Tuesday

by

Tuesday, 17 December 2013 : 3rd Week of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Genesis 49 : 2, 8-10

Gather round, sons of Jacob. And listen to your father Israel!

Judah, your brothers will praise you! You shall seize your enemies by the neck! Your father’s sons shall bow before you.

Judah, a young lion! You return from the prey, my son! Like a lion he stoops and crouches, and like a lioness, who dares to rouse him?

The sceptre shall not be taken from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs, and who has the obedience of the nations.

by

Tuesday, 10 November 2013 : 2nd Week of Advent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord is our shepherd, and we are His sheep. That is how close we are to Him, and how dear and precious we are to Him. For a good shepherd, his sheep would be everything in life, and a good shepherd gives his all for the sake of his sheep. He feeds them, cares for them, protects them from harm, and finds them if they lost their way in the wilderness.

That is precisely what our Lord did, and what He will do for our sake. The Lord is our shepherd, who cares for us, and provides for all our needs. We have been lost in the darkness, and have been destined to death. Yet, He did not give up on us, and went all the way out to seek us and find us in the darkness and bring us back into the light.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He did not fear oppositions and rejections, and He went straight out, seeking those who were considered by many to be lost. He sought tax collectors, prostitutes, and the least and rejected of the society. He sought them and lifted them up from the darkness that once engulfed them, bringing them back into the light. Precisely just like a shepherd tending to his lost sheep and the injured ones, bringing them back to their old selves.

And He as the shepherd rejoices when the lost sheep comes back to the fold. And these who have been saved, will enjoy the fullness of the graces of God, with all the joy and promises He had made to us since the beginning of time. And He did not just make those promises, as He in fact, fulfilled every single one of them without fail.

Such is the love that our Lord has for us, that He did not hesitate to even lay down His life for our sake, that we who were lost, may once again be reunited with Him, and receive from Him the eternal joy and the rewards of heavenly glory. Remember the Psalm, “The Lord is my Shepherd?” Yes, in that psalm, we hear how the Lord will lead us to life-giving water, to quench our thirst for the love of God, and we will never hunger again, for our Lord will provide for us, for eternity.

We do not need to worry, if we put our trust and faith in God, because He will take care of us. Sadly, the reality is far from that. We worry, brothers and sisters, worry too much! We are too preoccupied with our worries to even be able to recognise and notice God’s love and care for us. We are so preoccupied and worried about so many things in our lives, that we end up living in constant fear and constant desire.

We always seek more and more things, because desire and greed grows within us. And this world too, increasingly offering us more and more exciting things that often distract us away from our attention to the Lord. We ignore the shepherd who calls out to us, the lost sheep, because we the sheep are too distracted with the things around us.

Let me illustrate it to you with a story. There was a hundred sheep living in peace, in a beautiful and lush meadow, with plenty of food and water for them. They lived in peace with a wonderful shepherd, who loved them as if they were his own family. The shepherd led them every day to the feeding ground, and to the spring of clear water for them to drink. All were good.

The sheep knew their shepherd and the shepherd knew all of them, each one of them, even if there were a hundred of them in all. All would have been good and continue to be good. And yet, one day, one of the sheep saw a beautiful butterfly flying at a far away forest at the edge of the meadow. The sheep was lured by the beautiful butterfly, and it chased the butterfly deep into the forest.

The sheep followed the butterfly until it lost sight of it. The sheep suddenly realised that it is in the middle of the dark forest. And a pair of hungry looking eyes were staring at the sheep, eagerly awaiting its next meal. It was a hungry wolf. The sheep realised that the wolf would eat it, and gave in to its fate. Yet, when the wolf lunged forward to bite and kill the lost sheep, something went in between them.

Lo, there was the shepherd, bleeding after being bitten by the wolf, standing in between it and the frightened sheep. The shepherd hit the wolf with his crook, and killed the wolf. The shepherd then turned to the lost sheep, picked it up, and happily returned to the flock, celebrating that he had found the one lost sheep, and his flock is complete once again. The shepherd knew all along that one sheep was lost because he knew them all, and went to search for the lost one.

This in essence, is what the readings today are about, that is about the Lord our God, who went out all the way to look for us, His lost children. Yes, we have been lost, ever since sin and the temptations of this world, the allures of worldly pleasures and false happiness, turned us away from our devotion to God. It is just like the sheep lured by the beautiful butterfly, that it followed the butterfly deep into the forest.

