Twenty-Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Thursday, 22 October 2015 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. John Paul II, Pope (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Popes)

Psalm 1 : 1-2, 3, 4 and 6

Blessed is the one who does not go where the wicked gather, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit where the scoffers sit! Instead, he finds delight in the Law of the Lord and meditates day and night on His commandments.

He is like a tree beside a brook producing its fruit in due season, its leaves never withering. Everything he does is a success.

But it is different with the wicked. They are like chaff driven away by the wind. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous but cuts off the way of the wicked.

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Thursday, 22 October 2015 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. John Paul II, Pope (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Popes)

Romans 6 : 19-23

You see that I speak in a very human way, taking into account that you are not fully mature. There was a time when you let your members be slaves of impurity and disorder, walking in the way of sin; convert them now into servants of righteousness, to the point of becoming holy.

When you were slaves of sin, you did not feel under obligation to righteousness, but what were the fruits of those actions of which you are now ashamed? Such things bring death. Now, however, you have been freed from sin and serve God. You are bearing fruit and growing in holiness, and the result will be life everlasting.

So on one side is Sin : its reward, death; on the other side is God : He gives us, by grace, life everlasting in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

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Wednesday, 21 October 2015 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today’s readings from the Holy Scriptures remind us that we all should refrain and abstain from sinning once again, and we should keep ourselves from doing all the things that will place us all under the dominion of sin once again. For we all have been liberated from sin and from the punishments for our sins, because our Lord Himself have come to save us and by His saving works we have been brought into a new life.

To be under the dominion of sin was like how it was once when we were subjected to the consequences of our sins, the effects of which we still feel even unto this very day. For the consequence of sin is primarily death, the separation we experience from the Lord of all life, that is none other than the Lord our God. By our disobedience and rebellion against His will and His ways, we fell into disgrace and into the abyss of sin.

And while we mankind we created perfect, good and without blemish, and while we would have enjoyed an eternity of grace, blessings, joy and happiness living together with our God in the bliss of Eden, but because of sin, we tasted the first taste of suffering, and of death. Death becomes an integral part of our life, and death claims the life of all the mortal beings like us.

And once, we see no hope beyond death, for death is intended as the punishment for our sinfulness, the consequences we are to suffer, and just as we came from dust, our physical bodies shall not last and return to the dust, and death and hell would claim our souls for eternity. There was once no hope out of this despair, against the darkness that awaits us after the end of our earthly existence.

Yet, God who loves us has given us the new, lasting and eternal hope in Jesus Christ, His Son. Through Him we have the path out of our predicament, the sufferings we are to bear for our sins have been paid in full by the sacrifice of His Blood on the cross, and by sharing and partaking of His Body and Blood, we receive the salvation and life which He had promised us.

This means that we have been freed from the bonds and the tyranny which sin and the devil have imposed on us. We are truly free if we hold tight in the Lord and His promises, and as long as we keep our faith in Him and trust in Him fully. But we can easily fall back into the dominion of sin, if we lapse and fail to hold back our desires and fail to resist the temptations of the evil one, who is constantly trying to pull us back into damnation through sin.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today, through the Gospel passage we heard together, our Lord Jesus Christ wants to remind us that each one of us whom He had brought out of the darkness have become God’s children by adoption through Christ, who is the Son of God and by assuming the form of Man, we too have become the children of God.

And because all of us are God’s children, He who is the Lord and Master over all of creation would entrust us with the care over creation, all the things in this world, and also with the care for one another, from one to his fellow men around him or her. It is by this that we have been appointed as stewards by our Lord, and it is truly up to us, and the choice is fully ours, whether we are to be good and responsible stewards, or whether our choice is to be terrible and wicked stewards.

It is in our human tendency for us to be lazy, slothful and selfish, thinking only about ourselves before anything else. This is why we often end up as the bad and wicked steward, who think that he could have it easy and laid back and rest, while the master is away from the house. In the same way therefore, because we think that God has given us so many opportunities and chances, then we can take it easy and slack, or sin and the Lord will tolerate those sins.

