Thursday

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Thursday, 6 May 2021 : 5th Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 15 : 7-21

As the discussions became heated, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that from the beginning God chose me among you so that non-Jews could hear the Good News from me and believe. God, Who can read hearts, put Himself on their side by giving the Holy Spirit to them just as He did to us. He made no distinction between us and them and cleansed their hearts through faith.”

“So why do you want to put God to the test? Why do you lay on the disciples a burden that neither our ancestors nor we ourselves were able to carry? We believe, indeed, that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they are.”

The whole assembly kept silent as they listened to Paul and Barnabas tell of all the miraculous signs and wonders that God had done through them among the non-Jews. After they had finished, James spoke up, “Listen to me, brothers. Symeon has just explained how God first showed His care by taking a people for Himself from non-Jewish nations.”

“And the words of the prophets agree with this, for Scripture says, ‘After this I will return and rebuild the booth of David which has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins and set it up again. Then the rest of humanity will look for the Lord, and all the nations will be consecrated to My Name. So says the Lord, Who does today what He decided from the beginning.'”

“Because of this, I think that we should not make difficulties for those non-Jews who are turning to God. Let us just tell them not to eat food that is unclean from having been offered to idols; to keep themselves from prohibited marriages; and not to eat the flesh of animals that have been strangled, or any blood. For from the earliest times Moses has been taught in every place, and every Sabbath his laws are recalled.”

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Thursday, 29 April 2021 : 4th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scripture, we are reminded yet again as we have constantly been reminded throughout this season of Easter of how fortunate we are to be beloved by God each and every moments of our lives. He has graciously given us all so many blessings and wonders throughout all these time that we are always beloved and taken care of by Him Who loves us dearly. All of us belong to God and God treats us as His own children.

In our first reading today, we heard the testimony of St. Paul as he preached to the Jewish people in diaspora in Antioch in Pisidia, as he was asked by the synagogue officials to give words of encouragement to the people assembled there on the Sabbath. He spoke of how God had saved His people from harm and destruction when He rescued them from their slavery in the land of Egypt. He reminded all of the people of the generous love by which God took their ancestors out of the land of their slavery and led them into the land promised.

And St. Paul also continued on speaking of how God sent His Saviour into the world, born of the House of David as predicted and prophesied by the prophets, and how St. John the Baptist came not long before Him, to prepare His way and call the people all to repentance and to embrace once again the truth of God and be forgiven from their sins through His Saviour, Jesus Christ, of Whom St. Paul was preaching about in all those occasions with great zeal and courage.

The Lord has sent St. Paul and the other Apostles and disciples to all the people, the children of God, to be the bearers of His Good News and truth as He said in our Gospel today, and all those who listens to the ones whom He has sent, listens to Him, and they receive the truth and should they all remain in faith, then they shall be blessed and be saved. He has called on all to be His followers, and He has also called more and more to be like St. Paul, as those to whom He entrusts the mission of the conversion of sinners.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we listened to all these from the Scriptures, we are then reminded that we ourselves as part of the Church have the same calling and obligation to be witnesses for the truth of Our Lord, to be His exemplary disciples and followers that by our lives and actions, by our words and dedication, our good role model and deeds, we may inspire many others like what St. Paul and the other Apostles, the saints and many holy martyrs had done with their own lives and throughout their respective ministries.

Today, we are all called to look upon the great example showed by one great woman and saint, whose life and dedication inspired so many of her time and beyond, and even Popes were listening to her advice and words. St. Catherine of Siena was renowned for her great piety and dedication to the Lord, that since her youth she has committed herself to the Lord, opposing the efforts made to marry her to a widower. And later on, after constant struggle and determination, through prayer and faith eventually St. Catherine of Siena managed to enter into life consecrated to God.

Throughout her life, St. Catherine of Siena had become great source of inspiration for so many others as she lived her life most virtuously and dedicated herself to a holy life of service to the people of God as she ministered to the poor and the sick in her community and beyond. She helped to rejuvenate the faith in many segments of the community and gained a lot of influence and trust from various members of the Church, including from the Popes, the Cardinals and the bishops in various places. Many sought her for advice and guidance.