The devil is the wolf, awaiting for us in darkness, awaiting for the time when we fall to the trap, and then he will strike. But do you think that our God will just let us fall prey to the devil like that? That shepherd was Jesus Christ, who came to protect us from the schemes and devices of the evil one. He stood before us and the evil one, taking into Himself, the punishment intended for us.

Every single wound that Christ inflicted upon Himself, are every single sins that we had committed. Every single mankind past, present, and future, everyone that has ever sinned. These wounds represent the sorrows of the Lord for our sinfulness, but at the same time, they are the living testimonies of the great and eternal love for us all.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, are we ready to truly proclaim the Lord as our God? He did not hesitate to take upon Himself the sins and sufferings of mankind. Then should we also hesitate to love and dedicate ourselves to the Lord? Let us take this opportunity to seek further to love the One who gave His life for us, and to reach out to Him, reaching out our hands to welcome the Shepherd who wants us, His lost sheep, to be reunited with Him.

May the Lord our loving God and Shepherd, continue to watch over us and protect us, that we will always be in His grace and love, receiving the daily blessings and care from His hands. God be with us all. Amen.

by

Tuesday, 10 November 2013 : 2nd Week of Advent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 18 : 12-14

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 get lost.

It is the same with your Father in heaven : your Father in heaven does not want even one of these little ones to be lost.

by

Tuesday, 10 November 2013 : 2nd Week of Advent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 95 : 1-2, 3 and 10ac, 11-12, 13

Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless His Name; proclaim His salvation day after day.

Recall His glory among the nations, tell all the peoples His wonderful deeds. Say among the nations : “He will judge the peoples with justice.”

Let the heavens be glad, the earth rejoice; let the sea and all that fills it resound; let the fields exult and everything in them; let the forest, all the trees, sing for joy.

Let them sing before the Lord who comes to judge the earth. He will rule the world with justice and the peoples with fairness.

by

Tuesday, 10 November 2013 : 2nd Week of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 40 : 1-11

Be comforted, My people, be strengthened, says your God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, proclaim to her that her time of bondage is at an end, that her guilt has been paid for, that from the hand of YHVH she has received double punishment for all her iniquity.

A voice cries, “In the wilderness prepare the way for YHVH. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley will be raised up; every mountain and hill will be laid low. The stumbling blocks shall become level and the rugged places smooth.”

“The glory of YHVH will be revealed, and all mortals together will see it; for the mouth of YHVH has spoken.”

A voice says, “Cry.” And I say, “What shall I cry?”

“All flesh is grass, and all its beauty as the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower wilts, when the breath of YHVH blows upon it. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will forever stand.”

Go up onto the high mountain, messenger of Good News to Zion, lift up your voice with strength, fear not to cry aloud when you tell Jerusalem and announce to the cities of Judah : Here is your God! Here comes your God with might; His strong arm rules for Him; His reward is with Him, and here before Him is His booty.

Like a shepherd He tends His flock : He gathers the lambs in His arms, He carries them in His bosom, gently leading those that are with young.

by

Tuesday, 3 December 2013 : 1st Week of Advent, Feast of St. Francis Xavier, Patron of Missions, Priest (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White (Priests)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate mission, the work of the servants of God, following what the Lord has commissioned His disciples to do. The Lord has commanded His disciples to spread all over the earth, and spread the Good News, the Good News of Jesus, which come with the Lord Himself as He came incarnate into Man.

The disciples went around many places, telling many people about the Saviour who had come to save them all. The Lord commissioned them to make disciples of all the nations, and baptise them, to mark them in the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, the Most holy God. Only those who have been marked with such sign of baptism will belong to God and be saved.

The disciples of the Lord laboured hard for the conversion and therefore the salvation of many, sharing with them the words and the revelations that they had received from the Lord as witnesses of the Good News. The disciples worked hard and served the people of God without cease and without fear, and they even went through great suffering, persecution, and rejection, eventually suffering death, in the defense of their faith.

Their works did not end there, since the disciples of the Lord appointed their successors, chosen from the people of God, the bishops and the priests, and the countless others who have helped to spread the Good News to the people over many millenia. They persevered for the Lord, accepted in some places but rejected in others. Tortured for their faith but did not recant, and remained faithful even to the end, as the Apostles had done themselves.

