understanding the faith

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Saturday, 17 February 2018 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the messages of the Scripture, reminding us of the need for conversion and change of heart, especially in this blessed and holy season of Lent, during which time we take the opportunity to reflect on our lives and actions. It is a time for us to contemplate on what we have gone through this far in our lives on our journey towards full reconciliation and returning to God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the essence of the words of the Scripture which we have heard today is the fact that we mankind have disobeyed the Lord, Our God, and by that disobedience, we have fallen into sin. But we must not be discouraged, because God is our loving Father, Who knows all that need to be done in order for us to be reconciled with Him in perfect and new love.

In the Gospel passage today, we heard about the moment when the Lord called one of His disciples from among the tax collectors, a man named Levi, who answered the Lord’s call and followed Him, leaving everything behind and became Christ’s disciple. He discarded all that was his, and took for himself a greater possession in becoming one who followed and obeyed the Lord, eventually known as St. Matthew, the Apostle and one of the Four Evangelists.

At that time, tax collectors did not have a good standing in the society. In fact, they were reviled and hated because of their role in collecting taxes on behalf of the Roman rulers and governors who took over the rulership over the Jews and the people of Israel at that time. And as the taxations were heavy and became burdens for the people, they hated the taxes and by extension, those who worked to collect the taxes for the Romans.

Hence, the tax collectors were often considered as sinners and people unworthy of the Lord’s grace. They were often looked down by the society, particularly the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who had high esteem and view of themselves in the matters of piety and faith. To the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, they alone had the most perfect observance and obedience to the laws of Moses, and therefore, others had to respect them and obey their teaching authority.

Yet, they failed to see that they themselves were sinners in need of God’s mercy. In all of their supposed righteousness and external forms of piety, they did them not for the glorification of God or because they truly loved God, instead, they loved themselves and wanted to look good before the people. They failed to see that God did not desire their sacrifices and prayers, but their total commitment and desire to repent instead.

The tax collectors readily welcomed the Lord Jesus into their midst, as He sat down at Levi’s house for a meal with them. They listened to His teachings and believed in Him, something that the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law refused to do. In that sense, the tax collectors were much further ahead than the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law on their way towards salvation in God.

In the same Gospel passage today, the Lord made it clear to all of us that He is seeking for the conversion and healing of sinners. That is because ultimately we cannot forget the very important fact that God loves every single one of us, all those whom He had created and to whom He had given the grace of life. He does not discriminate between any one of us, and all of us are equally important to him, from the greatest among us to the poorest and to the least.

And because of sin, due to our disobedience and refusal to walk in His ways, we have fallen away from God’s grace and became separated from Him. Our fate would have been eternal damnation and disgrace in hell, in the eternal fire, because that is what our sins would have merited us. But God had mercy on us, because He did love us greatly, and would not have wanted us to fall into such a terrible fate.

That is why He went all the way to save us, sparing nothing less than the very best effort to help and rescue us from our predicament. He gave us His own Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour, through Whose death on the cross, we receive the ultimate healing and reconciliation. He Who is sinless and without fault had willingly embraced punishment and suffering in our place, so that all of us may have a new hope in Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord offers us this healing and reconciliation freely and generously. However, the question is, are we willing to take up the offer of forgiveness and love which He has presented to us? Many of us refuse to repent from our sins, and we continue to live in a state of sin, preferring to do what is right according to us, but not what is right according to God.

The problem lies with our inability to resist the temptations of our human pride, our refusal to listen to advice and feedback, because we think that we are always right. And we find it hard to turn to the Lord, because the devil is always active, trying to persuade us, to bring us into a lull, to tempt us, and even to force us to do what is sinful and wicked in the sight of God. And unless we put a strong and conscious effort to resist those temptations, and desire to repent from our sins, we may fail in our endeavour of faith.

Today the Church commemorates the memory of the seven holy saints who were the founders of the religious order of the Servites, formally known as the Order of Friar Servants of Mary. These seven holy and devout men were remembered for their commitment to God, having been cloth merchants of the city of Florence during the Middle Ages era of what is now Italy, being very rich and influential, and yet, voluntarily chose to leave everything they had behind in order to serve the Lord.

