Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 51 : 10, 11
But I am as a green olive tree that thrives in the house of God : I trust in God’s unfailing love forever and ever.
I will praise You forever for all You have done, and proclaim Your good Name before the faithful ones.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Colossians 1 : 1-8
Paul, apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy our brother, to the saints in Colossae, our faithful brothers and sisters in Christ : Receive grace and peace from God our Father, and Christ Jesus our Lord. Thanks be to God, the Father of Christ Jesus, our Lord!
We constantly pray for you, for we have known of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints. Indeed you await in hope the inheritance reserved for you in heaven, of which you have heard through the word of truth. This Gospel, already present among you, is bearing fruit and growing throughout the world, as it did among you from the day you accepted it and understood the gift of God in all its truth.
He who taught you, Epaphras, our dear companion in the service of Christ, faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, has reminded me of the love you have for me in the Spirit.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 95 : 1 and 3, 4-5, 11-12, 13
Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth! Recall His glory among the nations, tell all the peoples His wonderful deeds.
How great is the Lord and worthy of praise! Above all gods He is to be feared. For all other gods are worthless idols, but YHVH is the One who made the heavens.
Let the heavens be glad, the earth rejoice; let the sea and all that fills it resound; let the fields exult and everything in them; let the forest, all the trees, sing for joy.
Let them sing before the Lord who comes to judge the earth. He will rule the world with justice and the peoples with fairness.
Archbishop Pietro Parolin, the longtime veteran of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See, and a skilled and veteran diplomat in his current role as the Apostolic Nuncio to Venezuela, as the trusted aide to Pope Benedict XVI (now Pope Emeritus), had been appointed on Saturday, 31 August 2013 as the new Secretary of State, the top position of the Roman Curia, the governing body of the Church.
In addition, as positions tied to the post of Secretary of State, Archbishop Parolin also automatically become the new President of Interdicasterial Commission on Particular Churches (which task is managing the Eastern Catholic Churches), President of Interdicasterial Commission for the Church in Eastern Europe, and the Protector of Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy.
Archbishop Pietro Parolin will replace the outgoing Cardinal Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, S.D.B., who is also the Chamberlain (Camerlengo) of the Church, effective on 15 October 2013 as per the decree of Pope Francis released today.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone is then the Secretary of State Emeritus effective on the state mentioned in the paragraph above (15 October), when Archbishop Pietro Parolin officially takes over as the new Secretary of State. The position of the Secretary of State is the top in the Roman Curia, below only the Pope in the hierarchy of the Church. Cardinal Bertone will however remain as the Camerlengo of the Church.
We thank Cardinal Bertone for all his hard work and contributions to the Church, many of which were unknown to many, and all the labours he had done in great humility and dedication in his position as the servant of the Holy Church.
As the Secretary of State position is the top official post of the entire Church and the Roman Curia save for the Pope himself, it is expected that the 58 years old Archbishop Pietro Parolin will be made a Cardinal in the next Consistory of Cardinals (possibly early 2014 or late 2014).
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 67 : 4-5ac, 6-7ab, 10-11
But let the righteous be glad and exult before God; let them sing to God and shout for joy. Sing to God, open the way to Him who rides upon the clouds.
Father of orphans and protector of widows – such is our God in His holy dwelling. He gives shelter to the homeless, sets the prisoners free.
Then You gave a rain of blessings to comfort Your weary children. Your people found a dwelling and in Your mercy, o God, You provided for the needy.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White
Psalm 97 : 1, 7-8, 9
Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonders; His right hand, His holy arm, has won victory for Him.
Let the sea resound and everything in it, the world and all its peoples. Let rivers clap their hands, hills and mountains sing with joy.
Before the Lord they will sing, for He comes to rule the earth. He will judge the world with justice and the peoples with fairness.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 149 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6a and 9b
Alleluia! Sing to the Lord a new song, sing His praise in the assembly of His saints. Let Israel rejoice in his Maker, let the people of Zion glory in their King!