These are the realities about the missionaries, who continued the mission given to them by the Lord. They persevered through similar difficulties and challenges as the Apostles and the other disciples of Christ had faced in the past. Even today, thousands and tens of thousands of missionaries spread around the globe toil daily for the salvation of souls.

These missionaries spread the Good News and become its witnesses, by serving the poor, spending time with the lonely and the unloved, as well as reaching out to those who had yet to receive the word of God, and knock at the hearts of those who had turned away from the Lord. Their task is not an easy one, and yet they persevered through, out of their love for the Lord and His people.

Today, we ought to pray for them and give thanks to God for these wonderful missionaries, for the gift of their courage and persistence in the service of God. We celebrate today the feast of St. Francis Xavier, the patron saint of missions and missionaries. He was once a great missionary himself, travelling to many countries especially in East and Southeast Asia regions, establishing the foundation for many future missionaries that would follow him.

St. Francis Xavier was the co-founder of the Society of Jesus or the Jesuits, today the largest religious congregation in the world, he founded it with St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order. He was once a man who dedicated his life to pleasures of the world and other debaucheries, and yet, after an encounter with St. Ignatius, he found his life’s meaning in Jesus, seeking to serve Him with zeal.

St. Francis Xavier is particularly interested in spreading the word of God and the news of salvation to far off lands, and to the lands of pagans. At that time, the new discoveries of the wider world beyond the world the people had once known, opened massive opportunity for evangelisation and conversion of many to the true faith. Many people and cultures whom the faith had not touched before, then had the opportunity through the wider exploration of the world. Following along these explorations were the missionaries, many of them Jesuits, including St. Francis Xavier himself.

St. Francis Xavier went as a missionary, firstly to India, where he accomplished much in establishing the works of God in that land, converting many to the faith in God. Then he went on to spread the Good News to many lands, all over the Far East, establishing communities of the faithful and sending missionaries to these lands. He himself led the effort as a vanguard for the faith.

St. Francis Xavier followed in the footsteps of the Apostles and laboured through rejections and even storms at sea to spread the Good News to many souls which he laboured to save. St. Francis Xavier persevered through all of them and went on undeterred to save even more souls. He travelled far to Malacca, to the islands of the Moluccas, to Macau, and even to Japan. He did not get as much success as the works he had done in India, because of oppositions from local rulers, but nevertheless he continued his works.

It was St. Francis Xavier’s dream to be able to preach and spread the Good News in China. But before he managed to do that, he passed away along the way. He had indeed passed before us, but until today, his spirit, the spirit of zealous and courageous missionary, never died, and continues to burn in the many missionaries that followed after St. Francis Xavier.

Therefore, brethren, today, let us commemorate our missionaries, past and present. Do not forget to pray for them, that they will continue to persevere in the mission they had embarked on. Let us pray that God will continue to guide them, watch over them, and empower them. And finally, we too, brothers and sisters in Christ, we too are called to be missionaries. The mission that Jesus had given to His disciples also applies to us.

We do not have to make difficult journeys and hard works in the way the missionaries had done. We can do things even as simple as making our own homes, our own families, and our own societies, the people around us, to make. God the centre of our own lives, and through our own actions, words, and deeds, we too can be missionaries, the living witnesses of the faith in God.

May the Lord continue to bless us, empower us, and strengthen us with a burning zeal, in order to continue to proclaim Him in the world, to be witnesses of God’s Good News to the world. Amen.

by

Tuesday, 3 December 2013 : 1st Week of Advent, Feast of St. Francis Xavier, Patron of Missions, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White (Priests)

Mark 16 : 15-20

Then Jesus told His disciples, “Go out to the whole world and proclaim the Good News to all creation. The one who believes and is baptised will be saved; the one who refuses to believe will be condemned.”

“Signs like these will accompany those who have believed : in My Name they will cast out demons and speak new languages; they will pick up snakes, and if they drink anything poisonous, they will be unharmed; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.”

So then, after speaking to them, the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven and took His place at the right hand of God. The Eleven went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.

by

Tuesday, 3 December 2013 : 1st Week of Advent, Feast of St. Francis Xavier, Patron of Missions, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White (Priests)

Psalm 116 : 1-2

Praise the Lord, all you nations; all you peoples, praise Him. How great is His love for us! His faithfulness lasts forever.

by

Tuesday, 3 December 2013 : 1st Week of Advent, Feast of St. Francis Xavier, Patron of Missions, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White (Priests)

1 Corinthians 9 : 16-19, 22-23

Because I cannot boast of announcing the Gospel : I am bound to do it. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel! If I preached voluntarily, I could expect my reward, but I have been trusted this office against my will. How can I, then, deserve a reward? In announcing the Gospel, I will do it freely without making use of the rights given to me by the Gospel.

