Tuesday

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Tuesday, 6 January 2026 : Tuesday after the Epiphany (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the words of the Lord in the Scriptures speaking to us about the love that God has shown us all so generously in caring and providing for us, and how then each and every one of us should dedicate ourselves to love Him in the same way as well, and how we should also love one another, our fellow men, in the manner that God had loved us so dearly. And as we all continue to progress through this joyful and festive time and season of Christmas, we are reminded that God’s Love has been made manifest to us and He has shown His generosity to us constantly and ever more wonderfully through His Son, Our Lord and Saviour born and celebrated on Christmas.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Epistle of St. John in which the Apostle spoke of how each and every one of us ought to learn to love, and that love comes from God, for He Himself has sent His love into this world. The love of God has been made manifest in our midst, in the appearing of His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, that is the Love of God made manifest and dwelling amongst us in this world. God’s love through His Incarnation is no longer intangible. God’s Love has become accessible to us and He has opened the floodgates of His compassion and mercy through His Son, as He reached out to us with ever greater compassion and tender love, no matter how much we have distanced ourselves away from Him all these while.

That is the essence of our Christmas celebrations that we have carried out all these while. Christmas is the celebration of God’s love incarnate, as He came into this world and assuming our human existence in the flesh, the Son of God and the Divine Word Incarnate, born as the Son of Man through Mary, His mother. God revealed His love to us and made Himself approachable, that His love is now tangible and reachable for us when once we have been sundered away from His love and grace. Through the appearance of Our Saviour and His Light, Hope and Love that have been revealed to us, we have regained that hope that overcome the darkness of evil and sin. And we should indeed be grateful and appreciative of everything that the Lord had done for us.

While we are still sinners, God loves each and every one of us just as He has always done since the very beginning. Even though our first ancestors had disobeyed Him and He could have crushed and destroyed them by the power of His will alone, His love for us all, and the love being the reason why He created us in the first place, is why we have been spared from immediate annihilation and damnation. Instead, God gave us all the opportunity to repent from our sins and to be reconciled to Him. He has repeatedly provided us the guidance and help so that we may find our way to Him. He never gave up on us and He has constantly tried again and again to call us all and gather us back to Himself.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard how God fed His beloved ones, as we heard in the famous miracle of the Lord Jesus feeding five thousand men and many others with just five loaves of bread and two fishes. The Lord was teaching all those people who came to Him from the towns and the villages, who all went to the wilderness where the Lord was often teaching and doing His works. But as they all had no food to eat and were starving, the Lord had pity on them and told His disciples to find food to feed them. He knew that they all were in need of sustenance and provision, and He gave them all not just what they needed but way and above all those things, overflowing and with excess. And He gave them sustenance not just of the body but of the spirit as well.

The disciples said that it was not possible to find enough food to feed the whole large multitudes of the people that numbered at least five thousand men and not counting even the women and children, many of whom were travelling along the men. But God reassured His people, the disciples and also all of us through what He did, as He took the five loaves and two fishes present there and after blessing them, breaking them and miraculously providing enough food for all the assembled people with lots to spare, twelve whole baskets in all. That is the bountiful blessing which God has generously provided to each and every one of His beloved ones, and hence all of us should truly appreciate all the love which God has always lavished on us, and never to take them for granted.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, often times we have to understand just how stubborn we can be in continuing with our rebellious and wicked actions and deeds, in disregarding and ignoring the most generous love that God has showered upon us. He has loved us so much and has always been kind to us, no matter what. He has loved us from the very beginning and showed it to us in so many ways, that it is truly inconceivable for us not to love Him back. God has always been so patient in loving us and yet, we have disobeyed Him, disregarded His love and kindness, and sided instead with the path of wickedness and evil present all around us in this world.

Yet, that is exactly what we have often done, brothers and sisters. We prefer to stay with sin and the devil rather than to follow the Lord and trust in Him. We prefer to walk in the path of sin and evil rather than to walk in the light that God has shown us. We disobeyed Him and betrayed Him again and again, and in the end, God still extended His love and kindness, His generous compassion and mercy towards us. Through His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, we have seen the love and compassion of God manifested before us, and we should doubt Him no longer.

May the Lord, our loving God, continue to watch over us and protect us, and may He continue to encourage and strengthen us that we may grow ever stronger in faith and draw ever closer to Him and His ever generous love. Amen.

