Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Monday, 7 September 2015 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the salvation which God had brought upon us all mankind, and how He healed us from our afflictions, the sickness and the shackles of sin, which He cast away from us and brought us to freedom with Him. In the first reading, St. Paul in his epistle and letter to the Church and the faithful in the city of Colossae reminded them about the Lord who revealed the truth about His salvation through Jesus Christ, His Son.

God can just abandon all of us and leave us all to be destroyed by our own foolishness, by our own disobedience and sins. Instead, He chose to reveal to us His infinite and everlasting mercy, through which He had brought is out of our misery and despair, from our fate of annihilation and suffering, into the new assurance and certainty of His love, and the everlasting life He had promised to all those who keep their faith in Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in the Gospel today, this message is reiterated even more strongly, as we can hear how Jesus healed the paralytic man’s hand and made it whole and healthy again. And the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law tried to use that opportunity to find fault with Jesus, to criticise Him, to accuse Him and eventually to bring Him down and remove the One whom they have considered as a rival to their teaching authority.

In this alone, we can see how we behave in our own lives with regards to sin and with regards to God’s loving offer of mercy and forgiveness. Whenever we sin, we often act like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who refused to listen to God, and preferred to listen to their own heart’s desires, and closed themselves up against the Lord.

They acted high and mighty, appearing to be pious and also zealous guardians of the faith and the Law of God, criticising and condemning all those who did not follow the tenets and words of the Law as they prescribed. And they thought of themselves as righteous and just, as arbiters of God’s law among men. But they themselves had not acted and done things in the way the Lord had wanted them.

How many of us when we were accused to be wrong, or found ourselves to be in the wrong, went forth and tried to place the blame on others instead? Instead of trying to look at and contemplate our own faults and mistakes, we tried to come up with reasons to cover up our faults. We do not want to be blamed for something, worst of all is if the mistake is our own mistake.

But that is exactly what the problem is. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were too adamant that they were righteous and without fault, and they were unable to comprehend that the problem lies with them, the pride that is in their hearts and minds, the hubris which prevented them from seeing the truth about their own sin. Just as Jesus spoke about this in another parable, when He rebuked the Pharisees also for not being able to see their own faults while pointing out the faults of others, likening it to those who could see a splinter in the eye of another and yet a plank in their own eyes, they could not see it.

If we want to be forgiven, then all of us ought to be sincere and make the effort to seek the Lord and love Him with all of our hearts. God will see our love and devotion, and He who is loving and merciful will show His tender mercy upon us. But we have to really look deep into ourselves and discern what is the problem that we have with us.

Let us all seek to be forgiven for all of our faults, and let us all commit ourselves to changing our lives for the better. Let us all walk in the path of our Lord and be righteous in all things. May Almighty God, our Father, bless us all and keep us all in His grace and love. May He heal us from our afflictions and help us to remain always humble and dedicated to Him, that we may be able to help one another to repent our sins and find our way to the Lord. Amen.

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Monday, 7 September 2015 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 6 : 6-11

At that time, on another Sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and began teaching. There was a man with a paralysed right hand, and the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees watched Him : Would Jesus heal the man on the Sabbath? If He did, they could accuse Him.

But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to the man, “Get up, and stand in the middle.” Then He spoke to them, “I want to ask you : what is allowed by the Law on the Sabbath? To do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” And Jesus looked around at them all.

Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored, becoming as healthy as the other. But they were furious and began to discuss with one another how they could deal with Jesus.

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Monday, 7 September 2015 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 61 : 6-7, 9

Find rest in God alone, o my soul; from Him comes my hope. He alone is my rock and my salvation; with Him as my stronghold, I shall not be overcome.

Trust in Him at all times, my people; pour out your hearts before Him; God is our refuge.

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Monday, 7 September 2015 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Colossians 1 : 24 – Colossians 2 : 3

At present I rejoice when I suffer for you; I complete in my own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His Body, which is the Church. For I am serving the Church since God entrusted to me the ministry to make the word of God fully known. I mean that mysterious plan that for centuries and generations remained secret, and which God has now revealed to His holy ones.

God willed to make known to them the riches and even the Glory that His mysterious plan reserved for the pagan nations : Christ is in you and you may hope God’s Glory. This Christ we preach. We warn and teach everyone true wisdom, aiming to make everyone perfect in Christ. For this cause I labour and struggle with the energy of Christ working powerfully in me.

