Tuesday

by

Tuesday, 13 March 2018 : 4th Week of Lent, Fifth Anniversary of the Election of Pope Francis, Bishop of Rome and Vicar of Christ (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Ezekiel 47 : 1-9, 12

The man brought me back to the entrance of the Temple and I saw water coming out from the threshold of the Temple and flowing eastwards. The Temple faced the east and the water flowed from the south side of the Temple, from the south side of the altar. He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing the east and there I saw the stream coming from the south side.

The man had a measuring cord in his hand. As he went towards the east he measured off a thousand cubits and led me across the water which was up to my ankles. He measured off another thousand cubits and made me cross the water which came to my knees. He measured off another thousand cubits and we crossed the water which was up to my waist. When he had again measured a thousand cubits, I could not cross the torrent for it had swollen to a depth which was impossible to cross without swimming.

The man then said to me, “Son of man, did you see?” He led me on further and then brought me back to the bank of the river. There I saw a number of trees on both sides of the river. He said to me, “This water goes to the east, down to the Arabah, and when it flows into the sea of foul-smelling water, the water will become wholesome.”

“Wherever the river flows, swarms of creatures will live in it; fish will be plentiful and the sea water will become fresh. Wherever it flows, life will abound. Near the river on both banks there will be all kinds of fruit trees with foliage that will not wither and fruit that will never fail; each month they will bear a fresh crop because the water comes from the Temple. The fruit will be good to eat and the leaves will be used for healing.”

by

Tuesday, 6 March 2018 : 3rd Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day through the readings from the Sacred Scriptures we heard about the importance of forgiveness in our lives, by understanding why is it that as Christians we must be generous with our forgiveness and mercy, because God Himself has forgiven us and been generous to us with His blessings and graces despite our waywardness and regardless of our stubbornness in disobedience.

In the first reading today we heard about Azariah, one of the three companions of Daniel, who were four men of the descendants of Israel living in exile in Babylon, during those years when the people of God had been banished from their own land and brought into exile, living in shame and humiliation, as those who were defeated in war and vanquished, having no land to call their own.

The people of God had once lived prosperously in the land given to their ancestors, but they disobeyed God and refused to listen to Him. They abandoned Him for pagan idols and gods, and as a result, their enemies rose up against them and they were defeated and conquered. Their cities were destroyed, Jerusalem was in ruin and the Temple of God in that city was destroyed. Such was their humiliation at that time.

They had to endure scorn and ridicule from other nations and peoples, and as we heard in today’s first reading, it existed in the context of the time when king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon built up a great golden statue of himself, and ordered everyone to worship the statue. He wanted everyone to glorify him and to exalt him as if he was a god, and demanded the same from Azariah and his two other companions.

They were good and loyal servants of the king of Babylon, but they refused to obey the king in this matter. They refused to bow down to him and to perform things which was abhorrent and wicked in the sight of God as their ancestors had done. Instead, they faithfully stood by their faith in Him and were forced to endure great suffering in the chamber of fire. Azariah prayed to God from within that fire chamber, as we heard in our first reading today.

And God heard their prayers and saved them from the fire. They were untouched and unharmed by the fire, and the king of Babylon was amazed by the miraculous occurrence. This was a very good and concrete example of how God forgave His people and protected all those who have been faithful to Him. He did not hold grudge against them, but loved them dearly with all of His heart.

That is the essence of God’s great and undying love for us all, that even though we have often sinned against Him and disobeyed Him, but He did not allow His anger and the disgust He had for our sins to turn Him away completely from us. For He loves each and every one of us, His beloved people, who have been estranged from Him because of our sins and to whom He therefore wanted to be reconciled with.

That is why in the Gospel today, we heard of a similar story, of the parable through which Our Lord spoke about the unforgiving servant, who have been forgiven his debts, and yet, refused to forgive the debts that others had owed him. In that parable, we can see the parallel with our own story, and the story of our redemption and forgiveness by God.

The master who forgave the wicked servant represents God, Who forgives us all from our sins and mistakes because of His mercy. The servants of the master represent all of us mankind, who are God’s people. The debts that have existed between the servant and the master and between the servants are our sins. And by right, we have to pay all of our debts, or else we will have to face the punishment due for our debts, that is sin.

By default, that would have meant for us to be damned in hell fire. For the combined weight of our burden and sins are truly very great, all the wicked things we have done in our respective lives, in disobedience against God. But we see how God forgave us all our sins generously just as the master forgave the great debt owed by the servant who begged him to show him mercy.