They lived a life of poverty and also penance, filled with prayers and devotions, works of charity among the poor and the underprivileged. Through hard work, persistence and perseverance, they inspired many others to follow in their footsteps and lead a life of holiness and purity, no longer chained by the sins of their past. They devoted their time, effort and attention to the Lord, and did their best to advance His good works among His people.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we should be inspired by the examples of these holy predecessors, who have gone before us to the glory of heaven. We should spend more time in prayer and contemplation before God, especially during this time of Lent, when we are called to a renewed relationship and connection with God. Let us allow the Lord to speak to us, in the silence of our hearts, that we may know what His will is for us.

May the Lord be with us always, that throughout our journey of faith during this Lenten season and beyond, we may grow ever stronger in faith, and we may draw closer to God, and eventually find full and complete reconciliation in Him. May God bless us all and all of our endeavours, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Friday, 16 February 2018 : Friday after Ash Wednesday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we focuses on the aspect of fasting and abstinence which we practice during this season of Lent. Now the Law of the Church prescribed that only on two occasions that we are required to fast, that is during Ash Wednesday as well as on Good Friday. Fasting refers to the practice of not eating more than the equivalent of two full meals in a day, which can be one full meal and two smaller meals, also known as collations.

Meanwhile abstinence refers to the practice of not eating meat and meat products, and instead, fishes and seafood are usually consumed. Both practices had their roots in the Scripture, with fasting as a common practice in the past for those who would like to purify themselves to be ready to meet up with God or to undertake important and holy tasks, in order to prepare themselves wholeheartedly. The Lord Jesus Himself fasted for forty days and forty nights before He began His ministry.

Then, abstinence is a practice linked to the moment when the Lord Jesus was crucified, sacrificing Himself and His Body and flesh for us on the cross, and as the word ‘flesh’ in Latin is the same as used for meat, thus, Christians practiced this abstinence from meat on Fridays, not just during Lent, but in fact throughout the whole year, as Friday marks the day when Good Friday happened, the day of Our Lord’s crucifixion and death on the cross.

It is important that we truly understand the reason why we fast and why we abstain from meat. In fact, abstinence itself is not restricted to the no consumption of meat alone, but can include any other things, pleasures and indulgences that we have, which we want to restrain in order to prepare ourselves better spiritually, mentally and physically, especially in this season of Lent, as we prepare for the coming of Holy Week and Easter.

Otherwise, we will end up being hypocrites in our faith, just as the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done. The Lord rebuked them because they fasted in order to be seen by others as being pious and obedient to the Law, and they made a lot of fuss over many external observances of the laws of God, not just in the matter of fasting but also over prayer and other forms of piety, so that all those who saw them might praise them and honour them for what they had done.

Yet, their actions represent exactly what the prophet Isaiah had said in his preachings, which we heard in our first reading today. The prophet Isaiah condemned and rebuked all those who fasted and practiced their faith, and yet at the same time, committing things and actions which were contrary to the Law, such as lying, stealing and cheating on others, and even causing pain and sorrow to those whom they persecuted.

That was what the Pharisees had done, claiming to be pious through their actions and yet, they did their actions for the wrong reasons, seeking self-glorification and to satisfy personal ambitions and greed instead of for the greater glory of God as they should have done. It can be the same for us as well, when we do not practice our faith with the right actions and for the right reasons, even our fasting and abstaining during this season of Lent.

When we fast, do we do it because we truly love the Lord Our God so much, that we want to be rid of our sins and all of the wickedness inside each one of us by the practice of fasting, which restrains our desire and the temptations of our flesh, resulting in greater resilience and endurance in our faith? Or do we do it, because we want to be recognised by others as being pious and devout?

Do we abstain because we want to resist the temptations of our flesh or because we want to show off our piety for others? It is important that we think this thoroughly, as the actions we take without the right reasons will end up causing us to lose the true intention of what we are doing in this season of Lent. Are we doing our Lenten practices correctly so as to make our Lenten experience more meaningful?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, let us reflect on our respective lives, and think of how we can better commemorate this season of Lent, by living a life with a deeper commitment to prayer, spending more quality time with Our Lord, and through our closer relationship with Him, we may draw ever closer to God’s love and grace. And when we fast and abstain, let us, if we have not done so, do them with the right reason and intention.

Let us restrain our human emotions, all the greed, the jealousy, the pride, the ambition, the anger, the hatred and all the negativities present in our lives, through our pious actions and devotions, especially in this blessed season of Lent. May the Lord be with us in our journey of faith, committing ourselves ever more devoutly to the Lord, and that we may find eternal life, glory and joy with Him at the end of our journey. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 15 February 2018 : Thursday after Ash Wednesday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the readings first of all from the Book of Deuteronomy, in which we heard how Moses told the people of Israel during their Exodus from Egypt, the choices that they had, either that they choose to do what is good in accordance to God’s laws and ways, or whether they would rather choose to disobey Him and do things in contrary to His teachings.

