Temple of the Holy Spirit

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(Usus Antiquior) Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Feast of St. Lawrence, Martyr (Double II Classis) – Sunday, 10 August 2014 : Homily and Scripture Reflections

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard how we must cast away from our bodies and our hearts all things that are evil and filled with wickedness. We must make a conscious effort to get rid from ourselves all evil and wicked desires of the flesh, in order for us to be able to fully understand and appreciate what we need to do so that we may attain salvation and eternal life in God.

In the Gospel, Jesus reminded us this fact by first saying that there will be plenty of obstacles, both from the inside of us and from the outside, namely from those who refused to receive God and His ways, and those who collaborated with Satan to undermine mankind like us, that we may be damned and destroyed together with him. Jesus warned us, and St. Paul warned the faithful in Corinth to keep themselves pure and holy in all actions and things to avoid damnation.

Jesus showed this not just by mere words but also through direct action, showing it by casting out those merchants and defilers that had made impure the Temple of God in Jerusalem. Yes, as mentioned, the House of God and House of prayer had been made into a house of impurities, of money and illicit transactions, all designed to bring more wealth and profits to those merchants who cheated the people of God from their possessions.

Those merchants were truly wicked in their actions, using the opportunity presented by the people who were sincerely devoted to God to steal their money from them by inflating the prices of the sacrificial animal victims and through money exchange services, and while the people became poorer, the merchants became richer and richer. The priests and the Pharisees did nothing and in fact supported these merchants because part of the income ended up in their pockets, ensuring their cooperation in sin.

Those merchants and wicked priests of the Lord are truly the representation of the wickedness and evils that exist in us, in many different and various forms, but in which all of them have the same effect, that is the corruption of the House of God, the Temple in which the Holy Spirit resides. Yes, we all should know that all of us are the Temples of the Holy Spirit. Our bodies are the Temple in which God resides.

God resides in us and He is in us when we have been accepted into His Church, and through the waters of baptism He purified the interiors of this Temple, making it into a suitable throne and place of residence for Him within us. But this does not guarantee us salvation, as faith alone without works is insufficient and meaningless without good works to ensure our salvation. We can still sin and do bad things in contrary to our baptismal promises.

Satan is never quiet, brothers and sisters in Christ, and he will always be at work to convert us to his cause, to spread his lies to us that we believe in him and his lies rather than the truth that is in the Lord. Even those priests of the Lord and the Pharisees who supposedly knew about the Lord, were the ones who in fact gave themselves in completely to the hands of Satan.

If we are lax in our devotion and in our faith, as well as in how we live our lives, then our bodies which are the Temples of the Holy Spirit will be defiled, and a House of God and House of prayer will no longer be as what they should be. Brothers and sisters, this must not happen, and we should heed both the warnings of our Lord and St. Paul His servant, renewing our pledge that we should live our lives in accordance to the ways of the Lord.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all work together and do our best to strengthen our faith within us, and the way is by strengthening our spiritual defenses, firstly through prayers, namely by having a good and healthy prayer life, and then through love and charity, by serving the people of God with sincere and genuine love and dedication.

May Almighty God help us on our endeavours, and continue to watch over us day by day, as we continue in our daily spiritual battle against the forces of Satan and the darkness in this world. Let us trust always in the light and the love of our God. Amen.

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Thursday, 3 July 2014 : Feast of St. Thomas, Apostle (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Ephesians 2 : 19-22

Now you are no longer strangers or guests, but fellow citizens of the holy people : you are of the household of God. You are the house whose foundations are the apostles and prophets, and whose cornerstone is Christ Jesus.

In Him the whole structure is joined together and rises to be a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you too are being built to become the spiritual sanctuary of God.

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Sunday, 23 February 2014 : 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Corinthians 3 : 16-23

Do you not know that you are God’s Temple, and that God’s Spirit abides within you? If anyone destroys the Temple of God, God will destroy him. God’s Temple is holy, and you are this Temple.

Do not deceive yourselves. If anyone of you considers himself wise in the ways of the world, let him become a fool, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s eyes. To this, Scripture says : God catches the wise in their own wisdom. It also says : The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that it is useless.

Because of this, let no one boast about human beings, for everything belongs to you, Paul, Apollos, Cephas – life, death, the present and the future. Everything is yours, and you, you belong to Christ, and Christ is of God.

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Saturday, 9 November 2013 : Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Today, all of us in the Holy Mother Church, that is all the people of God in communion with each other, and therefore united as one Church of God, celebrate the feast of the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, or the Cathedral of the Diocese of Rome, the place where the very Vicar of Christ, the Pope, has his seat of authority. It is the mother church of all Christendom, the primary church of the entire Universal Church.

