Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 84 : 9, 11-12, 13-14
Would, that I hear God’s proclamation, that He promise peace to His people, His saints – lest they come back to their folly.
Love and faithfulness have met; righteousness and peace have embraced. Faithfulness will reach up from the earth while justice bends down from heaven.
YHVH will give what is good, and our land will yield its fruit. Justice will go before Him, and peace will follow along His path.
Liturgical Colour : White
Judges 6 : 11-24a
The Angel of YHVH came and sat under the sacred tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash, of the family of Abiezer. Gideon, the son of Joash, was threshing the wheat in the wine press to hide it from the Midianites.
The Angel of YHVH said to him, “YHVH be with you, valiant warrior.” Gideon answered, “Please, my lord, if YHVH is with us, why is all this happening to us? Where are the wonders which our fathers recounted to us? Did they not say that YHVH led them up from Egypt? Why has He abandoned us now and given us into the hands of the Midianites?”
YHVH then turned to him and said, “Go, and with your courage, save Israel from the Midianites. It is I Who send you.” Gideon answered : “Pardon me, Lord, but how can I save Israel? My family is the lowliest in my tribe and I am the least in the family of my father.”
YHVH said to him, “I will be with you and you shall defeat the people of Midian with one single stroke.” Gideon said to Him, “Please give me a sign that it is indeed You Who speak. Do not leave until I return with an offering and present it to You.” YHVH responded, “I am going to wait for you here.”
Gideon went and prepared a young goat, took a measure of flour and baked unleavened bread. He put the broth in a pot and the meat in a basket, and went to present them to the Angel under the tree. Then the Angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the bread; put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them.”
Gideon did so. At that moment, the Angel of YHVH extended the staff he was holding and touched the meat and the bread. Suddenly, fire blazed from the rock. The fire consumed the meat and the bread, and the Angel of YHVH disappeared.
Gideon realised that he was the Angel of YHVH and said, “Alas, o Lord YHVH! I have seen the Angel of YHVH face to face.” But YHVH said to him, “Peace be with you. Do not fear for you shall not die.” Gideon built an altar to YHVH in that place and called it YHVH-Peace.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture reminding us all of the love which God has constantly shown to us, despite all of our disobedience and refusal to love Him. He has always been faithful to the Covenant He made with each and every one of us, and He has blessed us all throughout these lives we have, and everything that we are today, all of these are because of Him and His endless love for us.
In our first reading passage today from the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses, who was at the last moments of his life, was speaking to the entire congregation of the people of Israel, those who have survived the whole forty years journey through the desert, having been led and guided by God throughout all those years of ordeal, suffering, trials and time of purification from their sins.
Those who have sinned and disobeyed God had perished in the desert as God Himself had told them, while their sons and daughters and those who remained faithful to God were the only ones who would then enter into the land promised to them and their ancestors, the land of Canaan. Moses reassured them all that God would be with all of them and they had nothing to fear. It was because of that fear which made Israel disobeyed and distrusted the Lord that caused the whole nation to wander in the desert for forty years in the first place.
God has always been faithful, and He continues to love His people generously as He has always been. And that is the clear message of today’s passage from the Book of Deuteronomy. God will care for us and take care of everything we need, but we need to trust in Him and put our whole lives, our whole existence in His care and devote ourselves to His providence and His compassionate mercy.
In our Gospel passage today, the Lord through His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, reminds us yet again of this love which He has for all of us. By using the example and parable of the lost sheep, He shows that if even any one of us, represented by the sheep of the flock, wanders off and becomes lost, God, as our ever loving and dedicated Shepherd, will go all the way to look for us and to find us, and be reunited with us.
That is exactly what He has done, brothers and sisters in Christ, by willingly humbling Himself and assuming the form of our humanity, in becoming the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, to become the One through Whom we would be saved, by His works and by His ultimate sacrifice of love, the sacrifice of the Cross. God loves us so much that He willingly embraced all the sufferings and the pains of the punishments for our sins, and by His Cross, He unites us all back to Himself, reconciling us all by the atonement for our sins.