Yet, that servant refused to forgive another servant who owed him much smaller amount of debt. The master who heard about how the servant treated his fellow servant became angry and threw the servant he had forgiven the debt into prison, to suffer the consequences for his debts as well as his refusal to follow his example in showing mercy and forgiveness for each other.

Now, let us ask ourselves, how many of us have been angry or holding grudges against our fellow brothers and sisters just because of what mistakes and problems they have caused to us? Let us not forget that we ourselves might have done the same to them or to someone else in other occasions or circumstances in our lives. And God has forgiven us for all these trespasses and sins we have committed, when we cause harm, hurt and inconvenience upon others, just as He has forgiven others for the sins they have committed towards us.

If God has forgiven us all our heavy and numerous sins which have merited us hell and eternity of suffering, by none other than His loving sacrifice on the cross, through which He died for our sake, that by redeeming us from our sins, all the debts of disobedience we owed Him, and forgiving us from those debts, all of us who accepted His love and mercy may receive eternal grace and life from Him. And remember that He died even for His enemies and those who hated Him, and He forgave all of them from His cross.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, thus it is imperative that during this Lenten season, as we continue to prepare ourselves for the coming of Holy Week and Easter, we must imitate the examples set by Our Lord Himself, in being more merciful and forgiving in our relationship with one another, showing more care, love and compassion for one another especially to those who are poor, unloved, lonely, depressed and all those without hope.

May the Lord be with us always, that He may continue to guide us in our journey of faith, that we may be able to love one another more and more, and be merciful in all of our actions, and thus grow to love God ever more, day after day. May the Lord bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

by

Tuesday, 6 March 2018 : 3rd Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 18 : 21-35

At that time, Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, how many times must I forgive the offences of my brother or sister? Seven times?” Jesus answered, “No, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. This story throws light on the kingdom of Heaven : A king decided to settle the accounts of his servants.”

“Among the first was one who owed him ten thousand pieces of gold. As the man could not repay the debt, the king commanded that he be sold as a slave with his wife, his children and all his goods, as repayment. The servant threw himself at the feet of the king and said, ‘Give me time, and I will pay you back everything.'”

“The king took pity on him, and not only set him free, but even cancelled his debt. When the servant left the king’s presence, he met one of his companions, who owed him a hundred pieces of silver. He grabbed him by the neck and almost choked him, shouting, ‘Pay me what you owe!'”

“His companion threw himself at his feet and begged him, ‘Give me time, and I will pay everything.’ The other did not agree, but sent him to prison until he had paid all his debt. Now his fellow servants saw what had happened. They were extremely upset, and so they went and reported everything to their lord.”

“Then the lord summoned his servant and said, ‘Wicked servant, I forgave you all that you owed when you begged me to do so. Were you not bound to have pity on your companion, as I had pity on you?’ The lord was now angry, so he handed his servant over to be punished, until he had paid his whole debt.”

Jesus added, “So will My heavenly Father do with you, unless you sincerely forgive your brothers and sisters.”

by

Tuesday, 6 March 2018 : 3rd Week of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 24 : 4-5ab, 6 and 7bc, 8-9

Teach me Your ways, o Lord; make known to me Your paths. Guide me in Your truth and instruct me, for You are my God, my Saviour.

Remember Your compassion, o Lord, Your unfailing love from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth, but in Your love remember me.

Good and upright, the Lord teaches sinners His way. He teaches the humble of heart and guides them in what is right.

by

Tuesday, 6 March 2018 : 3rd Week of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Daniel 3 : 25, 34-43

Azariah stood up in the midst of the fire and prayed aloud : Do not abandon us forever, do not reject Your covenant for Your Name’s sake. Do not withdraw Your mercy from us, for the sake of Abraham, Your friend, of Isaac, Your servant, of Israel, Your holy one, to whom You promised to multiply their race as the stars of heaven and the sand on the shore of the sea.

Lord, see, we have become the least among the nations in all the world, and we are humiliated because of our sins. At this time, we no longer have a king, or prophet, or leader. We cannot offer You holocausts, sacrifices, offerings, or incense. We have no place to present to You the first-fruits of our crops, and so obtain Your favour.

But at least when we present ourselves with a contrite soul and humbled spirit may we then be acceptable to You, more than by offerings of rams and calves as holocausts, and of thousands of fat lambs. May this sacrifice of ours today obtain for us Your favour for we know that those who trust in You shall never be disappointed.