St. Catherine of Siena was instrumental in helping the Church, then bitterly divided by factional tension and by various disagreements, by divisions that existed between rival claimants to the Papacy and the divided support from the Christendom which led to a fracturing of Christian unity. She helped to give advice to the Church leaders and elders, and encouraged the Pope to return to Rome and address all the problems and things that had led to the troubles in the Church at that time.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through the courage and the faith showed by St. Catherine of Siena, all of us are called and encouraged to follow the Lord in the same manner too. Are we willing to do so, brethren? Are we able to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to Him, doing our very best to glorify Him through our lives, and inspiring one another and so many others who have not yet known the Lord. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Thursday, 29 April 2021 : 4th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 13 : 16-20

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly, I say to you, the servant is not greater than his master, nor is the messenger greater than he who sent him. Understand this, and blessed are you, if you put it into practice.”

“I am not speaking of you all, because I know the ones I have chosen, and the Scripture has to be fulfilled that says : The one who shared My table has risen against Me. I tell you this now before it happens, so that when it does happen, you may know that I am He.”

“Truly, I say to you, whoever welcomes the one I send, welcomes Me; and whoever welcomes Me, welcomes the One Who sent Me.”

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Thursday, 29 April 2021 : 4th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 88 : 2-3, 21-22, 25 and 27

I will sing forever, o Lord, of Your love and proclaim Your faithfulness from age to age. I will declare how steadfast is Your love, how firm Your faithfulness.

I have found David My servant, and with My holy oil I have anointed him. My hand will be ever with him and My arm will sustain.

My faithfulness and love will be with him, and by My help he will be strong. He will call on Me, ‘You are my Father, my God, my Rock, my Saviour.’

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Thursday, 29 April 2021 : 4th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 13 : 13-25

From Paphos, Paul and his companions set sail and came to Perga in Pamphylia. There John left them and returned to Jerusalem, while they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. On the Sabbath day they entered the synagogue and sat down. After the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the officials of the synagogue sent this message to them, “Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the assembly, please speak up.”

So Paul arose, motioned to them for silence and began, “Fellow Israelites and also all you who fear God, listen. The God of our people Israel chose our ancestors, and after He had made them increase during their stay in Egypt, He led them out by powerful deeds.”

“For forty years He fed them in the desert, and after He had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, He gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took four hundred and fifty years. After that, he gave them Judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king and God gave them Saul, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, and he was king for forty years.”

“After that time, God removed him and raised up David as king, to whom He bore witness saying : ‘I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all I want him to do.’ It is from the descendants of David that God has now raised up the promised Saviour of Israel, Jesus.”

“Before He appeared, John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for all the people of Israel. As John was ending his life’s work, he said : ‘I am not what you think I am, for after me another One is coming Whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.'”

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Thursday, 22 April 2021 : 3rd Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this day as we continue to listen from the Scriptures we are called to continue to proclaim the Word of God and His truth in our respective communities, in our lives and in our actions. We are all called to proclaim the Lord, our Living Bread, the Bread of Life and the Lamb of God, Who has come into this world to be our Saviour and leading us out of the darkness into the light.

We all proclaim Him as Our Lord and Saviour, as part of our Christian faith, our true belief and dedication, and we proclaim Him as the Light and Hope in the midst of all the darkness in this world, that through Christ and all that He has done for us, He has restored us to a new hope and freed us from the chains of sin and the tyranny of death that had separated us from Him. God’s great love for us had been manifested in Christ and His love, and as such, we His people who know Him, ought to be His good and faithful witnesses in this world, proclaiming Him through our actions and deeds.

Like St. Philip the Apostle, we have received the same Holy Spirit from God, through our baptism, and those of us who have received the Sacrament of Confirmation, we have been further strengthened by the same Spirit, through which God is guiding us to be His faithful witnesses and servants, to lead others and many people to Him. St. Philip ministered in the regions that he went to and met an Ethiopian official, on his way back from Jerusalem, and revealed to him the true identity of the Messiah proclaimed in the Scriptures, which the official happened to be reading.

