Tuesday

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Wednesday, 17 February 2021 : Ash Wednesday (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 8 : 14-21

At that time, the disciples had forgotten to bring more bread, and had only one loaf with the in the boat. Then Jesus warned them, “Keep your eyes open, and beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.” And they said of one another, “He saw that we have no bread.”

Aware of this, Jesus asked them, “Why are you talking about the loaves you are short of? Do you not see or understand? Are your minds closed? Have your eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear? And do you not remember when I broke the five loaves among five thousand? How many baskets full of letfovers did you collect?”

They answered, “Twelve.” “And having distributed seven loaves to the four thousand, how many wicker baskets of leftovers did you collect?” They answered, “Seven.” Then Jesus said to them, “Do you still not understand?”

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Tuesday, 16 February 2021 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard from the Word of God, the story of the Great Flood that happened during the early history of mankind, which came about due to the sins and wickedness committed by man, so much so that out of all humanity, only Noah and his immediate family alone were considered righteous and just. Then in the Gospel passage today, the Lord reminded His disciples of everything He had done in the past two miracles He performed in feeding five thousand men and four thousand men respectively.

Through these Scripture readings, the Lord wanted to remind us that while we may be so stubborn and hard-hearted in refusing to accept Him and His truth, in our constant disobedience and rebellion against His will, He still remembers us and wants us to be reconciled to Him. He loved us all even when we disobeyed Him and ignored Him from time to time, again and again. Of course there is a limit to God’s patience, and if we continued on to reject Him, eventually it will be too late for us. But meanwhile, God keeps on trying to reach out to us.

To that extent, He has rescued Noah and his family, and entrusted to him the future of man, when He wiped the world clean of all the wickedness of the other sons and daughters of mankind, all who have consistently and persistently rejected God and His patient offer of mercy and love. He wanted to show us that He does not condemn us because we are human beings, but rather it was because of our sins that we have been condemned for.

He rescued Noah and instructed him to build the Ark because in the end of the day, it was not His desire to see us mankind being destroyed. However, at the same time, our sins and wickedness are great obstacles and barriers that prevent us from finding our way towards the Lord. As long as we persist in our sinful and rebellious ways, we will be constantly resisting Him, rejecting Him and abandoning Him for all sorts of worldly pursuits, ambitions and desires.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the Lord Jesus speaking to His disciples with regards to the miracles He performed in feeding the five thousand men and four thousand men respectively, in which He fed the people until fully satisfied with just five loaves of bread and two fishes in the former, and seven loaves of bread in the latter, revealing that truly He loved His people that He wanted to take care of them and provide for them, and that was why He asked His disciples if they truly had believed in Him in whatever He had done before them.

Many of the people, including even the disciples were still lacking in faith, and they had not fully put their trust in the Lord either. As a result, they failed to appreciate the full meaning of the miraculous things that had happened before them. The Lord wanted them all to know that the love He has for them endures, and He patiently waited for all of us to return to Him and to be reconciled to Him. But we must allow Him to reach out to us and to touch us in our lives. He has given us plenty of opportunities and chances to do this, and it is unfortunately we who procrastinate, unwilling to commit and unwilling to follow Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, tomorrow we mark the beginning of the season of Lent, a time of reflection and recollection of our lives. During this period of holy reconciliation, we have been given yet another opportunity to be thankful for the Lord and all that He had done for us. Had He not intervened for our sake and devoted Himself to rescue us from our predicament, we would have perished and be consigned to eternal damnation.

Instead, God emptied and humbled Himself by becoming a Man, and reached out to us through His loving Cross, not just in feeding the multitudes of men and women with bread, but with the Bread of His own Precious Body and Blood, that Bread of Life broken for us and given to us freely, and the Lamb of God, sacrificed and offered for our sake, for the atonement of our sins.

In this upcoming season of Lent, we are all called once again to recall the great love of God which He has generously extended upon us. He has never wavered in His commitment to us, and if only we put our trust and faith in Him, we shall not be disappointed. That is why we have to make good use of this time of Lent to prepare ourselves wholeheartedly and turn with a new spirit and love towards God.

May the Lord be our strength and may He guide us in our journey, that He will help us to persevere well against all the temptations and challenges that may come our way. Let us all commit ourselves to the Covenant that God has made with us out of love, His most generous love, and prepare ourselves, heart and mind that we may make best use of this season of Lent to be ever closer to God. Amen.

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Tuesday, 16 February 2021 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 8 : 14-21

At that time, the disciples had forgotten to bring more bread, and had only one loaf with the in the boat. Then Jesus warned them, “Keep your eyes open, and beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.” And they said of one another, “He saw that we have no bread.”

Aware of this, Jesus asked them, “Why are you talking about the loaves you are short of? Do you not see or understand? Are your minds closed? Have your eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear? And do you not remember when I broke the five loaves among five thousand? How many baskets full of letfovers did you collect?”