Let them dance in praise of His Name and make music for Him with harp and timbrel. For the Lord delights in His people; He crowns the lowly with victory.
The saints will exult in triumph; even at night on their couches. Let the praise of God be on their lips, this is the glory of all His saints. Alleluia!
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 116 : 1, 2
Alleluia! Praise the Lord, all you nations; all you peoples, praise Him.
How great is His love for us! His faithfulness lasts forever.
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate an important feast in our faith, that is on the Queenship of Mary, the Mother of God, as a Queen and an honoured one, because of what she had done in her life, because of her exemplary role in our world, and most importantly, because of her crucial and irreplaceable role in the plan of salvation, by bearing the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ, the Son of God Most High.
Yes, brethren, Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ, and therefore, the Mother of God or Theotokos. She is a queen precisely because of this, that is because Jesus is the King of all kings, the King and ruler of all the universe, the God Most High, therefore, Mary, His mother is accorded that queenship. To her had been attributed many titles of queenship, including but not limited to, the Queen of heaven, the Queen of angels, and the Queen of all saints.
These titles revealed her importance to all of us, and the importance of her role, in the world and in heaven. Yes, this is because she is our greatest connector with our God, indeed due to her unique role in being the bearer of our divine Saviour as He descended into this world as man like us. Through her, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord who is divine was incarnate as man in Jesus, fully man, fully divine. Mary surrendered herself fully to the will of God, accepting what had been charged upon her through the archangel Gabriel.
By becoming the mother of our Saviour and King, Jesus Christ, she had become a Queen, not because of her wealth, power, or beauty, but because of her complete obedience, compliance, and surrender to the will of God, and the love she has for God and for His precepts. And here, it is important to note the difference between worshipping someone and venerating or honouring someone, as many had misunderstood the role that Mary, our Queen has.
Many thought that we in the Church and we who possess the true faith worship Mary as an equal to God, and their suspicions seemed to come true looking at how we refer to Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus as Queen, as a Holy Queen, the Queen of heaven, the Queen of angels and saints, as if we are making her a goddess in her own right. No, brothers and sisters, this is simply not the case. Anyone who believed in such things had been seduced by the evil one, that the truth presented to them had been twisted into lies by Satan. Yes, misinformation and misunderstanding of one’s faith is dangerous indeed.
We venerate, honour, and glorify Mary, as the mother of our God, the one through whom the deliverance came into this world, and because of her exemplary piety and obedience to God, but she remains a human being like us, and not a goddess, but she is now in heaven, having been lifted up to heaven in the glorious Assumption, which feast we had just celebrated last week. She is the first of all saints, and the most preeminent one amongst all that God had created.
Mary sits closest to the Lord in heaven, right at the side of her Son Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God, as the Holy Trinity. She is a great advisor and a great intercessor for us, the greatest among all saints, because of her close proximity to Christ her Son. That is why we call Mary, the Queen of all saints, because she is truly the first and greatest of all saints, both by virtue of her being the Mother of God and through her own piety and virtue.
She is also Queen of angels because she is also preeminent among all creations, and mankind is truly even greater than angels. Mary leads the angels in praying for us, interceding for us, and guiding us in our way, our journey towards the Lord our God, the Son of Mary. She is truly our great helper, the one who can help us in our path towards salvation in God. Truly, “Ad Iesum per Mariam” which means “to Jesus through Mary”, because just as Mary had stood beside the cross when Christ went through His Passion, she also stands even now, on the way to salvation, to her Son Jesus.
The cross is the path to our salvation, because through the cross, Jesus had died and through His death, He had broken the yoke and chains that bound us to hell, the yoke of sin that Satan had imposed on us ever since he had tricked our ancestors into disobeying the Lord our God. Through the cross, the chasm between us and heaven, the gap that exists between us and the Lord had been bridged by the glorious and triumphant cross. The gates of heaven had been opened for us sinners, through the Blood of the suffering and slaughtered Lamb of God.