We celebrate today the dedication of that Basilica, the great place of worship of our God, which had stood since the day when the faith in God finally triumphed over all its oppressors, under the rule of the first Christian Emperor Constantine. This Basilica was once an Imperial palace complex for the Roman Emperors in Rome, and it was donated to the Church by the Emperor Constantine, over seventeen centuries ago, with massive state funding to help establish proper places of worship.

The Bishop of Rome, that is the successor of St. Peter as the Vicar of Christ on earth, the leader of the entire Universal Church, received that generous donation from the pious Emperor, and he made what will become the Basilica of St. John Lateran, as the Cathedral and seat of the Pope, the centre and heart of the Universal Church. That Basilica is dedicated to St. John the Evangelist and to the Lord Saviour of all mankind. Truly a place of marvel, fitting to be the heart of all Christendom. Today we celebrate the dedication of that wonder of God.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today’s readings have been designed to fit with the occasion, and therefore, they deal with the matter of the holy Temple of God. In the first reading, we are told of the heavenly Temple, the Temple of God in the glory of heaven, out of which gushes forth living water that satisfies and saves. It is the life-giving water that came from the Lord Himself

But the Temple of God is not just a physical temple or the heavenly temple. It is also in fact, all of us the faithful ones of God. For, ever since we were baptised and sealed in the Holy Name of the Most Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God has dwelled within us, through the Holy Spirit that comes and dwells within all of us, who had been marked as the children of God.

That is why, all of us, our hearts and bodies are the Temple of God and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Hence, it is why the Lord continues to encourage us to do good deeds and avoid things evil and unworthy of God, basically things that can corrupt the holiness of our Temples, that is our hearts and bodies. We must always be vigilant, as we cannot be complacent or evil may corrupt the Temple that is our body and heart.

Just as we keep the Temple of God, that is our churches, cathedrals, and also the Basilica of St. John Lateran, which dedication we remember today, holy and good at all times, then we too must and should keep the Temple that is our hearts and bodies pure at all times. If we wreath ourselves in love, in God’s love, then we can readily maintain the purity of our Temples.

Our mouth is the gate to this Temple, and our hands, limbs and others are the courtyard. If we are to ensure the purity of the Temple of God in us, we have to make sure that these places are clean as well. We cannot let the devil and his agents to corrupt these that the Temple that is our body, heart and soul be corrupted with sin.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to watch our words, our deeds and actions, that we do not end up committing sin through them. That we will not make dirty and unworthy the Temple, where the Lord resides in us. Jesus was right to be angry, when He saw the House of God, that is the Temple of Jerusalem, made into a house of sin, by the corrupt practices of the merchants and sellers of the animal sacrifices and money changers, all of whom cheated their customers all those who came to genuinely worship the Lord.

The Lord’s wrath is great against all those people, and He will not let them go so easily. The Lord will show them His justice. Therefore, we too, brethren, should strive to always be upright in our dealings, in our words and actions. How to do so? By having a strong and healthy spiritual life and having closer and intimate relationship with the Lord our God!

We have to pray, pray faithfully, pray with zeal, and pray with true devotion and dedication to God, whenever we pray. Through prayer, the Lord will grant us His love and blessing, opening the floodgates of His blessing upon us. We will be strong, and purified by the waters that flow from the Temple of God in heaven, the life-giving water, and the water that purifies. That water is also Jesus, the One who had given up His life for us, that from Him, and to all who believes in Him, a new life may be given to them, a life eternal in God.

Hence, as we rejoice today in the dedication of this great Basilica of St. John Lateran, the centre and heart of Christendom, let us also take the time to reflect and make the effort to keep clean and pure, the Temple of God, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, that is our hearts and our bodies, that we can always worship the Lord worthily and with the fullness of God’s blessings. God bless us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 9 November 2013 : Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 Corinthians 3 : 9b-11, 16-17

You are God’s field and building. I, as a good architect, according to the capacity given to me, I laid the foundation, and another is to build upon it. Each one must be careful how to build upon it. No one can lay a foundation other than the one which is already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit abides within you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him. God’s temple is holy, and you are this temple.

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Friday, 1 November 2013 : Solemnity of All Saints (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters, rejoice! Rejoice indeed, I say to you! That is because today is indeed a great feast for all creation. Today is the feast of All Saints and holy people of God, those who had been made holy in God and who have been made righteous and glorious, receiving the eternal rewards and glories of heaven.

Yet, we should not think that these saints are superhumans or truly people who we all cannot become. There is a danger in us seeing them as people with divine and miraculous powers. It is important for us not to get this misconception. That is why many people outside the Church of God and even inside the Church have this misconception that we worship and pray to the saints as if they are gods.

