Tuesday

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Tuesday, 28 April 2015 : 4th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Peter Chanel, Priest and Martyr, and St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)

Psalm 86 : 1-3, 4-5, 6-7

He Himself has built it in His holy mountain; the Lord prefers the gates of Zion to all of Jacob’s towns. Great things have been foretold of You, o city of God.

Between friends we speak of Egypt and Babylon; and also Philistia, Tyre, Ethiopia : “Here so-and-so was born.” But of Zion it shall be said, “More and more are being born in her.” For the Most High Himself has founded her.

And the Lord notes in the people’s register : “All these were also born in Zion.” And all will dance and sing joyfully for You.

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Tuesday, 28 April 2015 : 4th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Peter Chanel, Priest and Martyr, and St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)

Acts 11 : 19-26

Those who had been scattered because of the persecution over Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, telling the message, but only to the Jews. But there were some natives of Cyprus and Cyrene among them who, on coming into Antioch, spoke also to the Greeks, giving them the Good News of the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with them so that a great number believed and turned to the Lord.

News of this reached the ears of the Church in Jerusalem, so they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he arrived and saw the manifest signs of God’s favour, he rejoiced and urged them all to remain firmly faithful to the Lord; for he himself was a good man filled with Holy Spirit and faith. Thus large crowds came to know the Lord.

Then Barnabas went off to Tarsus to look for Saul and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they had meetings with the Church and instructed many people. It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.

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Tuesday, 21 April 2015 : 3rd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Anselm, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we continue on the celebration of Easter with the readings that showed us first, the martyrdom of St. Stephen, the first of the martyrs of the Faith, who was stoned to death by the Council of the elders after he testified the truth and spoke the truth about Christ, and chided them for their lack of faith and for having rejected the Lord.

And in the Gospel, we heard how Jesus also similarly chided the people for looking at earthly things and to satisfy their own human desires, after the feeding of the five thousand people. Instead, He told them all to seek the true Bread that gives life and came from heaven. And that Bread is none other than Jesus Himself. Jesus has given Himself to us, His Body to eat and Blood to drink, that we all who share in them, receive eternal life through them.

This is the fact that is so difficult to be understood by the people, many of whom refused to believe that Christ is the Saviour of the world. Many of them rejected Him and refused to listen to His teachings, even though what He taught them is truth spoken like a great light that pierces the greatest darkness. They refused to do so, most likely because they refused to acknowledge their weaknesses and frailty. This is just as how Jesus put it, that those who live in darkness fear the light because that light would reveal whatever wickedness that they had committed.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are called to question ourselves and our faith in God. Have we been able to overcome our numerous obstacles in knowing and becoming closer to our Lord? Have we been able to live a life that is truly filled with faith and devotion to God? Or have we rather succumbed to the worldly temptations and pleasures and thus drew further away from God?

One thing we have to realise is that none of us is perfect, and all of us make mistakes at one point in our lives. We cannot think that once we have the taint of sin in us, then we are finished. Our Lord has His mercy and love always pointed at us, and He always seeks to bring us into salvation in Him. That was why He sent us Jesus His Son, so that through Him, we may be saved.

And on the other hand, we should also not think that we can get away with our sins, that God does not care about our sinfulness and iniquities, or that we can always ask Him for mercy again and again. This is the attitude which many of us have at the moment, and this is an attitude that is certainly not good and something that we do not want to have with us.

We have to be proactive in our faith and in our life. We must always seek the heavenly inheritance which God promised all those who remain faithful to Him. It is often that we always seek for things that are vain and worldly in nature. We have this strong tendency to find refuge in the world, to find satisfaction in things like wealth, money, worldly fame and pleasures of the flesh, human approval and influence, and many other things.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in this holy Easter season, we are all reminded that all those things do not bring us true and lasting joy but a mere passing moment of joy that is of this world. Let us ask ourselves, that whether the things of this world have allowed us to feel satisfied or instead wanting to have more and more. It is part of our human nature, never to be easily satisfied with what we have. We always seek more and more and wanting for more and more.

Therefore, let us today renew our commitment to the Lord and commit ourselves to a life emptied of greed and desire of the world, but instead be filled with the genuine and sincere desire for the Lord. Today we celebrate the feast of St. Anselm, a great Bishop and later appointed Doctor of the Church, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury in the eleventh century.

St. Anselm was a great reformer and visionary, who brought about much changes to the Church and to the flock and community which was entrusted to his care. He brought the Church out of the dependance of the world and bring about its independence from the authority and the meddling of the worldly authorities, submitting it to God alone. He had had many enemies, including the king of England himself, and went into exile more than once, but his dedication remained strong.

He led the reforms to purify the Church and banned sinful practices such as simony and priests bowing down to the will of nobles and kings, as well as the breaking of the sacred vow of celibacy in the priestly orders. Through all these, St. Anselm showed us that we must not bow down to the demands of the world and to succumb to our desires is the sure path to damnation.

Therefore, inspired by his examples, let us go forth in faith and renew our faith to the Lord. Let us do more good deeds according to our faith and help each other to grow ever stronger in our faith and devotion towards the Lord. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 21 April 2015 : 3rd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Anselm, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 6 : 30-35

At that time, the people said to Jesus, “Show us miraculous signs, that we may see and believe You. What sign do You perform? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert; as Scripture says : They were given bread from heaven to eat.”

Jesus then said to them, “Truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven. My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. The bread God gives is the One who comes from heaven and gives His life to the world.” And they said to Him, “Give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the Bread of Life; whoever comes to Me shall never be hungry, and whoever believes in Me shall never be thirsty.”