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Tuesday, 6 January 2026 : Tuesday after the Epiphany (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 6 : 34-44

At that time, as Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and He had compassion on them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd. And He began to teach them many things. It was now getting late, so His disciples came to Him and said, “This is a lonely place and it is now late. You should send the people away and let them go to the farms and villages around here, to buy themselves something to eat.”

Jesus replied, “You, yourselves, give them something to eat.” They answered, “If we are to feed them, we need two hundred silver coins to go and buy enough bread.” But Jesus said, “You have some loaves; how many? Go and see.” The disciples found out and said, “There are five loaves and two fish.”

Then He told them to have the people sit down, together in groups, on the green grass. This they did, in groups of hundreds and fifties. And Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish and, raising His eyes to heaven, He pronounced a blessing, broke the loaves, and handed them to His disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them.

They all ate and everyone had enough. The disciples gathered up what was left, and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces of bread and fish. Five thousand men had eaten there.

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Tuesday, 6 January 2026 : Tuesday after the Epiphany (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 71 : 1-2, 3-4ab, 7-8

O God, endow the King with Your justice, the Royal Son with Your righteousness. May He rule Your people justly and defend the rights of the lowly.

Let the mountains bring peace to the people, and the hills justice. He will defend the cause of the poor, deliver the children of the needy.

Justice will flower in His days, and peace abound till the moon be no more. For He reigns from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth.

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Tuesday, 6 January 2026 : Tuesday after the Epiphany (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 John 4 : 7-10

My dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves, is born of God and knows God. Those who do not love have not known God, for God is love.

How did the love of God appear among us? God sent His only Son into this world, that we might have life, through Him. This is love : not that we loved God, but that, He first loved us and sent His Son, as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

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Tuesday, 30 December 2025 : Sixth Day within Octave of Christmas (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are called to continue to remember that this is still now part of the Christmas season, and all that we have heard today reminded us that God in His ever enduring and supreme love for all of us have given us the perfect gift in Jesus, His most beloved Son, Whom He sent to the world to be part of our lives, to be the Bridge that brought us closer to Him and helped in reuniting and reconciling us to Himself. Too often we have been caught up in our busy life schedules and forgot about all these, ignoring God and His ever generous love, and because of this, we have become ever more distant from God. But the Lord never forgot or abandoned us in turn, and instead, He has always patiently reached out to us with great and ever enduring love.

In our first reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. John, the Apostle reminded all the faithful to keep in mind their Christian calling, that is to follow the Lord and His path, to love Him more than anything else by their words and deeds, and not to succumb to the temptations of worldliness among other things. St. John reminded us all because it is very easy for us to love the world more than we love God, for the world often offers us easy pleasures and quick satisfaction that can tempt us to desire more of them. This is why so many people lapsed away from the faith especially when things get hard and challenging for them, and the unfortunate reality and hard truth is indeed that if we are to follow the Lord faithfully, then more likely than not our lives may encounter challenges and hurdles in our paths.

St. John reminded all of us that the Word of God, the Word of Life has come upon us and dwells in our midst. He is the Divine Word Incarnate, the Word of God made flesh, the Son of God born through His mother Mary as the Son of Man, entering into our world and gracing us with His love, the perfect manifestation of God’s Love, made fully tangible and approachable, that all of us may know the truth of God, His love and ever generous compassion towards us. It is all these that we have been celebrating this Christmas season and what we have been carefully preparing for during the earlier Advent season. If we as Christians do not even know or are aware of what it is that we celebrate or rejoice for in this time and season then it is truly sad and regrettable.

It is the same Jesus Christ Whom as a young Infant, was brought to the Temple of Jerusalem, the House of God to be offered to God, as in accordance to the Law of Moses, as we heard in our Gospel passage both today and yesterday. The old prophetess Anna confirmed again what the old man of God Simeon had already spoken regarding the Child Jesus, before His parents, Mary and St. Joseph, who heard how this Child indeed would become the Saviour of all and amaze all by His power and deeds. It is this same Child that would later on grow to become the One to bear the Cross of suffering, dying and offering His own life for our sake. Through Christmas and Our Lord and God Himself being embodied for us, the glorious occasion and triumphant victory at Easter became possible.

For Christmas is indeed inseparable from the Passion of the Lord and His Resurrection at Easter. Through Christmas and all that we celebrate, we remember God Who has made Himself tangible to us, and sharing in our human existence, resolving to take upon Himself all of our sufferings, our human sufferings due to our sins, which would not have been possible without the Incarnation, and bore it upon Himself as the worthy offering in atonement for our sins. Through that act of supreme and most selfless love, God had redeemed us and saved us, assuring us who keep our faith in Him, the assurance of eternal life and true joy with Him that He will surely fulfil and accomplish for all of us.

