue guiding them towards the right path, despite their constant rebellions and disobedience against His will and His words, and despite that they slaughtered His prophets and messengers.

Yes, those prophets who were slaughtered proclaimed God’s ultimate method in saving all of us, that is through His own Son, Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, and became the source of all hope and salvation, through His sacrifice on the cross. Jesus Christ who suffered for our sake and be lifted up high between the heaven and the earth for our sake, has bridged the infinite chasm between God and us sinners. He is the way through which the lost children of God may pass to return to their loving Father.

When Christ died on the cross, the veil covering the Holy of holies of the Temple of Jerusalem was torn into two pieces, revealing the most sacred interior of the location where the Ark of the Covenant used to be located at, and also where the Lord was supposed to reside in this world. The death of Christ marked the end of the separation that existed ever since we have rebelled against the Lord at the time of Adam and Eve, our first ancestors. The veil that separated us from the Lord had been cast aside, and now there exists a direct highway to God, that is through Christ, His Son, and the new covenant He had created with mankind, with the Precious Blood He shed on the cross.

Today, brothers and sisters, we commemorate the memory of St. Alphonsus Liguori, a well-known Italian bishop who lived during the early modern period. He was most renowned for being the founder of the Redemptorist religious order, many of which members now minister to us, the people of God daily in our own respective societies.

St. Alphonsus Liguori founded the Redemptorists as a congregation of missionaries and brothers dedicated to saving the souls of mankind, through their service, especially to the last, the lost, and the least in the society, to the poorest, both in material and in spirit, that is to give them the love of God, and enkindle in them the fire of the Holy Spirit, for those whom the fire had been dimmed by the world. St. Alphonsus Liguori stressed the importance of a strict and yet reasonable discipline in the faith and in life to be practiced by everyone, so that one would remain faithfully on the path to salvation.

St. Alphonsus Liguori was well-known for his powerful sermons and speeches, which so touched many people, that many of those who had been drifting away from their faith in God, returned devotedly into the Church, and therefore were once again ensured salvation in Christ. The same too was tasked upon the Redemptorists, which St. Alphonsus Liguori had founded, to seek more souls lost in the darkness of the world, and bring them to Christ, who had made the path to God our Father open, by piercing through the veil of separation and bridging through the chasm of separation, through His death on the cross.

Let us today also play our part, following the example of St. Alphonsus Liguori and the Redemptorists, to help one another in our reach for the Lord and for our salvation. Let us help one another to grow stronger in the faith, to grow more devout in our love for the Lord, and to be more courageous to stand up for our faith and for our God. St. Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us sinners and intercede for us before our Lord Jesus Christ, whose death had reconciled man with God, that we all too may share with you, the eternal glory and bliss of heaven forever and ever. Amen.

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Friday, 19 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 12 : 1-8

It happened that Jesus walked through the wheat fields on a Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and began to pick some heads of wheat and crush them to eat the grain. When the Pharisees noticed this, they said to Jesus, “Look at Your disciples! They are doing what is prohibited on the Sabbath!”

Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did, when he and his men were hungry? He went into the house of God, and they ate the bread offered to God, though neither he nor his men had the right to eat it, but only the priests. And have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the Temple break the Sabbath rest, yet they are not guilty?”

“I tell you, there is greater than the Temple here. If you really knew the meaning of the words : ‘It is mercy I want, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. Besides, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”