I want you to know how I strive for you, for those of Laodicea and for so many who have not met me personally. I pray that all may be encouraged. May you be established in love, that you may obtain all the riches of a full understanding and know the mystery of God, Christ Himself. For in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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Sunday, 6 September 2015 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard how God had showed forth His love, care and concern for all of us mankind, by the sending of His Son Jesus into the world, as the real, concrete and perfect manifestation of His love. We heard about God who opened the eyes of the blind, who made lame people and paralysed people to be able to move and walk properly again, and God who made the mute speak and the deaf hear again.

Throughout the Bible, in the Old Testament, and especially in the Gospels, we heard how Jesus performed many miracles healing those who were sick, allowing the blind to see once again, the deaf to hear again, the lame to jump with joy and walk again, and eventually, all these aside, as we all should know, He healed us all from the one affliction that is most dangerous of all of them, that is sin.

For while the diseases and sicknesses of the flesh affect only the flesh, our bodies without harming the mind, the heart and the soul, sin affects everything, both in our bodies, in our heart, mind and soul. And the corruptions that sin caused made us all dirty and unworthy to be in the presence of our Lord, because of all the wickedness that tainted our souls, once pure and immaculate, but because of sin, we all have been afflicted.

And this affliction had affected mankind since the beginning of time, ever since mankind first sinned before the Lord, by disobeying what He had taught us and told us, and preferring to walk in our own path and satisfying our own selfish desires. Satan tempted mankind by playing to our desires and our heart’s wishes and wants, pretending to help us and be good to us, but in reality, he wished for our downfall together with him, that in our disobedience we will also be cast out the love of God just as Satan himself had been cast out.

But God did not create mankind just for nothing or without good reason. God Himself is perfect and all good, and He has no need for anything else save Himself. And in the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God is united in His Three Divine Persons, in the perfect union of love and harmony, and He truly has no need for anything else. But in that love, He wanted to share the love He has, and thus He created all of us.

And we have to realise how special we are for the Lord. Nothing else in creation was created in the same way we have been created. We were created in the very image of the living God Himself, and our countenance is the image of God personified in each one of us. And God breathed His Spirit into each one of us, that through the Spirit of God we may have life, and no longer be dust where we came from.

But sin and disobedience had sundered us from all the goodness and the life which God had intended for us. In our greed and desire, we fail to look beyond them to find the true meaning of life, that is to be together with the Lord our God in perfect harmony, and instead we would rather listen to the devil and his lies, as he knows the vulnerabilities of our mortal bodies and hearts.

He got us right in our innocence, trying to persuade us that if we just let go of what the Lord had forbidden us to do, and eat of the fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then we would become like God. Indeed, we were made in the image of God, and His Spirit of life is inside us, but we are like a clean slate, ready to be filled with the love of God, and with God we would have lived forever in perfect harmony and goodness, not knowing any evil, for all that God created was good.

Instead, because of our disobedience, we were tainted with sin, and when we know about the evil we have done, we became ashamed and felt guilty, and we hid from the Lord. Is this not the exact same things as what we often normally do? Whenever we sin, did we not hide in shame for our sins and even pretend as if nothing had happened because we feared the repercussions, or that we were too proud to admit that we were wrong?

We flee away from the Lord out of fear and out of shame, and often, as mentioned, out of pride and hubris. We certainly would like to think that the Lord must have been disgusted by our actions and by our wickedness, but this certainly is a frequent major misconception of who the Lord is and how He looks upon us, each and every day. He despises our sins and wickedness, but He does not despise us as we are.

This is why He came for us, for our sake, and by His own hands, He brought healing, redemption and salvation to all of us sinners and delinquents, who have rebelled against Him. His love for us is greater than all that, and through His works, He had made us all whole. How is this so, brothers and sisters in Christ? It was by His suffering, every wounds inflicted on His flesh and body, as He was stripped from all dignity on the way to Calvary, that our Lord had saved us.

He was willing to suffer for the consequences of our sins and faults, which should have been ours, because of the love He had for us. He created us all out of love, and His desire for us is to share together in His everlasting peace, harmony and joy, and not suffering, pain, death and despair which had been part and parcel of our lives ever since we succumbed to the forces of sin.

To that extent He is willing to come to us and heal us from our sickness. He came to seek those who are sick from the diseases and plagues that afflicted us, primarily of which is our sin. For while bodily sickness and diseases cannot affect beyond our flesh, but sin affects everything. If we continue to dwell and live in sin, then we would risk ourselves to fall into hell, that is the suffering for eternity of not being able to enjoy God’s love and grace anymore, because we are unworthy due to our sins.

