Thursday

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Thursday, 23 February 2017 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Mark 9 : 41-50

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone gives you a drink of water because you belong to Christ and bear His Name, truly, I say to you, he will not go without reward. If anyone should cause one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble and sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a great millstone around his neck.”

“If your hand makes you fall into sin, cut it off! It is better for you to enter life without a hand, than with two hands to go to hell, to the fire that never goes out. And if your foot makes you fall into sin, cut it off! It is better for you to enter life without a foot, than with both feet to be thrown into hell.”

“And if your eye makes you fall into sin, tear it out! It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, keeping both eyes, to be thrown into hell, where the worms that eat them never die, and the fire never goes out. The fire itself will preserve them.”

“Salt is a good thing; but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.”

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Thursday, 23 February 2017 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Psalm 1 : 1-2, 3, 4 and 6

Blessed is the one who does not go where the wicked gather, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit where the scoffers sit! Instead, he finds delight in the law of the Lord and meditates day and night on His commandments.

He is like a tree beside a brook producing its fruit in due season, its leaves never withering. Everything he does is a success.

But it is different with the wicked. They are like chaff driven away by the wind. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous but cuts off the way of the wicked.

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Thursday, 23 February 2017 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Sirach 5 : 1-10 (Greek Septuagint version – Sirach 5 : 1-8)

Do not rely on your wealth. Do not say, “I am self-sufficient.” Do not let yourself be carried away by greed and violence; they would make you their slave.

Do not say, “Who can stop me?” For the Lord has power to punish you. Do not say, “I have sinned and nothing has happened!” For the Lord bides His time.

Do not be so sure of pardon when you are heaping sin upon sin. Do not say, “His compassion is great! He will forgive the vast number of my sins!” For with Him is mercy but also anger; His fury will be poured out on sinners.

Do not delay your return to the Lord, do not put it off from day to day. For suddenly the anger of the Lord will blaze forth and you will perish on the day of reckoning. Do not rely on riches wrongfully acquired for they will be of no use to you on the day of wrath.

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Thursday, 16 February 2017 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, from what we heard in the Scripture passages today, we can see how God loves each and every one of us mankind, whom He had created out of love, the concern and care He has shown for us. We heard how He saved Noah from the great flood that engulfed the whole world and consumed all the others who were wicked and filled with evil. He made a covenant with him, promising that He would no longer wipe out mankind for their transgressions.

God is so full of mercy and patience, that even when we mankind had disobeyed Him and walked away from His path, but He was always willing to forgive and to allow us to return to His grace. And He gave us all every help that He could give, including sending upon us many helpers, and His messengers and prophets to call us back to repentance and to turn away from our sins.

But many of us refused to listen to Him, and refused to believe in the truth which He had preached into the world, and even when He sent us all His own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, many refused to listen to Him, and turn their back against the Saviour of the world. There were those who believed in Him, the Apostles and disciples of Jesus, who believed in the Lord despite of the challenges and difficulties facing them.

This then brings us to the reality of our world, where those who walk in the ways of the truth are always going to face difficulties, opposition and challenges, just as the world had risen up against the Lord Jesus before. There are a lot of resistance from man to remain as they are in their current state of sin and wickedness. Yet, the Lord never gave up on us, so much so that He was willing to endure the persecution and suffering at the hands of the Pharisees, the elders and the chief priests.

That was what we all well know as what truly happened during the time when our Lord Jesus faced His Passion in this world. He loved us all so dearly that He was willing to endure the weight of the cross and the burdens of the sins of all mankind. He suffered lashes and whips, torture and pain of thorns and the pain of the nails of the crucifixion, all for the aim that we mankind may have hope to be redeemed from our sins.

Yet, many of us are not yet appreciative of what we have been given, all the blessings that we have received, all the things that we have enjoyed in this life. Many of us lived in the same manner as the people living wickedly during the time of Noah. And we all know how they all met their end. No one who remains wicked and unjust can enter into the kingdom of God, and all will perish in the darkness and suffering unless one turns wholeheartedly towards the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as Christians we are all called to be true servants of our Lord, following and imitating the Lord in all that He had shown us and revealed to us. As Christians we should open ourselves to receive the love of Christ, remembering the great love which He had shown to us. We should resist the temptations for us to sin, for the devil is always at work trying to pull us away from the path to salvation.