Jesus suffered for all our sins, because even though He is blameless and pure, but He had been charged to die for all our faults, for all our trespasses, against God and our fellow men. The nails that pierced His hands and feet, the weight of that cross, the pain of His wounds, are the consequence of the sins and evils we had committed. He bore all that for us, and His mother watched Him suffer, and followed Him faithfully along the way to Calvary until He died. Mary is truly exemplary, for her complete obedience to God, and notice that she never complained about having to be the mother of our Saviour, and she never complained even though sorrowful, when she went to follow her Son to her death.
Mary is our Queen not because of her royal birth or her beauty, but because of her complete obedience and love she showed to the Lord. She is our Queen because without her and her love for God, we will not have our King, Jesus Christ, the promised Saviour, as told by Isaiah and the other prophets of God. She is Queen because she is the Mother of our God, and indeed, we are hers, just as she is ours, and that is why Mary is also the Queen of all mankind.
Why is it so? That is because she had been entrusted to all of us by her Son Himself from the cross, as He entrusted Mary to John, His disciple. In the same way, therefore, she had been entrusted to us. But Jesus did not just stop at there. He went on further, by entrusting His own disciple to His mother Mary. Therefore, in the same way, all of us, all of mankind had been entrusted to Mary, so that she becomes our mother too. Yes, Mary truly is our mother and our Queen.
We venerate and honour our mother and Queen, because she had loved us and cared for us, just as she had loved and cared for her Son, Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Let us, brothers and sisters in Christ, give thanks to Him who had given us such a great gift in Mary, His mother. Let us also then thank Mary our mother and our Queen, for having been such a great guide and intercessor for our sake, helping us all these while on the path to salvation.
May Mary our mother, the mother of Jesus our Lord, the Queen of heaven, the Queen of Angels, the Queen of all saints, and the Queen of all mankind, pray for us sinners and intercede for us before Christ her Son on His throne. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today, we listen to the fairness of our God, the upright nature of His words, and the love He showed upon all of us through His constant help throughout time. He showed His love and mercy upon us, and He is just to all of His children. We who have been marred by sin and evil, and the ones who should have been cast with the devil into the eternal fire of hell, had been brought from the domain of death, back into the land of the living, just as the owner of the vineyard had brought those who are unemployed on the streets to work on his field.
Indeed, He has brought us from our oppressors, that is the devil and his angels, at a great price, a price that He paid with nothing other than His own Most Precious Blood, that redeemed all of us, from the price of sin that had been placed on us ever since we first sinned against God and disobeyed against His will and His commandments. He paid for all of us with that Most Precious Body and Blood of His, that we will not die, but live eternal with Him, He who loves us and He who wants to forgive us from our sins and impurities.
He had called us all from the darkness to come into the light, to come for the salvation that He had prepared for us. He made a promise, a covenant with all of us, that we will be rewarded with life eternal in Him, as we enter into our new life in Him, just as the labourers were taken out of their joblessness and life in the streets, into the new life in the service of the Lord in His field, His vineyard. Each of us, brothers and sisters, given a new chance of life, that we may truly receive a reward of eternity at the end of our labours and journey in this world.
Yes, and just like what we heard in the First Reading today, we are like the trees that goes around seeking a tree to be king over all of us, to be that source of leadership and guidance in our respective lives, to be the light guiding us through the darkness of this world. And indeed, while all the regal and great trees, well beloved and renowned, like the fig tree and the vine, did not want to abandon all that they have for the trees’ sake, Jesus is indeed like the bramble vine, who would want to lower Himself to be our king.
Why so? It is because becoming our king is not an easy thing for Jesus, as His ministry in this world would have shown. Many people opposed Him, and many paid a deaf ear to His messages and His teachings, and many openly defied Him and questioned Him, not least of all the leaders of the people, the chief priests and the Pharisees. He stripped everything off Himself to be our King, the king of slaves and the king of the oppressed and the abandoned ones.