What the readings mentioned was that, each of us mankind have been given the free will by God, to choose freely and consciously between God and His blessings, or the devil and his curses. We are given this choice in our own respective lives, and we must make a stand on which way we are to choose in our path forward. We cannot be lukewarm or be indecisive in this matter.

In the Gospel today, the Lord Jesus reiterated once again this choice that we have before us, as He plainly stated before His disciples, that He would be rejected, as the Son of Man condemned to suffer and to die on the cross. That means the disciples themselves would encounter the same rejection and persecution which their Lord and Master has once faced, should they continue to serve Him and to be faithful to Him.

The Lord mentioned that all those who followed Him must be ready to pick up their crosses, following the Lord and walking with Him with those crosses born upon their shoulders. What the Lord mentioned here does not mean that we are to literally shoulder the burden of the physical wooden cross which the Lord had carried all the way from Jerusalem to Calvary, and neither does it mean that we bear the crosses of our sins, as all of our sins have been taken up by the Lord Himself, Who died for us on the cross to redeem us from our sins.

He wanted us to realise that we must be ready to face the consequences should we choose to devote ourselves, our time and attention on the Lord. We cannot expect that becoming Christians and obeying God’s will then allow us to live our lives comfortably without any issues or problems. That is how some of us misunderstood the true essence of being Christians, that is to be ready to be counter-cultural and counter-norm, as the ways of Our Lord are not like those of the world, and what the world approves, may not be what is approved by the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, some of us worry that our crosses are burdens that are too difficult for us to bear, and that is why we tend to be lukewarm with our faith and refuse to stand up for our faith. But do you know that if we carry up our crosses faithfully, the Lord Himself will be with us and He will help us along the way throughout our journey? We are never alone, as God will always be with us.

The way forward for us is not going to be an easy one, and there will be moments when we may be seriously tempted to give up our journey and effort. The devil himself is always active trying to prevent us from finding our way to God, by alluring us to a different pathway, one that seems to be more promising, easier and less inconvenient for us. But we must not be short-sighted and focused only on what is present at the moment.

Ultimately, in God alone we can find true consolation and support. This is because if we choose the seemingly easier path shown to us by the devil, while we may have an easier time in our respective lives, but in the end, because we have not chosen Him, God will reject us and what awaits us will only be eternal damnation and suffering in hell. Rather than this, we should shoulder on and persevere in the path shown to us by the Lord, which may be filled with obstacles, but one in which we may hope because in the end of the day, God will always be faithful to the promises which He made with us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all carry our crosses in life, being ready to accept whatever challenges that the world may throw at us as faithful disciples and followers of the Lord. Let us welcome the Lord into our hearts, especially in this season of Lent, during which we are called to a deeper understanding of ourselves, by means of reflection, prayer, fasting and abstinence.

Let us allow the Lord to enter into our hearts that He may transform our whole being, that we will draw ever closer to His righteous and generous love. Let us be more loving and compassionate beginning from this time of Lent, a time for renewal and spiritual refocusing, for us to draw closer to God, carrying our crosses and journeying together with Him. Let us remember that He will not abandon us, but instead, He will continue to love us and show us His generous mercy.

May the Lord be our source of courage and strength, as we continue to progress through this season of Lent, growing stronger in faith and in love. May we draw ever closer to God, and deepening our faith in Him, may we live ever more attuned to the ways that He has shown us. Let us willingly come to the Lord, seeking for His forgiveness and be reconciled completely with Him in love. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Wednesday, 14 February 2018 : Ash Wednesday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we mark the beginning of the forty days of the season of Lent. On this Ash Wednesday, as we celebrate it every year, blessed ashes are imposed on the foreheads or heads of the faithful, reminding them of the penitential nature of this season. The time of Lent is a time of preparation for us to prepare ourselves in our hearts, minds and our whole being for the upcoming celebration of the mysteries of the Holy Week and Easter.

Ash Wednesday mark the beginning of this wonderful season and time, a time to turn inwards into ourselves and reflect about our lives, our actions and deeds thus far, whether everything has been going on well and whether we are in good standing with God, or whether we have lapsed and fallen along the way, due to the temptations we face in life, and due to our inability to resist the allures of the devil who is constantly trying to undermine us and drag us into sin.