God wants us to be saved, brothers and sisters in Christ. He wants to touch us, comfort us and bring us to rest, rest from all the depredations and troubles of sin that we have had thus far. He desires our salvation and freedom from our affliction of sin, and that was what He has done. Whenever we look upon the crucifix and see the Lord Jesus crucified, we see the ultimate love which God shows us all.

Then, ultimately we have to ask ourselves, what have we done to make ourselves worthy of God’s love and mercy? God forgives freely and His mercy is freely available to all, but it depends on us in the end, whether we are willing and are capable of committing ourselves to the Lord’s mercy. We have to remember that when we are sick, we want to find a doctor that we can be healed and return to good health. Should it not be the same for our spiritual health?

Do we seek the Lord for forgiveness, and are we sincere in our desire to be forgiven? Do we make the effort to abandon our past sinfulness and live no longer in sin but in the light of God? If our answers to all these questions are yes, then that means we are ready and prime to receive God’s forgiveness, and then receive the fullness of His grace and love. If our answers are not, then we have a long way to go before us.

Shall we take the concrete step towards salvation in God? God offers us so many good things, and yet mankind, either fearful or prideful, failed to understand His love for them. May Almighty God, our loving God and Master, our loving and merciful Father help us all to understand His love and mercy, so that we may take the necessary steps to be forgiven of our numerous and myriads of sins. May all of us be healed and be made whole, and may our mouth filled with sinful words, hands tainted by wickedness be made clean and whole. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 6 September 2015 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 31-37

At that time, again Jesus set out : from the country of Tyre He passed through Sidon and, skirting the sea of Galilee, He came to the territory of Decapolis. There a deaf man, who also had difficulty in speaking, was brought to Him. They asked Jesus to lay His hand upon him.

Jesus took him apart from the crowd, put His fingers into the man’s ears, and touched his tongue with spittle. Then, looking up to heaven, He groaned and said to him, “Ephphata!” that is, “Be opened!”

And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak clearly. Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone about it, but the more He insisted, the more they proclaimed it. The people were completely astonished and said, “He has done all things well; He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.”

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Sunday, 6 September 2015 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

James 2 : 1-5

My brothers and sisters, if you truly believe in our glorified Lord, Jesus Christ, you will not discriminate between persons. Suppose a person enters the synagogue where you are assembled, dressed magnificently and wearing a gold ring; at the same time, a poor person enters dressed in rags.

If you focus your attention on the well-dressed and say, “Come and sit in the best seat,” while to the poor one you say, “Stay standing or else sit down at my feet,” have you not, in fact, made a distinction between the two? Have you not judged, using a double standard?

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters, did God not choose the poor of this world to receive the riches of faith and to inherit the kingdom which He has promised to those who love Him?

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Sunday, 6 September 2015 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 145 : 6c-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10

The Lord is forever faithful; He gives justice to the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free.

The Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord straightens the bent. The Lord protects the stranger.

He sustains the widow and the orphan. The Lord loves the virtuous, but He brings to ruin the way of the wicked. The Lord will reign forever, your God, o Zion, from generation to generation. Alleluia!

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Sunday, 6 September 2015 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Isaiah 35 : 4-7a

Say to those who are afraid : “Have courage, do not fear. See, your God comes, demanding justice. He is the God who rewards, the God who comes to save you.”

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unsealed. Then will the lame leap as a hart and the tongue of the dumb sing and shout. For water will break out in the wilderness and streams gush forth from the desert. The thirsty ground will become a pool, the arid land springs of water.

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Saturday, 13 September 2014 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast of a great saint of the Church, one of the Four Great Doctors of the Church, and one of the most brilliant minds ever to come from the Church in the Eastern parts of the Roman Empire at the time. St. John Chrysostom is this saint, who was the Archbishop of the great See of Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire during the early fifth century after the birth of Christ.

St. John Chrysostom was born from a relatively unknown parentage, and it was disputed whether his mother was a pagan or a Christian. In any case, St. John Chrysostom was baptised when he entered adulthood, and it was discovered that he had a great intellectual mind, and he easily went through his studies of literature and philosophy.

However, as time progressed, St. John Chrysostom turned more and more towards the Lord and dedicated his life to His service. His sermons and speeches were greatly influential and inspirational, based on the deep understanding and comprehension of the Gospels and the fundamentals of faith, through which he gained his title of Chrysostomus, which literally means ‘golden-mouthed’.