Let us all help one another, brethren, that we may resist the temptations and persuasions of the devil, for us to abandon the way of the Lord just because it seems to be too difficult for us. This is what he had done, when he tried to put obstacles before the path of Jesus our Lord, but Jesus was not intimidated at all, and rebuked Satan and his works.

Let us all understand that following God may often mean that we have to endure rejection, opposition and even persecution from the world, because the way of the Lord is not compatible with the ways of this world. But we must never give up, for to give up means for us to submit to the attempts of the devil trying to drag us into damnation and darkness with him.

Let us work together, as brothers and sisters in Christ, imitating the love which God had shown us, and practice it in our own lives. May we be merciful towards each other, showing care, concern and compassion to all those who need them. Let us do our best to make sure that the wickedness of Satan and all sorts of sin have no place in our hearts, which are instead filled with the love of God. May the Lord be with us all, bless us and keep us in His grace forevermore. Amen.

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Thursday, 16 February 2017 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 8 : 27-33

At that time, Jesus set out with His disciples for the villages around Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He asked them, “Who do people say I am?” And they told Him, “Some say You are John the Baptist; others say You are Elijah or one of the prophets.”

Then Jesus asked them, “But you, who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” And He ordered them not to tell anyone about Him. Jesus then began to teach them that the Son of Man had to suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the Law. He would be killed, and after three days rise again.

Jesus said all this quite openly, so that Peter took Him aside and began to protest strongly. But Jesus turning around, and looking at His disciples, rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are thinking not as God does, but as people do.”

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Thursday, 16 February 2017 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 101 : 16-18, 19-21, 29 and 22-23

O Lord, the nations will revere Your Name, and the kings of the earth Your glory, when the Lord will rebuild Zion and appear in all His splendour. For He will answer the prayer of the needy and will not despise their plea.

Let this be written for future ages, “The Lord will be praised by a people He will form.” From His holy height in heaven, the Lord has looked on the earth to hear the groaning of the prisoners, and free those condemned to death.”

Your servants’ children will dwell secure; their posterity will endure without fail. Then the Name of the Lord will be declared in Zion, and His praise in Jerusalem, when the peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship Him.

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Thursday, 16 February 2017 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Genesis 9 : 1-13

God blessed Noah and his sons and he said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. Fear and dread of you will be in all the animals of the earth and in all the birds of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. They are given to you. Everything that moves and lives shall be food for you; as I gave you the green plants, I have now given you everything. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood.”

“But I will also demand a reckoning for your lifeblood. I will demand it from every animal; and from man, too, I will demand a reckoning for the life of his fellow man. He who sheds the blood of man shall have his blood shed by man; for in the image of God has God made man. As for you, be fruitful and increase. Abound on the earth and be master of it.”

God spoke to Noah and his son, “See I am making a covenant with you and with your descendants after you; also with every living animal with you : birds, cattle, that is, with every living creature of the earth that came out of the Ark. I establish My covenant with you. Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I make between Me and you, and every animal living with you for all future generations. I set My bow in the clouds and it will be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.”

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Thursday, 9 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, all of us ought to reflect on what we heard from the Sacred Scriptures, which are none other than the proof that God, throughout all of history, had loved each and every one of us, caring for us and providing for us out of His love. He has created us all man and woman, so that we may procreate with each other and be merry, filling up this world with our own kind.

He has blessed us all with many things, with all sorts of animals and plants to accompany us, all kinds of living things to enrich the beautiful and wonderful world that He had created. He has given all of these in the world to us, so that we become the stewards of creation, and become the one in charge over all that God had created, because all of us are special to Him.

He has also shown mercy and love for His people, by sending none other than His own Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour and Liberator, the One with the power to rescue us from the suffering and damnation of hell. He gives His blessings upon those who have walked in His ways and obeyed Him, as shown in how He healed the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman, by the faith which she had shown all before the Lord.

