Tempus post Epiphania

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Thursday, 2 February 2023 : Feast of the Presentation of the Lord (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Hebrews 2 : 14-18

And because all those children share one same nature of flesh and blood, Jesus, likewise, had to share this nature. This is why His death destroyed the one holding the power of death, that is the devil, and freed those who remained in bondage all their lifetime, because of the fear of death.

Jesus came, to take by the hand, not the Angels but the human race. So, He had to be like His brothers and sisters, in every respect, in order to be the High Priest, faithful to God and merciful to them, a Priest, able to ask pardon, and atone for their sins. Having been tested through suffering, He is able to help those who are tested.

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Thursday, 2 February 2023 : Feast of the Presentation of the Lord (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 23 : 7, 8, 9, 10

Lift up, o gateways, your lintels, open up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may enter!

Who is the King of glory? YHVH, the Strong, the Mighty, YHVH, valiant in battle.

Lift up your lintels, o gateways, open up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may enter!

Who is the King of glory? YHVH of Hosts, He is the King of glory!

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Thursday, 2 February 2023 : Feast of the Presentation of the Lord (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Malachi 3 : 1-4

Now I am sending My messenger ahead of Me to clear the way; then suddenly the Lord for Whom you long will enter the sanctuary. The Envoy of the covenant which you so greatly desire already comes, says YHVH of hosts. Who can bear the day of His coming and remain standing when He appears? For He will be like fire in the foundry and like the lye used for bleaching.

He will be as a refiner or a fuller. He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. So YHVH will have priests who will present the offering as it should be. Then YHVH will accept with pleasure the offering of Judah and Jerusalem, as in former days.

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Wednesday, 1 February 2023 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are all reminded of the love that God has given very generously to each and every one of us, in sending to us His only begotten Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Through Christ, all of us have received the assurance of salvation and the path to eternal life, in which we shall be truly joyful and happy, and we have to persevere through the challenges, trials, obstacles and many hardships in this life to enter into the glorious kingdom of God. All of us are reminded not to be easily swayed and distracted by the many temptations all around us, the temptations of pride, ego, desire, worldly glory and many other things that may distract us from finding our true focus in God.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Epistle to the Hebrews in which the author of this Epistle spoke of the reminders for the faithful people of God to seek righteousness in God and to be good and virtuous in their lives for they have all been made the adopted children of the Lord by their sharing of the human nature of Christ, Who has borne our many sins and died for our sake on His Cross, so that we may be reconciled with God, our most loving Father and Creator. And as His children, the Lord as our loving and caring Father will chastise us according to His desire, to see us growing better in our actions and lives, so that we do not end up falling into the wrong path or into the darkness. He does not want us to be lost from Him once again, having already been reconciled with us.

Unfortunately, it is our stubbornness and often lack of faith that have led us to be rebellious and to refuse the Lord’s repeated generous and kind offer to forgive us our sins and mistakes. The Lord has given us many opportunities, assistance and reminders all these while, chastising and rebuking us, disciplining us as He saw fit. All these are not because He despised us, but on the contrary because He truly loves us very much. If He despised and hated us, He could have easily willed us out of existence and cast us all into the eternal darkness and damnation. He could have destroyed us and crushed us by the power of His will alone. But this is not what He chose to do with us. As our loving Father and Creator, Who loves us all very dearly, God wants nothing less than our redemption and complete reconciliation with Him.

But as we heard in our Gospel passage today, many among us are still stubborn, refusing to believe in the Lord and His truth, especially because of our pride and ego, our inability to accept the truth that we may be mistaken and faulty in our thinking, judgment and understanding. Like those people in the hometown of the Lord Jesus who judged and doubted Him simply because they thought they knew Him and that just because He was apparently the Son of the local carpenter, then He was unworthy of the great Wisdom and the deeds that He had carried out in the midst of the people of God. Those people presumed that whatever they had heard and witnessed must have been wrong or mistaken because it could not be feasible for this mere Son of a village carpenter to have done them all, or spoke of all the great words of Wisdom that He had spoken.

By looking down on them, those people had shown the ugly nature of their prideful existence and hearts, their stubborn minds and all that they had put in place to keep themselves from listening to God and His truth. The Lord has patiently reached out to them and showed them His love, and yet, they continued to oppose Him, rebuff Him, reject Him and His most generous offer of love and kindness. It is easy for us to dismiss those people as being rebellious and delinquent, but what we cannot forget is that, we ourselves have often shown the same attitude as well, the same stubbornness and refusal to listen to the Lord.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, having often witnessed and experienced God’s most generous love and kindness, we should all be thankful for the Lord and His constant love for us and for having been ever patient with us, despite our many stubborn rebelliousness and wickedness. However, we cannot continue to walk down this path of wickedness and sin, and we have to embrace Lord’s path, His forgiveness and mercy, or else we may end up falling deeper and deeper into this path of darkness and sin. We cannot continue to let ourselves be dragged ever deeper into this trap which the Devil and all of his wicked forces are always actively trying to put in our path.