St. Philip so convinced the Ethiopian official that he was willing to embrace baptism, and gave himself to be baptised by the Apostle. St. Philip has received this very truth and revelation from none other than the Lord Himself, Who in our Gospel passage today, spoke of Himself as the Bread of Life and the Saviour, sent from the Father in heaven into this world, to bring all of mankind to salvation, and to a new life, restoring them to true joy and grace. And unlike the old manna eaten by the Israelites in the past, the Bread of Life, given and offered freely by the Lord Himself, would bring all to life, eternal life in God.

But this truth is not something that is easily believed by many, as the Lord Himself, when He spoke of the truth before all the assembled people, He faced many skepticism and doubts, and many left Him and abandoned Him when He spoke in such terms. Even His disciples told Him that such a truth was truly very hard to take in and to be comprehended. Yet, it is this same truth which St. Philip had spoken of to the Ethiopian official, and the same truth that the Apostles, and so many saints and holy martyrs had toiled and laboured for, all suffering for the sake of the Lord.

Yet, they all rejoiced at the chance to suffer in the Lord, to continue to preach the truth and reach out more and more people despite the opposition, persecution, challenges and trials that they faced. Their exemplary faith and unceasing devotion to the Lord became source of inspiration for many others who followed in their footsteps, their commitment and courage became source of strength for those who also faced the same trials and challenges well after the time of the earliest disciples.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, how about us then? As Christians are we all inspired by the examples showed by our holy and dedicated predecessors? Are we inspired to reach out and be part of the Church’s continued efforts to evangelise and to proclaim the Good News and the truth to the people of God? As we are reminded today through the Scriptures, we are all part of this work of evangelisation, and the responsibility is upon us to be faithful always to the Lord, at all times, and to be exemplary in the way we live our lives in the most Christian way possible.

Otherwise, if our faith is just but in name or formality only, and if our actions show that we are not truly faithful, and are disobedient of the Lord, then it will be a scandal to our faith and a disgrace to the Lord. And we all shall be accountable to all these that we have done at the day of Judgment. Surely this is not what we want or intend to do. But that’s why we are reminded today yet again, during this most blessed time of Easter, to be a true Easter people, filled with the spirit and joy of Easter to proclaim joyfully the Lord, His truth and Resurrection to all. May God be with us always, and may He, our Risen Lord, bless us and our every good efforts and endeavours, always. Amen.

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Thursday, 22 April 2021 : 3rd Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 6 : 44-51

At that time, Jesus said to the Jews, “No one can come to Me unless he is drawn by the Father Who sent Me; and I will raise Him up on the last day. It has been written in the Prophets : They shall all be taught by God. So whoever listens and learns from the Father comes to Me.”

“For no one has seen the Father except the One Who comes from God; He has seen the Father. Truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the Bread of Life. Though your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, they died. But here you have the Bread which comes from heaven, so that you may eat of it, and not die.”

“I am the Living Bread which as come from heaven; whoever eats of this Bread will live forever. The Bread I shall give is My flesh, and I will give it for the life of the world.”

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Thursday, 22 April 2021 : 3rd Week of Easter (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 65 : 8-9, 16-17, 20

Praise our God, o nations, let the sound of His praise be heard, for He has preserved us among the living and kept our feet from stumbling.

All you who fear God, come and listen; let me tell you what He has done. I cried aloud to Him, extolling Him with my tongue.

May God be blessed! He has not rejected my prayer; nor withheld His love from me.

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Thursday, 22 April 2021 : 3rd Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 8 : 26-40

An Angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south towards the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, the desert road.” So he set out and it happened that an Ethiopian was passing along that way. He was an official in charge of the treasury of the queen of the Ethiopians; he had come on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was on his way home. He was sitting in his carriage and reading the prophet Isaiah.

The Spirit said to Philip, “Go and catch up with that carriage.” So Philip ran up and heard the man reading the prophet Isaiah; and he asked, “Do you really understand what you are reading?” The Ethiopian replied, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” He then invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.