But all of us should know that the coming of the Lord will be truly sudden and unexpected, and if we are caught unprepared, the consequences will be truly fatal. Just as the wicked and lazy servant, our inaction will be our undoing. Shall we take heed of this so that we will not fall into eternal damnation just because we have failed to do something in order to help those who have been entrusted to us.

Let us all make the effort to love each other, guide one another and bring all of us closer to the Lord, by our efforts and actions, by caring for those who have fallen into sin and encourage them to return to the light, and also all those suffering from hunger and poverty, let us all help them in whatever way we can. May Almighty God bless us on our endeavours and keep us His stewards faithful to Him at all times. Amen.

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Wednesday, 21 October 2015 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 12 : 39-48

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples and to the people, “Pay attention to this : If the master of the house had known at what time the thief would come, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect.”

Peter said, “Lord, did You tell this parable only for us, or for everyone?” And the Lord replied, “Imagine, then, the wise and faithful steward, whom the master sets over his other servants to give them wheat at the proper time. Fortunate is this servant if his master on coming home, finds him doing his work. Truly, I say to you, the master will put him in charge of all his property.”

“But it may be that the steward thinks, ‘My Lord delays in coming,’ and he begins to abuse the male servants and the servant girls, eating and drinking and getting drunk. Then the master will come on a day he does not expect, and at an hour he does not know. He will cut him off, and send him to the same fate as the unfaithful.”

“The servant who knew his master’s will, but did not prepare and do what his master wanted, will be soundly beaten; but the one who does unconsciously what deserves punishment, shall receive fewer blows. Much will be required of the one who has been given much, and more will be asked of the one who has been entrusted with more.”

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Wednesday, 21 October 2015 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 123 : 1-3, 4-6, 7-8

Had not the Lord been on our side – let Israel say – had not the Lord been on our side, when people rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us alive; such was their anger against us.

A bit more and the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, the raging waters would have swept us away. Blessed be the Lord, Who did not let us be devoured.

Like a bird our soul escaped from the snare of the fowler; the snare was broken and we were freed. Our help is in the Name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

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Wednesday, 21 October 2015 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Romans 6 : 12-18

Do not allow sin any control over your mortal bodies; do not submit yourselves to its evil inclinations, and do not give your members over to sin, as instruments to do evil. On the contrary, offer yourselves as persons returned from death to life, and let the members of your body be as holy instruments at the service of God.

Sin will not lord it over you again, for you are not under the Law, but under grace. I ask again : are we to sin because we are not under the Law, but under grace? Certainly not. If you have given yourselves up to someone as his slave, you are to obey the one who commands you, are you not? Now with sin you go to death, and by accepting faith you go the right way.

Let us give thanks to God for, after having sin as your master, you have been given to another, that is, to the doctrine of faith, to which you listen willingly. And being free from sin, you began to serve true righteousness.

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Tuesday, 20 October 2015 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are reminded to be ready to receive the Lord our God, our Saviour and Liberator who will come again one day to bring us all who are faithful out of the misery and sufferings of sin, and when He comes again, His coming will be swift and unpredictable, and no one will know or be prepared at His coming, unless all of us take heed of the reminders which we have received through the Scriptures and the Church.

Our Lord came to liberate us from our sins, and from all the taints of our darkened hearts and minds because of those disobediences and rebellions against the will and the love of God. And as the first reading today from the letter of St. Paul to the Church in Rome had stated, that while it was because of one man’s disobedience that all of us mankind had fallen, namely by the acts of the first Adam, it was by the New Adam that we have been saved.

And our Lord Jesus Christ is the New Adam, by Whom and by Whose actions we have been saved and made whole once again. How is this so, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is because of His humanity, which He shares with all of us. He is the Word of God, Divine and Infinitely mighty, powerful and beyond all comprehension, but He was willing to assume our lowly form and the lowliness of our flesh.