Let us all hence commit ourselves anew to the Lord, dedicating our time and effort to grow ever closer to Him, in each and every moments, and let us all continue to strive in our effort to live ever more worthily of Him, by doing our best in following the Law and the commandments of God, in living our lives well according to the precepts and ways taught to us by the Lord, and reminding ourselves of the errors and the faults that we have committed all these while in our lives. Each one of us as the children of God are expected to be like our Father, Who is good and perfect in all things. Hence, we too should be good, faithful, committed and righteous at all times.

May the Lord continue to help us and guide us in our journey of faith throughout life, and may He continue to bless us in our lives, in our actions and works, so that we may continue to what is right and just in accordance with His will. May God be with us always, and may He strengthen and empower us with His love, His Wisdom, His grace and blessings, now and always, forevermore. Amen.

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Wednesday, 1 February 2023 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 6 : 1-6

At that time, leaving the place where He resurrected the daughter of Jairus, Jesus returned to His own country, and His disciples followed Him. When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue, and most of those who heard Him were astonished.

But they said, “How did this come to Him? What kind of wisdom has been given to Him, that He also performs such miracles? Who is He but the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? His sisters, too, are they not here among us?” So they took offence at Him.

And Jesus said to them, “Prophets are despised only in their own country, among their relatives, and in their own family.” And He could work no miracles there, but only healed a few sick people, by laying His hands on them. Jesus Himself was astounded at their unbelief.

Jesus then went around the villages, teaching.

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Wednesday, 1 February 2023 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 102 : 1-2, 13-14, 17-18a

Bless the Lord, my soul; all my being, bless His holy Name! Bless the Lord, my soul, and do not forget all His kindness.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust.

But the Lord’s kindness is forever with those who fear Him; so is His justice, for their children’s children, for those who keep His covenant and remember His commands.

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Wednesday, 1 February 2023 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Hebrews 12 : 4-7, 11-15

Have you already shed your blood in the struggle against sin? Do not forget the comforting words that Wisdom addresses to you as children : My son, pay attention when the Lord corrects you and do not be discouraged when He punishes you. For the Lord corrects those He loves and chastises everyone He accepts as a son.

What you endure is in order to correct you. God treats you like sons and what son is not corrected by his father? All correction is painful at the moment, rather than pleasant; later it brings the fruit of peace, that is, holiness to those who have been trained by it.

Lift up, then, your drooping hands, and strengthen your trembling knees; make level the ways for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but healed. Strive for peace with all and strive to be holy, for without holiness no one will see the Lord. See that no one falls from the grace of God, lest a bitter plant spring up and its poison corrupt many among you.

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Tuesday, 31 January 2023 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John Bosco, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are all reminded yet again of the trials, challenges, difficulties and hardships that we may have to face as faithful people of God, as proven by our many predecessors and all the saints and martyrs who had shed their blood and suffered in the midst of their lives and in obeying the Lord and His commandments. Yet, at the same time we are reminded of the assurances that the Lord has provided us His faithful ones, that He will always be by the side of all those who have faith in Him, and He will heal and strengthen them once again, all those who have suffered for His sake and entrusting themselves to Him, just as we have heard in our passages of the day.

In our first reading today, taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews, we heard of the words from the author of this Epistle, speaking about the examples of the innumerable witnesses that had existed all around us and at the same time, also looking upon the good examples that the Lord Jesus had brought into our midst, the sufferings, hardships, trials, persecutions and humiliations that He Himself has suffered for our sake. Each and every one of us are reminded that whatever hardship we face in this world, and whatever tough things we have had to endure, all of these had been shared with us by the Lord, Who has taken upon Himself willingly, the entire burden of our many punishments and sins, which He took upon His own shoulders as He bore the heavy burden of His Cross. He carried them all to Calvary, all for the sake of the salvation of our souls.

Then as we heard from our Gospel passage today, we heard of the story of the moment when the Lord performed His miraculous healing and restoration of two individuals, one of the woman who had been suffering from haemorrhage problems for many years, while the other case was that of the daughter of the local synagogue official, who was very sick and eventually died before the Lord made it to her, but He healed her nonetheless and restored her back to life. Through all these that we have heard in our Gospel passage today and others, we are hence reminded of the providence that God will provide for all those who trust in Him, and that in His own good time, He will raise us all up again from the depth of our darkness and despair, leading us away from the darkness and into the light of salvation.

The woman who had haemorrhage problem had been suffering from her condition for many years, and she had no other recourse but to seek the Lord, as no matter what she had done, as mentioned in the Gospel today, and even with the help of many doctors, they only managed to make her condition worse. She therefore sought the Lord and had such a faith in Him that if only she could touch the fringe of His cloak, she would be healed and her troubles would cease, especially as she likely must have heard how many other miracles had been performed by the Lord. What matters is that she believed in the Lord thoroughly and completely, and entrusted herself to Him. Yet, at the same time, she also did not dare to seek the Lord openly, as her condition according to the Jewish Law and customs would have made her unclean, and she likely did not want to get attention on herself, or be shunned because of that.