This was the passage of Scripture he was reading : He was led like a sheep to be slaughtered; like a lamb that is dumb before the shearer, He did not open His mouth. He was humbled and deprived of His rights. Who can speak of His descendants? For He was uprooted from the earth.

The official asked Philip, “Tell me, please, does the prophet speak of himself or of Someone else?” Then Philip began to tell him the Good News of Jesus, using this text of Scripture as his starting point. As they travelled down the road they came to a place where there was some water. Then the Ethiopian official said, “Look, here is water; what is to keep me from being baptised?”

And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” Then he ordered the carriage to stop; both Philip and the Ethiopian went down into the water and Philip baptised him. When they came out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord took Philip away. The Ethiopian saw him no more, but he continued on his way full of joy.

Philip found himself at Azotus, and he went about announcing the Good News in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

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Thursday, 15 April 2021 : 2nd Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, once again we are brought to focus on the mission that God has entrusted to us all as Christians, as those whom He has chosen and called to be His own, that each and every one of us be part of the same mission He has entrusted to His Church, that is to all of us who are also members of His Church, the One Body of Christ, the faithful people of God.

We have all been called to follow in the footsteps of the Apostles, the same Apostles whom as described in our first reading today, stood before the whole Sanhedrin or the Jewish High Council facing opposition and bitter resentment from most of its members. The Sanhedrin clearly made known what they wanted, that they all ceased their works and efforts to preach in the Name of the Lord Jesus, recently crucified by the Sanhedrin’s works, and risen from the dead.

St. Peter and the other Apostles firmly rejected and resisted the commands of the Sanhedrin, and stated with great determination and conviction that they would rather obey God and His commandments rather than to obey and follow the commands of fallible men, those who failed to understand the truth of God and those who stubbornly refused to believe in Him because of their pride and arrogance, their desire for fame and power.

Then, in the Gospel today, we heard of the testimony of truth that both the Lord Jesus Himself and St. John the Baptist, His herald had revealed and spoken of, revealing the fullness of the long planned salvation of mankind, that only the One Who had come down from Heaven would have known of. St. John the Baptist proclaimed the coming of the Messiah and called the people to repentance and to abandon their sinful ways that they may come to accept the Lord and His truth when He came.

For all of that, he had to suffer, and the Pharisees and the chief priests doubted him, just as they would later on also refused to believe in the Lord when He came, and he would suffer martyrdom at the hands of king Herod and his unlawful wife, Herodias when he spoke courageously against the immoral behaviour and adultery between the two. And the Lord Himself also suffered as He spoke the truth and was rejected by many among the Sanhedrin, who handed Him over to the Romans to be condemned to death and crucified.

Thus, as we can see here, often, to walk in the path of the Lord is to endure the opposition, challenges and sufferings that are likely to be in that path, and which we have to endure as we walk in His path. The Lord calls us to follow Him nonetheless, and as we embark on this journey of faith, and are we willing to commit ourselves to His cause? Rest assured that the Lord will be with us just as He has been with His Apostles, guiding them and giving them the strength to persevere over their challenges and trials.

Today, in this world there are still many who have not yet known God and who have not witnessed His love and His truth. And we are all as Christians are the ones who have been called to be those who shall bring the Good News of God, His love and presence into the midst of those who have not yet known God and are still in darkness and in ignorance of God’s truth. We are all called to be faithful witnesses of our Christian faith and we should not just be idle or be Christians in name only.

That is why, thus far, as we rejoice during this season of Easter, we are constantly being reminded again and again that the Lord is calling on us to be active and devout Christians, to be genuine in our beliefs and faith, and to be zealous and dedicated in how we live our lives, so that we can become good role models for one another, as we reach out towards our fellow brothers and sisters, and speaking the truth about the Lord, His truth and love, and the salvation He has promised all of us.

Let us all discern carefully therefore what we should be doing, as we move forward in life. Let us make good use of the time and opportunities which we have been given, and be fruitful in all of our good efforts and endeavours, in what we do in each and every moments of our lives to glorify the Lord and to be ray of hope for our fellow brothers and sisters who are suffering especially during this and the past year, that through us, they may also come to know of God and His love. May God bless us all, now and always. Amen.