They answered, “Twelve.” “And having distributed seven loaves to the four thousand, how many wicker baskets of leftovers did you collect?” They answered, “Seven.” Then Jesus said to them, “Do you still not understand?”

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Tuesday, 16 February 2021 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 28 : 1a and 2, 3ac-4, 3b and 9b-10

Give the Lord, o sons of God, give the Lord the glory due His Name; worship the Lord in great liturgy.

The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the Lord thunders over vast waters. How powerful is the voice of the Lord, how splendorous is the voice of the Lord.

The God of glory thunders, the Lord strips the forests bare, and in His Temple all cry, “Glory!” Over the flood the Lord was sitting; the Lord is King and He reigns forever.

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Tuesday, 16 February 2021 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Genesis 6 : 5-8 and Genesis 7 : 1-5, 10

YHVH saw how great was the wickedness of man on the earth and that evil was always the only thought of his heart. YHVH regretted having created man on the earth and His heart grieved. He said, “I will destroy man whom I created and blot him out from the face of the earth, as well as the beasts, creeping creatures and birds, for I am sorry I made them.” But Noah was pleasing to God.

YHVH said to Noah, “Go into the Ark, you and all your household, for I see that you are just in this generation. Of all the clean animals, you are to take with you seven of each kind, male and female, and a pair of unclean animals, a male and a female. In the same way for the birds of the air, take seven and seven, male and female, to keep their kind alive over all the earth, for in seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. I will blot out from the face of the earth all the living creatures I have created.”

Noah did all as YHVH had commanded. And after seven days the waters of the flood were over the earth.

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Tuesday, 9 February 2021 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we continue the discourse on the creation of the world from the Book of Genesis, in which we heard how the Lord crafted the world and made it whole with all the living things He created and designed, and then we also heard from our Gospel passage today on the confrontation between the Lord and the Pharisees with regards to the obedience to the Law and commandments of God.

The Lord made everything to be by His will, and His Word made them all to be, to exist as they were ought to be, and the Word of God made everything to be complete and all good. That is why then He also came into this world to straighten things up and to reveal fully the true intentions of the Lord, His love for each and every one of us that was which why He gave us His Law in the first place.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard then of the disagreements between the Lord and the Pharisees, due to the latter seeing the disciples not following the strict observance of the Law and the traditions as dictated by the elders, and which the Pharisees took great pride of in keeping these traditions and practices enforced and rigidly practiced by the people.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were very quick to condemn and criticise the Lord for having allowed such disobedience to happen, which was abhorrent in their eyes. However, in their misguided zeal and insistence that others conform to their way of thinking and way of observing the Law, they had forgotten what they ought to do as a follower of the Lord and as those who have been entrusted as guardians over the people of God.

What does this mean? It means that the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had ended up focusing on the wrong things as they pursued their targets and their lack of understanding of the true nature and purpose of God’s Law led them to misinterpret and do things contrary to what the Lord had actually intended. As a result, they also misled the rest of the faithful and the Lord came forth in order to right the wrongs and to correct those mistaken ways.

That is why through these readings of the Scripture today we are all being reminded that as Christians we should truly understand what our faith is truly all about and not just look on the appearances or try to superficially satisfy the requirements of the Law and commandments of God without genuinely understanding them. Otherwise we will end up like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who knew how to obey the Law and follow the tenets of the traditions and rules set by the elders throughout time, but not having true love or devotion to God.

Let us all from now on discern carefully on what each and every one of us can do in order to follow the Lord faithfully and genuinely contributing our efforts to the greater glory of God and for the propagation of His truth and love. Let us first of all of course try to understand what it means for us to be Christians, and the best way to do that is by learning from the official teachings of the Church and by listening to the official teachings of our priests and catechists, as well as adhering to the Catechism of the Church.

Most importantly, let us all centre our lives on the Lord, for as long as we focus ourselves on Him, we will not lose our way, and the Lord Himself will help us and guide us in our journey. We are all called to be genuine and faithful witnesses of the Lord in our respective communities, and the best way to do that is by loving one another as the Lord Himself has loved us, and just as He has reached out to the least and the weakest among us, let us all do the same as well.

May the Lord be with us all, and may He strengthen and guide us in our path, and help us to be inspiration to our fellow brothers and sisters, that more and more may come to believe in God through us, and receive the same assurance of eternal life and glory through faith. Amen.

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Tuesday, 9 February 2021 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 1-13

One day the Pharisees gathered around Jesus, and with them were some teachers of the Law who had just come from Jerusalem. They noticed that some of His disciples were eating their meal with unclean hands, that is, without washing them.

Now the Pharisees, and in fact all the Jews never eat without washing their hands, for they follow the tradition received from their ancestors. Nor do they eat anything, when they come from the market, without first washing themselves. And there are many other traditions they observe; for example, the ritual washing of cups, pots and plates.

So the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but eat with unclean hands?” Jesus answered, “You shallow people! How well Isaiah prophesied of you when he wrote : This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. The worship they offer Me is worthless, for what they teach are only human rules. You even put aside the commandment of God to hold fast to human tradition.”