But His love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness will not be able to enter into us, if we remain obstinate and stubborn as those Israelites who have disobeyed and rebelled against God. They have closed their hearts and minds against the Lord and preferred to follow the temptations and false promises of Satan instead of listening to and obeying the Lord Who has loved and cared for them throughout all those years.
That is why, all of us need to reexamine our lives and reflect on the other words of the Lord today, Who has mentioned that unless we are like children in the manner of our faith, we will not be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Why is this so? That is because we all surely know how children usually behave. Children below a certain age of understanding and knowledge are truly pure and innocent, and they will believe whatever they have heard, seen and experienced wholeheartedly.
And this is exactly the kind of faith that all of us must have as well, a pure love and commitment to God, a genuine dedication and longing for Him. We should not be swayed by the many temptations in life, the temptations of desire, the temptations of worldly glory and the many other things that often prevented us from finding our path towards the Lord. Today, therefore, we should look at the examples shown by two great saints of the early Church who have overcome the temptations of worldly glory and chose to be truly faithful to the Lord.
Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus were two great leaders of the early Church during the years of terrible persecution of Christians under the Roman Emperor Maximinus in the early third century after the birth of Christ. At that time, Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus were in fact on the opposing sides of the bitter divide between two factions in the Church, when Pope St. Pontian was elected to be the successor of St. Peter. Some of the Church elders has elected St. Hippolytus earlier on as an Antipope.
The bitter division and conflict between the two saints then and their followers threatened to cause great schism in the Church, but eventually, by the grace of God and because of the persecutions against the Church, they were reconciled to each other, and when the Pope was arrested and exiled, Pope St. Pontian chose to voluntarily resign his position, and it was likely that St. Hippolytus did so as well, allowing for the restoration of the full unity in the Church and the continuation of the line of St. Peter even after they were exiled and martyred for their faith.
The example of humility shown by those two saints and their devotion to God and to the people entrusted to them, despite the divisions that occurred temporarily at that time should show us that if we are able to cast off the temptations of pride, of worldly glory and power, of influence and fame, and accept humbly the cross of Christ as Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus had done, we too can share in their glory, through our own virtuous and exemplary lives.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all pray to the Lord, asking Him for strength and encouragement, that each and every one of us may draw ever closer to Him and find our way to the salvation He has promised to us all. May all of us be ever more committed and be able to serve Him from now on with all of our hearts and with all of our strength. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Matthew 18 : 1-5, 10, 12-14
At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Then Jesus called a little child, set the child in the midst of the disciples, and said, “I assure you, that, unless you change, and become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble, like this child, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and whoever receives such a child, in My Name, receives Me.”
“See that you do not despise any of these little ones; for I tell you, their Angels in heaven continually see the face of My heavenly Father. What do you think of this? If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them strays, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hillside, and go to look for the stray one? And I tell you, when he finally finds it, he is more pleased about it, than about the ninety-nine that did not go astray.”
“It is the same with your Father in heaven. Your Father in heaven does not want even one of these little ones to perish.”
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Deuteronomy 32 : 3-4a, 7, 8, 9 and 12
For I will proclaim the Name of the Lord and declare the greatness of our God. He is the Rock, and perfect are all His works, just are all His ways.
Recall the days of old, think of the years gone by; your father will teach you about them, your elders will enlighten you.
When the Most High divided humankind and gave the nations their inheritance, He set up boundaries for the people after the number of the sons of God.
But the Lord keeps for Himself His portion Jacob, His chosen one. The Lord alone led them, without the aid of a foreign god.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Deuteronomy 31 : 1-8
When Moses finished telling all Israel these words, he said, “I am now a hundred and twenty years old and I can no longer deal with anything – Remember that YHVH told me that I shall not cross the Jordan River. Now Joshua shall be at your head, as YHVH has said. He, your God, will go before you to destroy these nations before you, and you will drive them away.”
“YHVH shall deal with these cities as He dealt with Sihon and Og, the Amorite kings, and their land, which He destroyed. So when He has given these nations over to you, you shall do the same, according to what I have commanded you. Be valiant and strong, do not fear or tremble before them for YHVH, your God, is with you; He will not leave you or abandon you.”