St. John Chrysostom preached in many parts of the Empire, and in one occasion his sincere and passionated plea to the pagans who were accused of the defilement of the statues of the Emperor in the city of Antioch brought thousands and more to see the error of their ways, and thus, they were received into the Church and was spared both the punishment and persecution by the Emperor, and even more importantly, they evaded the punishment and destruction of the soul by receiving the salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Even after St. John Chrysostom had been appointed as the Archbishop of Constantinople, one of the most prominent position in the Church, in fact just second after the Pope in Rome himself, St. John Chrysostom remained humble and dedicated in his service to the people of God, the sheep entrusted to him. St. John Chrysostom rejected the extravagant and lavish ways of the society at the time and pushed for a true Christian community founded on love.

He did not fear even to oppose the mighty and the powerful. When the Empress Aelia Eudoxia lived extravagantly, he greatly criticised her for her way of life and actions. Together with his enemies, the Empress plotted together and managed to cast St. John Chrysostom into exile, which would indeed have ended his works for the Church, but the people of God were incensed, and divine wrath itself soon manifested in a great earthquake and fire that devastated many parts of the capital.

But even after St. John Chrysostom was recalled back to his mission in the Church, the Empress continued to defy the way of the Lord, as she continued to live extravagantly and even installed a silver statue of herself near the cathedral of St. John Chrysostom, purposely to provoke him into action. And indeed, St. John Chrysostom denounced the Empress again, and as her punishment, she died during childbirth.

But St. John Chrysostom continued to suffer as his enemies continued to plot against him and persecuted him. He was sent again into exile and died before he was able to return to shepherd his sheep again at Constantinople. Nevertheless, his legacies lasted long after him, even until today. He was credited for his many works and sermons that inspired many of the faithful and even many saints who came after him.

And his works also resulted in one of the rites used in the Eastern Church even until today, as the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, one of the most solemn liturgical rites of the Church, designed solely for the glorification of the Lord. Thus, this holy man and servant of God is the one whose life and actions we celebrate on this day as we gather together.

How is this related to the readings of the day? Very much related indeed. This is because as Jesus said in the Gospel, that good fruits can only be produced by good and healthy trees, vice versa. Bad and rotten trees can only produce bad and rotten fruits. Thus, St. John Chrysostom, that good tree, produce only good fruits for the benefits of the faithful. Similarly this is also the case for the other saints, the holy servants of God.

And he listened to the word of God intently, placing them into the depths of his heart, and most importantly, he acted on them, and from there brought about much good for the Church and for the faithful ones in the Lord. Thus, his actions were the representation of the man who built his house on solid rock foundation, and therefore had no need to fear the storms or any forces arrayed against it.

On the other hand, those who refused to listen to the word of God were like those who built their houses on unstable ground, on weak foundations that are easily swept away by winds and waves, and therefore representing the actions of the wicked ones opposed to the works of St. John Chrysostom, namely the Empress and his rivals, who were engrossed so much in the ways of the Lord, that they failed to even see that what they were doing was their own undoing.

And St. Paul in his letter to the faithful in the city of Corinth clearly and zealously stated that we who are faithful ought not to have any share in the communion with demons, that is with Satan and his allies, the forces of darkness in the world. Instead, we who are the children of God should be like St. John Chrysostom, in how he worked hard with zeal to bring the word of God to many of God’s people so that they may achieve salvation.

How do we know if we have made a communion with the Lord or with the evil one? It is basic and simple indeed. We have to first be aware that all of us who are in the Church of God are part of one Body, that is the Body of Christ, which is the union of all who shared in the Body and Blood of Christ, who had worthily become part of the Body of Christ, Christ is in them and they are in the Lord. It is inconceivable that a part of the Body of Christ should be flawed with the darkness of evil.

Thus if we commit evil, just as what those people mentioned earlier had done, in preserving their own vanity, concerned only for their own prosperity and in slandering others, worse that is to even put an obstacle on the works of the servant of God. In doing these evils, they committed sin before the Lord, and therefore entered into communion with the devil. For the devil too, rebelled against the Lord because of his pride and vanity.

Therefore, as we are part of the Church of God, and we have become the children of God, let us all realise that all of us must act therefore as how a child of God should behave. Listen to the Lord, work on what we believe in and practice our faith in our lives. Love one another and love the Lord just as much as we love ourselves. If we do all these, we will be surely be granted favour by the Lord.

May Almighty God therefore grant us His grace, that He may empower us to live according to what St. John Chrysostom had once done. Let us all treasure this communion we share with one another, the communion and unity as the one Body of Christ, those who have received the Most Precious Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Keep us, Lord, on the path towards salvation, and let us not to fall into evil. Amen.