And Jesus commented, “You have a fine way of disregarding the commandments of God in order to enforce your own traditions! For example, Moses said : Do your duty to your father and your mother, and : Whoever curses his father or his mother is to be put to death. But according to you, someone could say to his father or mother, ‘I already declared Corban (which means “offered to God”) what you could have expected from me.'”

“In this case you no longer require him to do anything for his father or mother, and so you nullify the word of God through the tradition you have handed on. And you do many other things like that.”

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Tuesday, 9 February 2021 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 8 : 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

When I observe the heavens, the work of Your hands, the moon and the stars You set in their place – what is man that You be mindful of him, the Son of Man that You should care for Him?

Yet You made Him a little lower than the Angels; You crowned Him with glory and honour and gave Him the works of Your hands; You have put all things under His feet.

Sheep and oxen without number and even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea and all that swim the paths of the ocean.

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Tuesday, 9 February 2021 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Genesis 1 : 20 – Genesis 2 : 4a

God said, “Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth under the ceiling of the sky.” God created the great monsters of the sea and all living animals, those that teem in the waters, according to their kind, and every winged bird, according to its kind. God saw that it was good. God blessed them saying, “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the waters of the sea, and let the birds increase on the earth.” There was evening and there was morning : the fifth day.

God said, “Let the earth produce living animals according to their kind : cattle, creatures that move along the ground, wild animals according to their kind. So it was. God created the wild animals according to their kind, and everything that creeps along the ground according to its kind. God saw that it was good.

God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, to Our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over the wild animals, and over all creeping things that crawl along the ground.” So God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, over every living creature that moves on the ground.” God said, “I have given you every seed bearing plants which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree that bears fruit with seed. It will be for your food. To every wild animal, to every bird of the sky, to everything that creeps along the ground, to everything that has the breath of life, I give every green plant for food.” So it was.

God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. There was evening and there was morning : the sixth day. That was the way the sky and earth were created and all their vast array. By the seventh day the work God had done was completed, and He rested on the seventh day from all the work He had done.

And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day He rested from all the work He had done in His creation. These are the successive steps in the creation of the heavens and the earth.

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Tuesday, 2 February 2021 : Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, World Day of Consecrated Life (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the great Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, which takes place exactly forty days after the beginning of the Christmas season, the fortieth day since the twenty-fifth day of December. Today traditionally marks the end of the Christmas season and celebrations, and in the traditional Roman calendar, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated, when mothers like the Blessed Virgin Mary are welcomed back to the Temple forty days after giving birth.

This day, we celebrate the day when the Lord was presented to the world, especially to the Jewish people, a revelation of God’s salvation to them, represented by the man of God, Simeon and the old prophetess Anna. This is in parallel to what we have celebrated a few weeks earlier in the Solemnity of the Epiphany, marking the revelation of the Christ to the Gentiles through the Three Magi.

In this celebration today, we mark the moment God revealed His salvation to His people, fulfilling the promises He had made to them through His prophets, and we heard of all the things that had happened at that time, how Simeon and Anna both said that the Child would be the great Sign and the Light of God’s salvation to all. The long wait for the promised salvation had therefore been over.

And the Lord Jesus was presented to the Lord at His Temple in accordance with the Law which stated that all the firstborn sons ought to be presented and dedicated to God. This is also especially unique because this Child was none other than the Son of God Himself, Who was therefore in fact, presented to His heavenly Father, dedicated and committed to the mission entrusted in Him for the salvation of the whole world.

The Son of God has revealed Himself to us, showing the love and compassion of God, and we are all called to embrace this love and compassion, and to turn towards Him and looking up to Him, remembering and realising just how fortunate each and every one of us have been to have this loving gift of salvation from God. Thanks to Him, we can have hope once again.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we also celebrate the occasion of the World Day of Consecrated Life, remembering particularly all those who have followed in the Lord’s footsteps by dedicating themselves wholeheartedly in consecrating their lives to God just as the Lord has been presented at the Temple and was consecrated for the mission entrusted to Him.

Those who have been called to the Consecrated Life are those brothers and sisters of ours who committed their lives wholly to God, who desire nothing else but to serve God and glorify Him by their lives. They spent their whole lives living together in faithful communities, either cloistered in the monasteries or living in a community of brothers and sisters dedicated in serving the people of God.

Today all of us thank the Lord for the gift of the dedication of these fellow brothers and sisters of ours, and of course we also show them our appreciation as well. We pray for all of them that they can stay committed in their calling and ministry, in whatever it is that they are doing, through prayers and actions, and we pray that there will be more of those whom God had called who will respond to the call to Consecrated Life and live a holy life befitting of those whom God had called and chosen.

May the Lord continue to guide those whom He had called and chosen, and may He strengthen their faith and give them the courage to persevere through the various challenges in life. May He also awaken in more among us to respond to His call, that more and more men and women may come to join the Consecrated Life, and be inspiration in faith for everyone of us. May God bless us all, now and always. Amen.