So, feeling free with everybody, I have become everybody’s slave in order to gain a greater number. To the weak I made myself weak, to win the weak. So I made myself all things to all people in order to save, by all possible means, some of them. This I do for the Gospel, so that I too have a share of it.

by

Tuesday, 26 November 2013 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we approach the end of our liturgical year cycle, we listen to a lot of readings regarding the forecast for the future. In the first reading, we heard the prophecy in the book of the prophet Daniel, when the Lord revealed His plan for mankind, to the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar in a dream. This dream was also told to Daniel, who gave all who heard these words of revelation, in the court of the Babylonian king, showing to them the signs of the things to come, which many of them yet refused to believe.

The kingdom of God, that is the eternal and glorious kingdom that will last forever, is coming, and Jesus Himself has foretold it to the people as we heard in the Gospel reading today. And it is important that we take heed of what has been revealed to us in truth. Let us not be ignorant as the Babylonians and the people of Israel at the time of Jesus, who listened but did not believe.

First, it was revealed to us, that the coming of the kingdom is imminent. Indeed, in the timing of God, the kingdom of God may come anytime soon. And we have entirely no idea when this will happen. Only God Himself knows when He will come again, that is at the end of time, to bring all those faithful to Him, into the eternal glories prepared for them. If we are not prepared for the coming of God’s kingdom, when it truly comes, we will have no share in it.

Then, linked to the first one, it was revealed to us too, that there will be false prophets and false messiah, proclaiming that the kingdom has come, and that they are the Christ, the One who is to come. It is indeed hard to discern which one is truth and which one is lies, and many seeds of lies have been planted by the evil one, in order to deceive us from the reality and the truth.

Yes, especially in the recent years, there had been people exclaiming that the kingdom of God has come or will come through them, if the people would follow them and obey their teaching, which are not the teachings of the Lord. They brought about portents of doom and destruction, and foretold of doom to come, which in the end did not come true. Worse still, some of them established cults, and managed to convince people to commit mass suicides, as some of them had reached worldwide fame in the 1990s.

This is our weakness, brothers and sisters. Not because we are not faithful or anything, but most importantly because we are too concerned about ourselves, our well-being, and being too self-centred, that we tend to forget what is more important in our lives, and what we are called to do in this life. We worry so much about the future and about what will happen, because we simply cannot tear ourselves, even for a moment, away from our concerns and possessions in this world.

Too often a times that we are fixated at the ties that keep us connected to this world. Well, it is not that it is wrong to do so, but we have often fixed our eyes too much towards the world, that we end up forgetting everything else. And Jesus said things in the Gospel today, precisely so that we will not repeat this same mistakes, again and again.

He reminded us on the greatness of love that the Lord has for us, and the promise He had granted us through none other than Jesus Himself, who came to fulfill God’s great plan for salvation. We also should not be deceived by the lies of the devil, and then became overly worried for ourselves. Worry not, brothers and sisters! That is why we are reminded of the love God has for us. The Lord will take care of us, and give us all that we need. Note, what we need, and not what we want.

We often want things that we do not need, and this results in hunger, great hunger not easily satiable. And it is often that the more we want, the even more we grow to want in time. This created that irresistible tie with the world, which caused us to worry so much in the first place. But what does worry bring us? It brings us nothing! That is because worry paralyzes us, and make us idle, doing nothing, even if these things that we ought to do will have saved us instead.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today, let us renew our resolve and our dedication to the Lord in our faith, that we will put in Him all our trust and love, without seeking alternatives or easy way outs. Do not trust in false prophets or false prophecies, and instead put our trust completely in God. The Lord did tell us that calamities and suffering would happen before His coming, but they do not determine the time of His coming.

Hence, let us put aside our fear, our worries, and our uncertainties, and open ourselves to the love and care that God pours out for us. May the Lord who cares for us, and loves us unto giving Himself to us, continue to watch over us, guide us, and provide for us, as we walk this path, and may that when He comes again, we will be found worthy, having fulfilled His will and commandments, obeying the instructions that Jesus had given us. May the Lord bless us all. Amen.