After this, Moses called Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel : “Be valiant and strong, you shall go with this people into the land which YHVH swore to their ancestors He would give them and you shall give it to them as their possession. YHVH shall go before you. He shall be with you; He shall not leave you or abandon you. Do not fear, then, or be discouraged.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the great feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, recalling the moment when the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, was revealed in all of His divine and heavenly glory on Mount Tabor before three of His Apostles, St. Peter, St. James and St. John. At that moment, the two greatest among the Lord’s servants from the time of the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah appeared at Mount Tabor and talked with the Lord Jesus.
This important moment of the Transfiguration is a very powerful and vivid revelation of the truth of God, in revealing before His people, albeit only the select few at first, what He was going to do to fulfil His Covenant and the promises He had made to His people throughout the ages. Through the Transfiguration, the three Apostles, as representatives of humanity, witnessed Who the Lord Jesus truly is, as a person fully God and fully Man united in His person.
At that moment, the Lord revealed a glimpse of His true heavenly glory, as the Divine Word of God, Incarnate in the flesh, fully and completely God as shown by the pure white and dazzling appearance of His Transfigured Self, while still remaining fully Man in the flesh. And through this same Person, through Jesus Christ, all of mankind were about to receive their salvation and liberation from the tyranny of sin and bondage to death.
In the Transfiguration we see in fact a prefigurement and revelation of what will happen to us all in the end, when we remain faithful and committed to the Lord, as He will glorify us and our whole existence, in the body and spirit to be glorified and exalted just as Christ has been glorified and exalted at Mount Tabor. All of us through the fulfilment of the Covenant of God have received the assurance from Him that we shall receive the fullness of God’s glorious inheritance.
Just as the Lord Jesus revealed His divinity that is united to His humanity, through the Transfiguration the Lord unites our humanity to His own humanity, and all of us who share in His humanity now receive the glory of our future existence with God. Essentially, we see in Christ the reflection of our own future glorious self, the true calling for us all mankind who have not been intended to live in sin and darkness, but in the fullness of light as God’s beloved children.
By our sins we have been made dirty, corrupted and unworthy, and sin is caused by our conscious rejection and refusal of God’s generous love. Sin has caused us to lose that glory which should have been ours from the beginning, the true nature of ourselves, and not the sinful and wicked selves we have now. But the Lord, through His Transfiguration, has shown us all that through Him, we can once again be wholesome as we have been intended to.
At the same time, through what happened in the Transfiguration, when the Lord Jesus met and talked with Moses and Elijah, the Lord also willingly revealed to His people about the mission which He has been sent into this world for, as the Saviour of all. Moses and Elijah were among two of the most important persona in the whole of the Old Testament and were counted among the ones closest to God, as His faithful servants.
Moses represented the Law which God had first revealed through him in the Books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the collection of which made up the entirety of the Mosaic laws of Israel that were preserved through the many centuries after, centred on the Ten Commandments that God has also given at the same time. And Moses was also symbolic of God’s saving help and grace for His people, as He led His people out of Egypt from their slavery into freedom.
Meanwhile, Elijah was among the greatest of the many prophets of the Old Testament era, and he performed many good works and miracles for the Lord before His people, struggling against numerous challenges and obstacles in his prophetic ministry and journey. He proclaimed the truth of God and called the people to repent and turn away from their sins, to reject the pagan idols of Baal and other Canaanite false gods and embrace the Lord YHVH, their one and only true God.
He had to endure a lot of difficulties, on the run from his enemies that included the king and especially Jezebel the queen and many of the powerful men in the kingdom of Israel and the priesthood of Baal among many others. He had to strive alone against the four hundred and fifty priests of Baal as they contested at the Mount Carmel who the true God is, whether it was YHVH or Baal.
That these two servants of God appeared before the Lord Jesus at the moment of His Transfiguration served to reveal before us the mission of Our Lord and Saviour, Who like Moses has been sent to all of us, God’s people, to deliver us. But while the Israelites were delivered from the slavery under the Egyptians and their Pharaoh, through Christ all of us mankind have been delivered from the slavery under sin.
And like Elijah, the Lord proclaimed the salvation of God to His people, performing wonderful miracles and power to show the true extent of God’s love and mercy for His beloved people, calling on them to turn away from sin and to embrace God’s love fully, through the Law of God, first revealed through Moses and now, explained in its fullness by Christ Himself, to bring all of us closer to God.