At that time, there was a great prejudice which the people of Israel had against the people of pagan and Gentile origins. This means that the Israelites often saw themselves as the special people who alone among all the other races and peoples in this world, was chosen by God to be His own beloved people. But in time, this became a great pride among them, and they became stubborn and exclusive, looking down on all those who supposedly did not belong to the community of Israel.

But God created each and every man and woman equal, equal in love and stature before God. If God does not love anyone except the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, then He would have had no reason to create all the other races of men. God would not have created other people, if not because of His love for each and every one of His creations, especially in particular all of us mankind.

He has given so much to us, and blessed us all with many good things, and yet, it was many of us who have not been faithful to Him, being distracted by the temptations of this world, and all the things that had separated us from Him. We have wandered off on our journey towards God, and as a result, we became lost from the Lord, and we were unable to find our way back to Him.

We ended up becoming proud and arrogant, and we closed our hearts to the Lord and to our fellow brethren, and we became like those who refused to listen to the truth because they thought that they could not be wrong, and that they were always right no matter what. This was what had brought down many people, the sin of pride, the refusal to accept the fact that we have erred and made mistakes, and that there was a need for conversion and change in one’s attitude so that we may be forgiven our sins.

The people of Israel might have looked down on their neighbours, but it was indeed ironic that while they refused to listen to the truth of God passed on to them through Jesus, their promised Lord and Saviour, it was a humble and simple Syro-Phoenician woman, a pagan and a Gentile, who have shown them a faith that greatly surpassed their own.

She has humbled herself greatly before the Lord, knowing that she was a sinner and an unworthy servant of God. And she endured even when the Lord apparently mocked her, by saying that one should not take the bread and pass it on to the dogs to eat. We might think that Jesus was doing something not appropriate by mocking a poor woman who asked Him for help, but in fact, Jesus knew her faith and the steadfastness of her belief, and wanted to show to all of His disciples, that great faith could be found even among the people not counted among the sons and daughters of Israel.

For ultimately, God had made us all to be His own sons and daughters through His Son, by bringing all of us together all who believe in Him and His salvation, as Christians, all those whom He had chosen from the world to be His own. And therefore it is important for all of us to take note of the examples and the action of the Syro-Phoenician woman, and reflect on what she had done. She is an inspiration to all of us.

As Christians, all of us must open our hearts to the Lord, be humble and be cognisant of the sins that we have committed in our lives, that these are stumbling blocks and obstacles that prevented us from reaching out to God and attaining His salvation. We must be like the woman who showed her faith even amidst challenges and difficulties, and even when others seemed to reject her, she pushed on nonetheless.

In our faith, we must be sincere and be strong as she had shown, and be filled with the desire to be forgiven and to be healed by God, because all of us are sinners, and by the grace of God, we can be healed and made whole again. May the Lord bless us all and our works, and may He forgive us our sins, and bring us all into His glory and grant us eternal life. Amen.

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Thursday, 9 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 7 : 24-30

At that time, when Jesus left the place where He rebuked the Pharisees, He went to the border of the Tyrian country. There He entered a house, and did not want anyone to know He was there, but He could not remain hidden. A woman, whose small daughter had an evil spirit, heard of Him, and came and fell at His feet. Now this woman was a pagan, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she begged Him to drive the demon out of her daughter.

Jesus told her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to puppies.” But she replied, “Sir, even the puppies under the table eat the crumbs from the children’s bread.” Then Jesus said to her, “You may go your way; because of such a response, the demon has gone out of your daughter.”

And when the woman went home, she found her child lying in bed, and the demon gone.

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Thursday, 9 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 127 : 1-2, 3, 4-5

Blessed are you who fear the Lord and walk in His ways. You will ear the fruit of your toil; you will be blessed and favoured.

Your wife, like a vine, will bear fruits in your home; your children, like olive shoots will stand around your table.

Such are the blessings bestowed upon the man who fears the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion. May you see Jerusalem prosperous all the days of your life.