Yet, as mentioned just earlier, it is very easy for us to forget about all these, and forget why we call ourselves as Christians in the first place. In a world filled with a lot of selfishness and various temptations, of pleasures of the flesh, of wealth and glory, of fame and influence, power and others, we often sidelined the Lord and ignored His ever generous love, choosing instead to listen to Satan and all the temptress’ seductions, believing in their lies instead of God’s truth and ever enduring love for us. But God never gave up on us and He still constantly cared for us all nonetheless with even greater love, as He kept on reaching out to us patiently, loving us all ever more generously and calling on us all to return once again to Him, embracing the generous mercy and compassion that He constantly offers us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we continue to celebrate the joy of Christmas, let us always remind ourselves and one another of the reason of our celebrations and rejoicing. Let us not be easily swayed and tempted by the excesses of worldly pleasures and instead seek the true joy and happiness that can be found in God alone. Let us all be good role models to one another and inspire everyone whom we encounter in our daily lives with the light and hope of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In these dark and difficult times, let us bring hope and encouragement to others, especially to those who are suffering and sorrowful without anyone to console or help them.

May the Lord continue to guide us and bless us in our every good works and endeavours, and may He continue to inspire and encourage us to be the bearers of His light and hope in our world today. May our love for the Lord continue to grow and remain strong despite the challenges and trials we may encounter in life. Amen.

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Tuesday, 30 December 2025 : Sixth Day within Octave of Christmas (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Luke 2 : 36-40

There was also a prophetess named Anna, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. After leaving her father’s home, she had been seven years with her husband, and since then she had been continually about the Temple, serving God as a widow night and day in fasting and prayer. She was now eighty-four. Coming up at that time, she gave praise to God, and spoke of the Child to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem.

When the parents had fulfilled all that was required by the law of the Lord, they returned to their town, Nazareth in Galilee. There the Child grew in stature and strength, and was filled with wisdom: the grace of God was upon Him.

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Tuesday, 30 December 2025 : Sixth Day within Octave of Christmas (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 95 : 7-8a, 8b-9, 10

Give to YHVH, you families of nations, give to YHVH glory and strength. Give to YHVH the glory due His Name.

Bring gifts and enter His courts. Worship YHVH with holy celebrations; stand in awe of Him, all the earth.

Say among the nations, “YHVH reigns!” He will judge the peoples with justice.

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Tuesday, 30 December 2025 : Sixth Day within Octave of Christmas (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 John 2 : 12-17

My dear children, I write this to you : you have already received the forgiveness of your sins, through the Name of Jesus. Fathers, I write this to you : you know Him, Who is from the beginning. Young men, I write this to you : you have overcome the evil one. My dear children, I write to you, because you already know the Father.

Fathers, I write to you, because you know Him, Who is from the beginning. Young men, I write to you, because you are strong, and the Word of God lives in you, who have, indeed, overcome the evil one. Do not love the world, or what is in it. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the craving of the flesh, the greed of eyes and people boasting of their superiority – all this, belongs to the world, not to the Father.

The world passes away, with all its craving, but those who do the will of God remain for ever.

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Tuesday, 23 December 2025 : 4th Week of Advent, Memorial of St. John of Kanty, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures and draw ever closer to Christmas, we are all reminded of the coming of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, into our midst. The Lord has sent us His messenger and herald to prepare the path for His coming into this world, and He has fulfilled that promise, with the coming of St. John the Baptist, the one who was prophesied to be the one to prepare the way for the Lord. As we heard in our Scripture passages today, all these happened so that the Lord might come and rescue us all from our troubles and bring us into His loving presence once again, and that is the reason why we rejoice this Christmas.

In our first reading today, we heard of the words of the prophet Malachi, speaking about the coming of the days of God’s messenger, who would come to prepare the hearts and minds of the people, to prepare for the coming of the Lord, which was also alluded to in the words of the prophet Malachi. Malachi was one of the last prophets chronologically in the Old Testament era, who ministered to the people of God a few centuries before the Lord’s coming, and his words of prophecy further set the expectation of the coming of God’s salvation, which the people of God looked forward to, as they heard the words of reassurances that God had made through His many prophets, including that of Malachi.