Therefore, God has revealed before us today, through His glorious Transfiguration at Mount Tabor, what we all can become if we truly believe in Him and put our complete faith and trust in Him. He has come into this world to reveal His truth and wisdom to us, and to show us how we can find our way to reach the promised glory, true happiness and inheritance He has promised us in the Covenant He had made with us.
But we must then take note of the action of the Lord Jesus and that of His disciples in the latter part of today’s Gospel passage. The three disciples wanted to stay on in that place as it must indeed have felt so wonderful to be present in the plain view and experience of the Lord’s glory on that mountain. They wanted to make three tents for the Lord, Moses and Elijah each precisely because they wanted that blissful experience to remain with them.
However, the Lord reminded them to obey the will of God, and the Lord Jesus led them down the mountain, leaving the glorious moment of His Transfiguration and soon after, embracing the moment of His Passion, suffering and death, where He would lay down His life and perform the ultimate loving sacrifice on the Cross for our salvation. And this is a reminder to each and every one of us that we should be aware that being Christians, as followers of Our Lord, more often than not we will encounter sufferings and challenges as part of our lives.
But we must always keep up hope in the Lord, remembering that despite the challenges and sufferings we may have to endure, at the end, the ever loving and faithful God will glorify us and give us the fullness of our promised inheritance, and the Transfigured Body of Christ will also be ours as we who are worthy will be transfigured and glorified in the same way to enjoy forever God’s loving grace.
May the Lord continue to guide us on our journey and may He continue to bless us and our good works in our daily living so that each and every one of us may strive to be ever faithful despite the challenges and obstacles we may encounter in our daily living. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Luke 9 : 28b-36
At that time, Jesus took Peter, John and James, and went up the mountain to pray. And while He was praying, the aspect of His face was changed, and His clothing became dazzling white. Two men were taking with Jesus : Moses and Elijah. Appearing in the glory of heaven, Moses and Elijah spoke to Jesus about His departure from this life, which was to take place in Jerusalem.
Peter and His companions had fallen asleep; but they awoke suddenly, and they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him. As Moses and Elijah were about to leave, Peter – not knowing what to say – said to Jesus, “Master, how good it is for us to be here! Let us make three tents, one for You, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”
And no sooner had he spoken, than a cloud appeared and covered them; and the disciples were afraid as they entered the cloud. Then these words came from the cloud, “This is My Son, My Beloved, listen to Him.” And after the voice had spoken, Jesus was there alone. The disciples kept this to themselves at the time, telling no one of anything they had seen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 96 : 1-2, 5-6, 9
YHVH reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the distant islands be glad. Clouds and darkness surround Him; justice and right, are His throne.
The mountains melt like wax before YHVH, the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim His justice, all peoples see His glory.
For You are the Master of the universe, exalted far above all gods.
Liturgical Colour : White
Daniel 7 : 9-10, 13-14
I looked and saw the following : Some thrones were set in place and One of Great Age took His seat. His robe was white, as snow, His hair, white as washed wool. His throne was flames of fire with wheels of blazing fire. A river of fire sprang forth and flowed before Him. Thousands upon thousands served Him and a countless multitude stood before Him.
Those in the tribunal took their seats and opened the book. I continued watching the nocturnal vision : One like a Son of Man came on the clouds of heaven. He faced the One of Great Age and was brought into His presence. Dominion, honour and kingship were given Him, and all the peoples and nations of every language served Him. His dominion is eternal and shall never pass away; His kingdom will never be destroyed.
Alternative reading
2 Peter 1 : 16-19
Indeed, what we taught you about the power, and the return of Christ Jesus our Lord, was not drawn from myths or formulated theories. We, ourselves, were eyewitnesses of His majesty, when He received glory and honour from God, the Father, when, from the magnificent glory, this most extraordinary word came upon Him : “This is My beloved Son, this is My Chosen One.”
We, ourselves, heard this voice from heaven, when we were with Him on the holy mountain. Therefore, we believe most firmly in the message of the prophets, which you should consider rightly, as a lamp shining in a dark place, until the break of day, when the Morning Star shines in your hearts.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 