Imagine this fact, that God, Master and Lord of the whole universe, Almighty and great, have been willing to confine Himself into the mortal and frail body of a Man, so that by assuming this flesh through the Holy Spirit and by the cooperation of His Blessed mother, Mary, He became the New Adam, the New Man, through Whom God is pleased once again with us mankind, and the past taints of sin can be erased.

By assuming our flesh, and by then giving that life, the flesh and blood voluntarily to the Lord as an offering of sacrifice, God had made one and one only ultimate sacrifice for the sake of all of our sins, the best sin offering. And His petitions were heard because of His total and perfect obedience to God, even in the face of difficulties, challenge, rejection and ridicule upon Him.

While the first Adam was disobedient and while he chose to follow his own desires, listening to Satan instead of his Lord and God, the New Adam, that is Jesus Christ, was fully and perfectly obedient in all things, so that while the first man made sin to enter into the hearts and beings of men, the New Adam, Christ, by sharing with us the salvation which He had brought into this world.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, then what we need to do is that we should look at the examples of Christ, and follow Him in all these. He was obedient in following the will of God His Father, even unto suffering and grieving under the pressure and the burden of the combined might of our sins. Even during the time of the agony in the garden, Jesus was tempted to abandon His ministry, and yet, in the end, His commitment and obedience are too strong for even the devil to manipulate.

Why is this so? It is because of His great and infinite love which He freely gives to all of us. It is His love, care and concern for each one of us that had made Him to be willing to sacrifice Himself for the sake of all of us. And by His loving sacrifice on the cross, we have been made whole again, and worthy of God’s grace and salvation. By His resurrection He had promised us all to be free from the snares of death because of our sins, and in Him we all have hope.

And this hope which He has given us is that, He will come again to collect and gather all those who have shown their faith to Him, and He will gather all of them from among the nations and from the whole world, so that we can be saved and receive the fullness of His blessings and the eternal life He had promised all of us. And yet, many of us are not ready and many of us slack in our lives and actions.

We always think that we still have the time and opportunity to do good in our lives, and many of us also think that we can still enjoy ourselves and take our own sweet time in living up to the faith which we profess. However, the reality is that, the Lord may come at any time, especially at a time that we least expect. And therefore, let us all be awakened to the need for us to take action in living up our faith in reality, and show our faith through action.

May Almighty God bless us all, and keep us all in His grace, and may He awaken in us the urge to love Him and to devote ourselves to Him. God be with us all, now and forever. Amen.

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Tuesday, 20 October 2015 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 12 : 35-38

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples and to the people, “Be ready, dressed for service, and keep your lamps lit, like people waiting for their master to return from the wedding. As soon as he comes and knocks, they will open the door to him. Happy are those servants whom the master finds wide-awake when he comes.”

“Truly, I tell you, he will put on an apron, and have them sit at table, and he will wait on them. Happy are those servants, if he finds them awake when he comes at midnight or daybreak!”

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Tuesday, 20 October 2015 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 39 : 7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 17

Sacrifice and oblation You did not desire; this You had me understand. Burnt offering and sin offering You do not require. Then I said, “Here I come!”

As the scroll says of me, to do Your will is my delight, o God, for Your Law is within my heart.

In the great assembly I have proclaimed Your saving help. My lips, o Lord, I did not seal – You know that very well.

But may all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; and may all who love Your saving grace continually say, “The Lord is great.”

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Tuesday, 20 October 2015 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Romans 5 : 12, 15b, 17-19, 20b-21

Therefore, sin entered the world through one man and through sin, death, and later on death spread to all humankind, because all sinned. All died because of the fault of one man, but how much more does the grace of God spread when the gift He granted reaches all, from this unique Man Jesus Christ.

If death reigned through the disobedience of one and only one person, how much more will there be a reign of life for those who receive the grace and the gift of true righteousness through the One person, Jesus Christ. Just as one transgression brought sentence of death to all, so, too, One Man’s good act has brought justification and light to all; and as the disobedience of only one made all sinners, so the obedience of One person allowed all to be made just and holy.

But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, and as sin caused death to reign, so grace will reign in its own time, and after making us just and friends of God, will bring us to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.