We heard how this woman was healed by her faith, as she sought the Lord with faith, and her haemorrhage or bleeding stopped completely. The Lord praised her for her faith, and made an example of how her commitment and faith was so great, and it was by that same faith that she had been healed and saved. The same happened to the daughter of the synagogue official, Jairus as well. Jairus’ faith in the Lord allowed the Lord to come and bring His love and healing upon his daughter, and as we heard, he still believed in the Lord even though those gathered at his place mocked the Lord for saying that his daughter was merely sleeping and not dead. Jairus had faith in the Lord that He could save her, no matter how He would do it, and thus, by that faith, she was rescued.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we recall the messages of these Scripture passages, let us all hence remind ourselves that while challenges, trials, hardships, difficulties may be aplenty in our lives and in our paths, but if we have faith in the Lord and keep our sight upon Him, entrusting ourselves to Him, then we have hope and assurance with us that no matter what, we shall have that promise of true happiness, joy and eternal life through our Lord, through the salvation that He has offered each and every one of us freely. And while we suffer, we are suffering with Him and together with Him, just as He has also borne His Cross, all wounded and pained by the many rejections, humiliations, betrayals and the other wicked things that we had done to Him, despite of His love for us.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is right and just for us to follow the Lord once again more wholeheartedly, and learn to commit ourselves to Him once again, to the best of our abilities. Today, we can model ourselves based on the great examples which our holy predecessor, St. John Bosco, a great priest of the Lord and holy man of God, whose feast we celebrate today, have done. St. John Bosco was remembered greatly for his great piety, love and dedication to God, as well as for his great love and compassionate care for those whom he encountered in the midst of his missions and works, as a priest and most well-known in his role as one who initiated and was in charge of an outreach to the underprivileged youth, those juveniles and teenagers who had none to lead and guide them to the right path.

St. John Bosco helped to get them proper education and place to stay for those who were orphaned and homeless, and cared for their spiritual, mental and material needs. He dedicated much of his time to touch the lives of the underprivileged, and inspired many others to begin similar initiatives, resulting in the blooming of many institutions of Christian education that benefitted especially the underprivileged youths, and in particular underprivileged girls. The faith, dedication and commitment which St. John Bosco has shown us should inspire us all as well in our lives so that hopefully we may also become good sources of inspiration and hope for many others whom we encounter and all those who have witnessed our actions and works.

May the Lord continue to guide us all and bless our many good works and efforts, and may He continue to strengthen and empower us all to be the beacons of His light and truth, and to be the fearless and most faithful ambassadors of His love and grace in our world today. May God be with us all, now and always. Amen.

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Tuesday, 31 January 2023 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John Bosco, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 5 : 21-43

At that time, Jesus then crossed to the other side of the lake, and while He was still on the shore, a large crowd gathered around Him. Jairus, an official of the synagogue, came up and, seeing Jesus, threw himself at His feet, and begged Him earnestly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her, so that she may get well and live.”

Jesus went with him, and many people followed, pressing from every side. Among the crowd was a woman, who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a lot at the hands of many doctors, but instead of getting better, she was worse. Because she had heard about Jesus, this woman came up behind Him and touched His cloak, thinking, “If I just touch His clothing, I shall get well.” Her flow of blood dried up at once, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her complaint.

But Jesus was conscious that healing power had gone out from Him, so He turned around in the crowd, and asked, “Who touched My clothes?” His disciples answered, “You see how the people are crowding around you. Why do You ask who touched You?”

But He kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, aware of what had happened, came forward trembling and afraid. She knelt before Him, and told Him the whole truth. Then Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be free of this illness.”

While Jesus was still speaking, some people arrived from the official’s house to inform him, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Master any further?” But Jesus ignored what they said, and told the official, “Do not fear, just believe.” And He allowed no one to follow Him except Peter, James and John, the brother of James.

When they arrived at the house, Jesus saw a great commotion, with people weeping and wailing loudly. Jesus entered, and said to them, “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child is not dead, but asleep.” They laughed at Him. So Jesus sent them outside, and went with the child’s father and mother and His companions into the room, where the child lay.

Taking her by the hand, He said to her, “Talitha, kumi!” which means, “Little girl, get up!” The girl got up at once and began to walk around. (She was twelve years old). The parents were amazed, greatly amazed. Jesus strictly ordered them not to let anyone know about it; and He told them to give her something to eat.

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Tuesday, 31 January 2023 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John Bosco, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 21 : 26b-27, 28, 30ab, 30c-32

I will fulfil my vows before all who revere You. The lowly will eat and be satisfied. Those who seek the Lord will praise Him. May your hearts live forever!

The whole earth will acknowledge and turn to the Lord; the families of nations will worship Him.

Before Him all those who rest in the earth will bow down, all who go down to the dust.

My soul will live for Him. My descendants will serve Him and proclaim the Lord to coming generations; they will announce His salvation to a people yet unborn, “These are the things that He has done.”