No, brethren, as we all should know, that this is not the case. These saints were once like us, and they were indeed mere humans like ourselves, with all of our strengths as well as our weaknesses and shortcomings. These saints were just like us once, and some of them were even at one point of time, great sinners, whose sins could indeed be considered very abominable and evil in the eyes of the Lord. Among them were murderers and liars alike. They were no different from us, when they still walked in their mortal bodies in this world.

Yet, what sets them apart, is their realisation and understanding of the reason for their lives, that they, particularly those who sinned greatly, discovered the ugly nature of their sinful acts and from there, resolved to change themselves for the better. They left behind their sinful selves and cast away that empty shell of sin, cutting away the veil of darkness that separate them from God and His love.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, that is why we have our saints and blesseds, whom the Church and the entire Body of Christ had declared to be worthy of the glory of heaven. They have transformed themselves to become the vessels of the light and love of the Lord our God. They have used the gifts given to them, using them for the good of others, loving all mankind, just as the Lord had asked all of us to do. And finally, they loved God in their own ways, each no less great than the other.

Sainthood is not an easy matter to get, for being saints mean that those people have been found worthy of the glory of heaven. It is not easy for us to be worthy of the glory of heaven, as we have to be mindful of the sins and evils we have committed, be it in our words and our actions. And yet, remember again, brethren, that saints and all the holy people, were also once sinners like us, but they have been made worthy, because they realised their sinful nature and changed themselves from that point, for the better.

In this, then we have to take note of what our Lord Jesus Christ had said in the Gospel today. It is a very familiar passage for us all, as it is the Sermon at the mount, or the Beatitudes, where Jesus taught His disciples and all the people who were following Him, on the blessings that He gave and attributed to the people who had done what is good. Essentially these are the people who are truly blessed and found worthy of the kingdom of heaven.

So are these categories then a sign of greatness and glory? Of might and power? No! In fact, when you look at the Beatitudes, the characteristics of those who are blessed, are being merciful, peaceful, loving, and essentially, all that Jesus Himself had preached throughout His ministry. It is these people who love peace, who seek love with one another, and those who put the Lord and His precepts above everything else.

We too can become saints, brethren! Sainthood is truly not outside our reach. The late Blessed Pope John Paul II himself, soon to be raised to the glory of heaven as a saint, called all of us the faithful ones in God, to become more saintly and aspire to be them, through his universal call to holiness. All of us truly have within each one of us, the ability to become saints, and receive the rich and glorious rewards of heaven, only if we make a decisive choice.

Let us therefore, brothers and sisters, from now on, resolve to make ourselves into new persons in God, that all of our actions, our words, and our deeds will be truly a reflection of the Lord, that we will be righteous in all of our deeds, that we will be made worthy and holy, before the Lord our God, that one day, we will be able to join His choir of angels and saints, praising His Name forever and ever.

Remember brethren, the Beatitudes and the other teachings of our Lord. Be loving, be men of peace, be humble, be gentle, and be faithful to our Lord. Happy all Saints day to everyone, may they intercede for us sinners still in this world, and God be with us all. Amen!

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Saturday, 26 October 2013 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Mass of our Lady)

Romans 8 : 1-11

This contradiction no longer exists for those who are in Jesus Christ. For, in Jesus Christ, the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death.

The Law was without effect because flesh was not responding. Then God, planning to destroy sin, sent His own Son, in the likeness of those subject to the sinful human condition; by doing this, He condemned the sin in this human condition. Since then the perfection intended by the Law would be fulfilled in those not walking in the way of the flesh, but in the way of the Spirit.

Those walking according to the flesh tend towards what is flesh; those led by the Spirit, to what is Spirit. Flesh tends towards death, while Spirit aims at life and peace. What the flesh seeks is against God : it does not agree, it cannot even submit to the law of God. So, those walking according to the flesh cannot please God.

Yet your existence is not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, because the Spirit of God is within you. If you did not have the Spirit of Christ, you would not belong to Him. But Christ is within you; though the body is branded by death as a consequence of sin, the Spirit is life and holiness.

And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is within you, He who raised Jesus Christ from among the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies. Yes, He will do it through His Spirit who dwells within you.

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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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Sunday, 21 July 2013 : 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we heard today of two stories which in both involve receiving the Lord into one’s home and showing their acceptance to the coming of the Lord. Abraham in the first reading welcomed the Lord who passed by his tent, and gave Him a meal and offering. In the Gospel, Martha and Mary, the family of Lazarus, welcomed Jesus the Son of God and Messiah into their house. Both involved hospitality of the hosts and how they react to the coming of the Lord to their humble abodes.