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Tuesday, 21 April 2015 : 3rd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Anselm, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 30 : 3cd-4, 6ab and 7b-8a, 17 and 21ab

Be a rock of refuge for me, a fortress for my safety. For You are my rock and my stronghold, lead me for Your Name’s sake.

Into Your hands I commend my spirit; You have redeemed me. But I put all my trust in the Lord. I will rejoice and be glad in Your love.

Make Your face shine upon Your servant; save me in Your love. In the shelter of Your presence You hide them from human wiles; You keep them in Your dwelling.

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Tuesday, 21 April 2015 : 3rd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Anselm, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 7 : 51 – Acts 8 : 1a

Stephen said to the Council, “But you are a stubborn people, you hardened your hearts and closed your ears. You have always resisted the Holy Spirit just as your fathers did. Was there a prophet whom your ancestors did not persecute? They killed those who announced the coming of the Just One whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the Law through the angels but did not fulfill it.”

When they heard this reproach, they were enraged and they gnashed their teeth against Stephen. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, fixed his eyes on heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus at God’s right hand, so he declared : “I see the heavens open and the Son of Man at the right hand of God.”

But they shouted and covered their ears with their hands and rushed together upon him. They brought him out of the city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they were stoning him, Stephen prayed saying : “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and said in a loud voice : “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he died.

Saul was there, approving his murder. This was the beginning of a great persecution against the Church in Jerusalem.

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Tuesday, 14 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard how the community of the first Christians lived, and how they shared all their possessions among themselves in a society filled with the love of God and in full obedience to the Law of God. And in the Gospel, we heard how Nicodemus continued his discussion with Jesus at night time, when Jesus told him how the Son of Man was to be raised up as the salvation for all just as Moses raised the bronze serpent in the past.

All these point out to the fact that we Christians should heed the teachings of the Lord and profess His death and resurrection at all times in our life and also in how we live as a community of the faithful ones in God. There is great symbolism in the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, the very important and singular most important moment together with the Resurrection, which is the moment when God triumphed against the forces of sin and darkness, once and for all.

Our Lord was raised up between the heaven and the earth, for all to see, the suffering which He had endured, the sins for which He had been punished for, which are all our sins and our iniquities, that He had borne in our place. The consequence of sin is death, destruction and annihilation, for we have disobeyed the Master of Life, and by right therefore, we do not deserve to live.

And yet, God is willing to forgive us, providing that we are sincere and genuine in repenting for those sins that we have committed. When the people of Israel walked through the desert during their Exodus out of Egypt, they rebelled and disobeyed against the Lord, such that the Lord sent fiery serpents to strike at those sinful people, and many died. The people repented and cried out to the Lord through Moses, and He told Moses to raise a bronze serpent, and all who had been bitten and looked at the serpent would live.

Thus, all those who have been bitten by sin, that is all of us mankind without exception, except for Christ Himself, is bound to die, and we are supposed to be destroyed and annihilated forever, without hope for redemption. But God’s love for us caused Him to show His mercy in the most spectacular and yet humblest of ways. He raised Himself up on the cross, that all of us who witness His resurrection by what we have received in faith, shall live.

We shall no longer die, that is eternal death. This means that while we still will die at the end of our earthly lives, but just as Christ rose from the dead in glory, we too shall be raised in glory and join Him in body and soul to the heavenly inheritance waiting for us. We shall live, and it is this hope and this joy for a new and everlasting life that we rejoice for this Easter.

But, another significance to today’s readings is also that because we are all a community of the faithful, and as people of the Light who had been saved from the world, and as we have heard and understood the word of God and His teachings, then we too should also showcase that faith through real commitment, real actions and deeds, that others can see and thus be saved too.

We cannot be passive in our faith. Remember what Lord Jesus told His disciples, that if salt loses its saltiness or light is hidden under a cover then these two have no meaning or use? It is the same with all of us. Having shared in the Lord, we too have been charged with the obligation and responsibility to shine with the light of Christ within us, so that all who see us may turn away from their sinfulness and be converted to the truth of Christ.

If we do not act in accordance to the way of the Lord, then it will be a scandal for us, and we may be held responsible for having turned people away from the Lord instead of bringing them closer. We have a lot of homework to do, and indeed, we have to reevaluate our lives and our ways in life. Have we been truly devoted to God and practice our faith genuinely in our actions? Let us ask the Lord for His continuing guidance, so that we may ever walk in His path. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 14 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 3 : 7b-15

At that time, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again from above. The wind blows where it pleases and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus asked again, “How can this be?” And Jesus answered, “You are a teacher in Israel, and you do not know these things? Truly, I say to you, We speak of what We know and We witness to the things We have seen, but you do not accept Our testimony. If you do not believe when I speak of earthly things, what then, when I speak to you of heavenly things? No one has ever gone up to heaven except the One who came from heaven, the Son of Man.”

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”

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Tuesday, 14 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 92 : 1ab, 1c-2, 5

The Lord reigns, robed in majesty. The Lord is girded with strength.

The world now is firm, it cannot be moved. Your throne stands from long ago, o Lord, from all eternity You are.

Your decrees can be trusted; holiness dwells in Your house day after day without end, o Lord.

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Tuesday, 14 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 4 : 32-37

The whole community of believers was one in heart and mind. No one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but rather they shared all things in common. With great power the Apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, for all of them were living in an exceptional time of grace.

There was no needy person among them, for those who owned land or houses, sold them and brought the proceeds of the sale. And they laid it at the feet of the Apostles who distributed it according to each one’s need.

This is what a certain Joseph did. He was a Levite from Cyprus, whom the Apostles called Barnabas, meaning, “The encouraging one.” He sold a field which he owned and handed the money to the Apostles.