That such that even He went through so much, as our leader and our King, and our Master, being crowned with the painful crown of thorns, to indeed signify that He is our king, and not just like any earthly kings, but a true king, one with His people always forefront in His heart and in all His concerns. He loves us, brothers and sisters, and His love for all of us, without exception, is so much that He was willing to endure all our sufferings and supposed punishments, and drink the cup of suffering that had been prepared for Him.
He did not shirk from the huge and burdensome task that awaited Him, and instead He went on, being led like a lamb brought to its slaughterhouse, and although He is innocent, He wanted to endure all those that were intended for all of us. For what, brothers and sisters in Christ? None other than the salvation and the rescue of our souls from the eternal damnation in hell! None other than the eternal separation that we would have to endure for all times, for all eternity, away from our Lord and God who loves us so much.
Yes, Jesus our Lord and God wants us to be with Him, instead of being in the fires and suffering of hell. He cares for us, He showered us with His love and mercy, especially through no other act greater than the surrendering of His own life, as the perfect and unblemished sacrifice for our sins, in His death on the cross. That was why He gave us the one and only means to salvation, that is none other than His own flesh and blood, which He gave to all of us and offered to all of us, at the Last Supper He had with His disciples.
That was exactly what Pope St. Pius X, the great early twentieth century Pope whose feast we are celebrating today, championed, on the emphasis on the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the Most Holy Eucharist through which He had given us the means to salvation. Pope St. Pius X was born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, and he became a priest in his home diocese of mantua, eventually rising up the ranks to be bishop, and then the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice. He was elected as Pope Pius X, the 257th Pope and the 256th successor of St. Peter in 1903.
Pope St. Pius X was truly a great and holy Pope determined to reform the Holy Church and all its practices to better reflect its task as the bearer and medium of God’s salvation to all of us, the member of that One Body of Christ in the Church. Most important of all, He reformed the rules of the Holy Communion, such that then even small children would be able to receive the Most Precious Body and Blood of Christ our Lord. Previously, only full fledged adults were able to receive Holy Communion, but with the reform spearheaded by Pope St. Pius X, those children were opened the way of salvation through the receiving of the Holy Eucharist.
To Pope St. Pius X, there is no better path and way to salvation, and there is no better gate to salvation than that of the Most Precious Body and Blood offered to us, from the Last Supper, down to us through the Holy Mass that we celebrate regularly. In them, we find the fullness and completeness of the Lord’s promise and dedication to us, in suffering the blows meant for us, that we will not die but live a life eternal in the bliss of heaven. For his hard work for the sake of the Lord, through the promotion of the early reception of the Eucharist, and also the regular reception of the Holy Eucharist, he was known as the Pope of the Eucharist.
Pope St. Pius X also reformed much aspect of the Church, ensuring that the Church can reflect better the ways through which it can persevere in the ever-changing and increasingly hostile world, to spread the words of the Lord’s Gospel to all mankind. He reformed the Church music by greatly promoting and reviving the usage of the Gregorian Chant, which beauty for the worship of the Lord, we can still enjoy today. He truly had dedicated his life and work for the sake of God, His Church, and His people, and he is indeed an example that all of us should try to emulate in our own lives.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, reminding ourselves most importantly of the love and attention God had for us, and the blessings He had given us, through His Son, Jesus, who had shed His own flesh and blood, and His life for us, let us resolve to love Him more and more, let us revere Him in the Most Holy Eucharist by attending the Mass regularly and reverently, and accepting Him into ourselves as we eat His Body and His Blood in the Holy Communion. Pray for us, Pope St. Pius X, that we will grow to love the Lord ever more in the Most Holy Eucharist. May the Lord in the Eucharist remain with us and bless us always. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 