Abraham recognised the Lord and welcomed him into his tent, giving the best he had for the Lord to eat, as an offering of his love and his heart for the Lord. Martha and Mary also welcomed Christ into their home, giving their best to serve Him and made Him at home. But here comes the difference, highlighted in the case between Martha and Mary, in how they give their service to the Lord.

Martha cooked and prepared many food for Jesus, to serve Him good meals and good food, but she ended up being absorbed so much into her preparation and her work, that she forgot what the Lord truly wanted from her. She became engulfed in the world and in her work so much, that she forgot about love, about her own love for God. That is what the Lord truly desired from her, and indeed, from everyone in this world, all of us.

Mary gave her love and full attention to Christ, giving all her heart to Him, that she was truly focused and attentive to all the words that left His mouth, listening to the words of salvation, the Good News. The same had been done by Abraham, giving his obedience and full attention to the Lord, as He came to proclaim the words of His promise, His covenant, proven through the gift of his son, Isaac, through his wife, Sarah.

The same too then is expected of us. We too should give all our minds, our hearts, our being, and with all our strengths, to God and dedicate ourselves fully and entirely to Him. God our Lord is a loving God, and He cares for all of us, until He even gave His own Son, Himself, for the sake of all of us, that we may have life in us, and do not have to suffer our eternal punishment of death, that is our faith.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us not lose our sight on the Lord, our one and true God, the God who created us, God who gave us life, and God who granted us this world that we may live in prosperity and happiness, and most importantly, to follow in His ways, that we can share the happiness that we have in us, with one another, that together, we may be saved, saved from the tyranny of death and evil, and be freed into new life in Christ.

Let us renew our faith and our love for God, dedicating our hearts as true offering for Him. He does not desire our sacrifices and prayers, of endless litanies made without meaning, of gifts made without love, but He desires truly our love, our repentant heart, seeking always for His mercy, the desire, the strong and endless desire to be reunited with the One God who loves us.

In Christ lies salvation and hope, and in Him lies all the fulfillment, in all its perfection, of God’s grand plan to save mankind and all creation, ever since Satan snatched them from Him at the time of creation, by his lies to Adam and Eve, the first mankind. The grand plan had been in motion for countless years and a long time, ever since creation, through Abraham, whom God promised that salvation for mankind would come through him and his descendants, and ultimately was perfectly fufilled in Jesus, the descendant of Abraham, of Adam and Eve, and the descendant of David, who inherited his kingdom, and made it into an everlasting kingdom of God.

Christ gave Himself up for our sake, that all of us can share in His glory upon His glorious resurrection, and that we will receive life eternal as we are brought to our rightful places in heaven, at the side of the Lord, God who cares for us and gave it all for our sake. It will not be easy to follow Christ, as we will be rejected as the world had rejected the Lord. What is important is that we do not go astray from our path, and remain faithful to Christ our Lord, through our actions, our deeds, and our words.

Let us not be distracted by the world and its offers of pleasure and sin, and not to forget the Lord and His love and kindness. Let us be focused on the Lord and offer Him our greatest love, out of our sincere and repentant heart, just as what Abraham and Mary had done, that the Lord will always be in our minds, our hearts at all times, and therefore we too, will always remain in the Lord.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, open our hearts, open our minds, and let the Lord to come into us, dwell within us, as the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the Temple of God’s residence. We receive the Lord regularly in the Eucharist, and we accept Him into our hearts. That is why it is important that we remain focused at all times on the Lord, so that we will not be led astray by the temptations of this world.

Keep the Lord’s commandments of love, and practice our faith with devotion, loving our God with all our strength, in worship and praise, in the Mass, and in our daily lives, and love our brethren, especially those with great needs, through our actions, our service to the less fortunate, and through our deeds that bring happiness and love to those who lie in sorrow and those who are unloved.

Be strong, brothers and sisters, and may the blessing of the Lord our God, God who came down for our sake, for our salvation, the Lord of Abraham, the God of our fathers, be with us, and remain within us, giving us His love and light, to be shared among all the nations. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 16 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ! Indeed, we are all brethren, brothers and sisters to one another, because all of us share the same Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, who is our Brother. He did not leave mankind behind when we sinned against Him and rebelled against His love and His will. Instead, as the reading pointed out today, He came to dwell among us, and be with us, that we become His brethren, and will have part in Him and His salvation.

The Lord dwells within us, because we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, which must be kept holy at all times, and free from the filth of sin and evil. To do so, we must reflect Christ in all the things that we do, in all the words that we say, and in all the works of our hands. And to reflect Christ simply means to love, loving God with all our hearts and our entire being, and also to love our neighbours, our brethren as much as we love ourselves.