And now, we serve You with our whole heart, we fear You and we seek Your face. Do not leave us in our humiliation, but treat us according to Your kindness and Your great mercy. Free us in keeping with Your wonders, and give us the glory of Your Name, Lord.

by

Tuesday, 27 February 2018 : 2nd Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard first of all the Lord’s calling to us, His people, to repent and turn away from our sins. This is in particular appropriate and relevant during this season of Lent, as a time of renewal and spiritual rediscovery for us, as we come to the presence of God with sincere regret and sorrow over our sins and wickedness.

The prophet Isaiah spoke of a warning to those who sinned and disobeyed God, as represented by his reference to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, the two cities that God destroyed because of their wickedness and sinful lifestyle. Yet, at the same time it was also a message of tremendous mercy and unprecedented love, as the prophet continued on by calling on the sinners to repent from their sins and turn away from all of their wicked ways.

‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be white as snow.’ This was what God had told His people, which at that time had lived through various sins and disobediences, refusing to obey the commandments of God and following the worship of pagan idols and even slaughtering the prophets and messengers sent to them to remind them to turn away from their waywardness.

This means that God was perfectly capable of turning even the worst of sinners back to His path, and no one was truly beyond God’s saving grace. God after all is omnipotent, and whatever we may think is impossible for us to do, is possible for God. No one should be discouraged and think that they are beyond God’s saving power, for if someone believe that they are beyond God’s salvation and mercy, that is most likely because they themselves refused to accept God’s forgiveness and loving compassion.

And as we listened to the Gospel passage today, we would have noticed how the Lord criticised the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, because of the way they carried themselves and acted before the people, by showcasing their faith externally for the purpose of self-gratification and self-praise, seeking to be honoured and adored for their show of piety and obedience to God. In reality, in their hearts, there was no place for God, as their ego and pride filled all places of honour.

That is exactly how we also refused to listen to God and to accept His forgiveness and mercy, because we are too proud to admit that we are sinners and that we have been wrong in our ways. We hardened our hearts and continued to live in sin, thinking for what is best for ourselves, and aiming to satisfy our own needs and desires before thinking of others, less still, thinking of our obligations to God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we progress through this season of Lent, we are all called to throw far, far away this wicked mentality and our predisposition to pride which had become a great obstacle in our journey towards salvation and reconciliation with our loving God and Father. Let us heed what the Lord Jesus told His disciples in the Gospel today, ‘let the greatest among you be the servant of all. For those whoever makes himself great shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be made great.’

Many of our holy predecessors, saints and martyrs were once great sinners as well. They lived lives of debauchery and sin, which some would have thought as being hopelessly far away from God’s grace and salvation. Yet, in the end, it was their commitment and resolution to turn away from their sins that allowed them to open their hearts to God, and allowing Him to enter into their hearts and minds, they experienced a total conversion.

And thus the same can happen to us, if we humble ourselves and allow ourselves to be transformed by the Lord, by our renewed commitment to live faithfully in accordance with God’s ways, shunning all the sinful past we had, and embracing a new life and existence with God. And let us do that in this season of Lent, by our renewed faith and by our fasting and abstinence, through which we try to deepen our relationship with God while resisting the temptations of our flesh and our ego and desire.

May the Lord be with us throughout this Lenten journey, that we may be filled with a renewed faith and be ever closer to Him. May we make use of this opportunity presented to us, to repent and turn away from our sins, and be once again worthy to be called the beloved children of God. Amen.

by

Tuesday, 27 February 2018 : 2nd Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 23 : 1-12

At that time, then Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, “The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees have sat down on the chair of Moses. So you shall do and observe all they say, but do not do as they do, for they do not do what they say. They tie up heavy burdens and load them on the shoulders of the people, but they do not even raise a finger to move them.”

“They do everything in order to be seen by people : they wear very wide bands of the Law around their foreheads, and robes with large tassels. They enjoy the first places at feasts and reserved seats in the synagogues, and they like being greeted in the marketplace, and being called ‘Master’ by the people.”

“But you, do not let yourselves be called Master, because you have only one Master, and all of you are brothers and sisters. Neither should you call anyone on earth Father because you have only one Father, He Who is in heaven. Nor should you be called Leader, because Christ is the only Leader for you.”

“Let the greatest among you be the servant of all. For whoever makes himself great shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be made great.”

by

Tuesday, 27 February 2018 : 2nd Week of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 49 : 8-9, 16bc-17, 21 and 23

Not for your sacrifices do I reprove you, for your burnt offerings are ever before Me. I need no bull from your stalls, nor he-goat from your pens.

What right have you to mouth My laws, or to talk about My covenant? You hate My commands and cast My words behind you.