Then, in our Gospel passage today, we heard of the account of the birth of St. John the Baptist, the one whom Malachi and the other prophets had been prophesying about, the one to prepare the path for the coming of the Lord. His miraculous conception and birth truly became knowledge among the people, as he was conceived by his mother at the age well-past childbearing and after being barren for so many years. His coming, conception and birth were also announced by the Angel of God before his father Zechariah, whose doubt led him to become mute before the moment as we heard in our Gospel today, that once the baby was named John as the Angel spoke of, Zechariah was miraculously able to speak once again. All of these and the later events in the life of St. John the Baptist serve as a reminder for us that as we approach the coming Christmas season with expectation and joy.

St. John the Baptist went on to call the people of God to be converted and to turn away from their sinful paths, and this is also therefore a reminder for all of us that as we approach Christmas, we should also prepare ourselves in heart and mind to turn towards the Lord, to return our focus upon Him, and to make Him the centre of our upcoming Christmas celebrations and rejoicing. We should not be distracted by the many temptations and distractions all around us, all the glamour and merrymaking surrounding the often secular and worldly Christmas celebrations. We have to be committed to the Lord and renew our faith in Him, and serve Him with ever greater conviction and zeal. We should do our best to make sure that we celebrate Christmas in the right way, and with the right predisposition and mindset.

That is why we should make use of this short remaining time before Christmas, whatever is left this Advent season to deepen our understanding of Christmas and its true meaning, its significance and importance for us. Today we should therefore spend some time to reflect upon the life and works of one St. John of Kanty, also known as St. John Cantius, a Polish priest and philosopher whose life and work should inspire us to become ever more worthy of God, ever more connected to Him, and ever closer to Him. St. John of Kanty was remembered for his great intellect and philosophical as well as theological prowess, as he became great professor and instructor, helping many of his students and followers to understand better their faith in God, as well as the many mysteries and aspects of the Christian faith.

Not only that, but the same St. John of Kanty was also well remembered for his great love for God, his personal piety and holiness, and especially also for his great compassion, love and care for the poor and the suffering all around him. He was known for his care for the needy students at his university and faculty, helping to support them whenever and wherever it was possible. He also spent time and effort to care for the poor and the needy in his community, and at wherever he was visiting and ministering. He lived his life simply and full of devotion, spending not more than what was necessary for him, and he made several pilgrimages on foot all the way to Rome. The faith and humility that St. John of Kanty showed in his life should be inspiration for all of us to follow in our own lives.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us therefore seek the Lord with a new heart, with a new commitment to follow Him and to devote our time and attention to Him, and from this upcoming Christmas celebration, to put Him back as the centre and focus of our lives. Let us all follow the examples set and shown by St. John of Kanty, doing our best to walk faithfully in the path that God has shown us. First let us all start by changing our Christmas celebrations from one that is worldly and self-centred into one that is centred on God, as well as love and life-giving, inspired by the love  and generosity which St. John of Kanty has shown to those who were less fortunate all around him. Let us also remember that Christmas is all also possible, and that we can rejoice exactly because God has shown us His most generous love and kindness, compassion and grace.

May the Lord continue to guide us and strengthen us, empowering us with the love and courage to do our best in our lives, to be ever more loving and generous to each other. Through our faithful and worthy Christmas celebrations, where Christ is at the very focus and heart of our joy, let us all inspire more and more people that each one of us may be the shining beacons of God’s hope, light and truth. Let us show our love and generosity to those around us and not be distracted by the worldly glamour and desires. May all of us draw ever closer to God and be blessed as we approach the glorious and joyful season of Christmas. Amen.

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Tuesday, 23 December 2025 : 4th Week of Advent, Memorial of St. John of Kanty, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 1 : 57-66

When the time came for Elizabeth, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbours and relatives heard that the merciful Lord had done a wonderful thing for her, and they rejoiced with her. When, on the eighth day, they came to attend the circumcision of the child, they wanted to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, “Not so; he shall be called John.”

They said to her, “But no one in your family has that name!” and they asked the father, by means of signs, for the name he wanted to give him. Zechariah asked for a writing tablet, and wrote on it, “His name is John,” and they were very surprised. Immediately Zechariah could speak again, and his first words were in praise of God.

A holy fear came on all in the neighbourhood, and throughout the hill country of Judea the people talked about these events. All who heard of it pondered in their minds, and wondered, “What will this child be?” For they understood that the hand of the Lord was with him.