If we do all these, in the complete awareness of what we are doing, which glorify Christ more and more, we will be brought closer and ever be with God. He will accept us as His own, as His brethren, and He will protect us from the harm caused by the evil one. To us, He had shown compassion and love, just as the love shown by shepherd to his sheep. If we are lost, like the lost sheep, He will do all the things He can, in order to bring us back to Him again.

But we must also remain obedient to Christ, as even if we are already saved, we can be lost once again, if we do not remain faithful to our calling in life, that is to be with Christ and to love Him with all our strength. Especially, in our world today, it is easy for one to fall away from grace, because of the increasing materialism in this world, the temptations of pleasure and false happiness that this world provide to many people, that they began to turn away from the teachings of Christ.

Doing the will of God is what God truly desires from us all, and in following Christ and His teachings, we are doing the will of God, that is love, for one another, and for God Himself. If we show love in our actions, we are doing God’s will and therefore will always remain in God’s grace, and we will be save from damnation of death and hell that awaits those who disobeyed the Lord and continued their lives in sin.

Today, we are celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, an important feast day for the Carmelites, a well-known religious order, which began at Mount Carmel itself, which is located in Israel today, the same location where the prophet Elijah contested against the four hundred and fifty priests of Baal, the pagan god, in front of the people of Israel, on who is the true God of Israel.

Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, appeared to St. Simon Stock, who was the founder of the Carmelite Order, and gave him what is well-known today as the brown scapular, closely associated with this feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The Carmelites themselves placed the Blessed Virgin Mary as the perfect role model for all faithful to follow, in their faith to the Lord, in following the example of Mary herself, in her dedication to her Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, from His birth, to His suffering on the way to Calvary and death on the cross.

So devoted is our Lady to her Son, our Lord Jesus, that she followed Him all the way through His suffering for our sake, to the cross, and stood by below Him, accompanying Him through the time of His greatest ordeal. Though sword pierced her heart, for seeing the cruel death of her Son, she persevered and our Lord gave her to His disciple, John, and gave him to His mother too.

Therefore, in the same way, our Blessed Virgin Mary had been given to us by the Lord Himself, and we had also been given to the care of our Lady, whom we celebrate today as the Lady of Mount Carmel, to be our mother and helper. Why helper? Because our Lady is the greatest of the saints, through her own position being the mother of God, but even more importantly because of her purity and dedication to the Lord and all God’s children.

Today we follow the example of the Carmelites, to give our love and dedication to the Lord, through His mother, our Blessed Virgin Mary. Because, just as the Carmelites stress in their formations and principles, there is no better way to the Lord other than through Mary, His mother. Mary is our greatest intercessor before the Lord for His mercy and help, because, just as at the wedding at Cana, Jesus did listen to His mother, when she pleaded with Him to help the wedding brides despite Him telling her explicitly that the time has not yet come for Him to reveal His power.

That is why we dedicate ourselves in prayer through the Blessed Virgin Mary, who became a guide in our journey towards the Lord. She helps us through her prayer, and because she is closest among the saints in heaven to the Lord, our prayers will be heard, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

That is why it is good for us to follow the example of the Carmelites and indeed, of our Lady herself, in their dedication to Jesus our Lord, on the love they have to our Lord and Saviour. Jesus did not mean any disrespect when He seemingly rebuked His own family when they were waiting for Him as told in the Gospel today. Indeed, Jesus actually affirmed the honoured position His mother had, because Jesus told the people that whoever does the will of God and do things for the sake of the Lord, they are His brethren, His family. Who else is more faithful and more obedient to the will of God other than Mary, our Lord’s own mother? The Virgin who readily accepted her role in the salvation of all mankind by accepting the Lord’s will for her, to be the vessel that brought the Saviour into this world.

Surely, today we must rejoice, that we have our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Blessed Virgin Mary, to intercede for our sake before her Son, our Lord and God. Through her we can be closer to Christ, and through her prayers for our sake, all of us who are sinners have greater hope of salvation, because Christ Himself will surely be moved by the petitions and pleas of His own mother, who cares for us just like her own children. Remember, when Christ gave His mother to John to be cared for, He also gave her to us, that we become her own, and receive the love and care that she had once shown Jesus.

May our Lady of Mount Carmel, our Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, pray for us and protect us from the harm of evil that is in our world, and through her, may we be able to get closer and reach higher to Christ, her Son, that in the future, we will be able to praise Him together with her, and all the saints and holy people of God in heaven. Amen.