Because I was silent while you did these things, you thought I was like you. But now I rebuke you and make this charge against you. Those who give with thanks offerings honour Me, but the one who walks blamelessly, I will show him the salvation of God.

by

Tuesday, 27 February 2018 : 2nd Week of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 1 : 10, 16-20

Hear the warning of YHVH, rulers of Sodom. Listen to the word of God, people of Gomorrah. Wash and make yourselves clean. Remove from My sight the evil of your deeds. Put an end to your wickedness and learn to do good.

Seek justice and keep in line the abusers; give the fatherless their rights and defend the widow. “Come,” says the Lord, “let us reason together. Though your sins be like scarlet, they will be white as snow; though they be as crimson red, they will be white as wool.”

“If you will obey Me, you will eat the goods of the earth; but if you resist and rebel, the sword will eat you instead.” Truly the Lord has spoken.

by

Tuesday, 20 February 2018 : 1st Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard from the Scriptures the unique relationship that Our Lord Jesus Christ has with His Father in heaven, as we listened to the reading from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, speaking to us about the Word which came from God, and which would not return to Him until that Word has accomplished all that God had willed to do through the Word.

We know that Jesus, Our Lord and Saviour is the Divine Word Incarnate, Son of God, through Whom the Father willed all creation into being, including all of us mankind at the beginning of time. And when the Father sent Him into the world, as we remember from the Gospel of St. John, ‘For He so loved the world, that He gave us His only beloved Son, that all who believe in Him may not perish, but have eternal life’, we gain for ourselves a loving Saviour and Lord.

And Jesus showed us all the example of a faithful and obedient Son, obeying the Father’s will in everything, which is summarised in His short but exceedingly beautiful prayer, which we pray as the Lord’s Prayer, Pater Noster, a prayer which we heard as part of our Gospel reading today, which summarises everything that a prayer should be and ought to be.

First of all, a prayer is a way for us to communicate with God, and that was what Our Lord did, speaking directly to the Father, calling upon Him and praising Him, for we have been given this great privilege, having shared in Christ’s humanity, to be able to call God as our Father. And as a child addressing and talking to his or her father, we too ought to speak to God through prayer, directly to Him, and He will listen to us.

However, many of us forget that the essence of prayer is not for us to demand from God anything, or to have our wishes and wants fulfilled. This is what many of us have misunderstood from prayer and from our devotions, as many of us think of God as a wonder worker Who can satisfy all of our needs and fulfil all of those things which we want and desire. No, this is not true prayer, as a true prayer is in essence, opening a two-way communication between us and God.

Many of us are able to speak with God, through our prayers and petitions. However, how many of us are actually able to listen to Him? It is too often that we are preoccupied in our concerns, our desires and thoughts, that we failed to listen to the Lord speaking in the depths of our hearts. The noise of this world, all of its temptations and concerns deafened us to the Lord’s words in our hearts.

And a prayer is not just about ourselves, as if we often notice that what truly distracted us from being able to listen to God was because we are so self-centred, thinking only about ourselves, about what we want in life, and we sometimes even demanded that God take action for our sake. This ego and desire, the focus on the ‘I’ and ‘Me’ are all that caused us to drift away from God and into sin.

Prayer is also about thanksgiving, for Jesus Himself thanked His Father for all the goodness He has blessed all of us with, but in our own prayers, how many of us remembered to thank God first for all the blessings which He had given us? We always remember God only when we are in need of His providence and help, and when He has given us all that we wanted and desired, we are very quick in forgetting Him and never thanked Him as we all should have.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, as we proceed through the season of Lent, let us all strengthen our relationship with God, through prayerful life and committing ourselves to acts of charity and love for others. It is important that we learn how to pray in the right way, as we have just discussed, not prayer focused on ourselves and our selfish interests and desires, but prayer that is truly allowing us to speak to God and to have a proper conversation, that we also put forth a listening ear, open mind and open heart to listen to God speaking in our deepest selves.

Let us all follow the examples of Our Lord Jesus Himself, Who obeyed the will of His Father perfectly, doing what He had commanded Him to do and even to the cross at Calvary, by which we were saved. Let us learn to get ourselves rid off our pride, arrogance, stubbornness, and all the things which have become obstacles in our journey of faith towards the Lord. Let us instead grow to be humbler and more dedicated in our faith, doing whatever we can to live ever more in accordance with what the Lord had taught us.

May the Lord bless us all and may He continue to watch over us and protect us, every day of our lives. May our Lenten observance and efforts be good and meaningful to our spiritual growth, that we may grow ever closer to God, day after day. Amen.