On this day, the ashes are imposed on our heads with the words uttered by the priest, ‘Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.’ These words remind each and every one of us that we are mortals and mere creation, and that we were created from dust and had the breath of life given to us by God, as mentioned in the Book of Genesis. Without God we are nothing, and without His love and grace, our existence is empty and meaningless.

Yet, many of us have forgotten about God and His love for us, and instead, we were busy with our many concerns and pursuits in this world. We spent most of our time trying to earn ourselves more money, more prestige, more worldly goods, praise from others, more pleasure and other things that led to our further slide deeper and deeper into sin.

Many of us are also too proud to admit that we have been wrong and mistaken, sinful and unworthy. We think that nothing can go wrong in our own lives, and that we are in control of everything we do. We think that we are the masters of our own lives and everything have to go in accordance to what we desire it to be, and when things do not go according to our desire, we end up becoming angry, jealous and negative.

In the world we live in today, we are inundated and often overwhelmed from every possible sources with the subliminal and often hidden messages, which are the ways that the devil tempt us with, of the materialistic and hedonistic way of life many of us are familiar with. We are presented with a way of life centred on our very selves, on the ‘I’ and ‘Me’ at the main focus, and we are conditioned to be selfish, to put our needs and desires ahead of others.

But let us ask ourselves, what does gaining more power, more wealth, more glory in this world, more prestige and status and all the other things we often desire in our lives can do to us? Can all these things last forever? Can all of them withstand the test of time, fire and all other things that often cause us sorrow because they can destroy all these things we deem to be precious to us?

Can any of those things I mentioned extend our life in this world for even a single second, or even a small fraction of a second? No! None of these will come to any use when the time appointed by the Lord for each and every one of us come upon us, the time of our death. That is the fact and reality which all of us must understand and be aware of, that all man must die. Death is the only certainty in life, and nothing else is less certain than the time of death.

That is why beginning from this Ash Wednesday and throughout the season of Lent, we are all invited to take a break from our daily schedules, business and all the things that have preoccupied us all these while. Year after year, the season of Lent represent a time for us to prepare ourselves, in mind, heart and body, to be able to celebrate the most important mysteries and aspects of our faith with proper disposition and understanding.

We must realise that we are mere mortals, and we will one day die, and we have to face this fact. Many of us are in fact obsessed and desiring to find ways to prevent death, or at least postpone the onset of death. We spent many hours and much money trying to find ways to keep ourselves healthy and looking young, some even resorting to medicines and physical surgeries and modifications, in order to make ourselves look younger and healthier, but how do all these things benefit us?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as I have mentioned earlier, our existence and life has no meaning without God, for it is God Who gave us our life, the breath of life He has given to each one of us. And just as He has freely given this life to each one of us, He is also free to take back the life at the time of His choosing, and it is not for us to decide when we are to die. Today, we all receive the ashes on our foreheads as reminders for our mortality and our sins.

For sin has corrupted us all, as the disease that is slowly consuming us from within. Sin is caused by our disobedience and refusal to follow the Lord’s will, and instead, following our own desires and wants, we rebelled against God and sin entered into our hearts. And unless if we do something about our sinful and corrupted state, we will not be allowed to enter into the new life and the eternal glory which God has prepared for us, His people.

We must be purified and cleansed before we are considered worthy of the Lord, and in order to achieve this, we must be willing to repent and turn away from all the sins and wicked things we do in life. Some of us are afraid to do so, because we are afraid that God is angry with us and therefore we hide from Him, and pretend as if everything is going fine. But if we do so, we are only lying to ourselves, and just as He knew about the sins committed by Adam and Eve, who pretended at first not to know anything about what they had done, God Who knows everything also knows every single sins we have committed, from the smallest to the greatest.

God knows that we have sinned, and He is disgusted and angry at all the sins we have committed. But His great love for us is far greater than His anger and disgust at us, and instead of being angry, He is rather more worried about us, on what will happen to us should we continue to walk in our path of sin. He is always ready to give us another chance, to show us the way back to His embrace and to love us once again fully with all of His most loving heart. However, it is us mankind who have always been stubborn and rejected His attempts to reconcile us with Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, as we enter into this sacred and contemplative season of Lent, and as we receive the blessed ashes on our forehead, let us first and foremost recognise that we are sinners and we are in need of help. And there is no one else we can turn to besides the Lord Himself. He is ever ready to welcome us back and to love us back fully as He had done before, but are we willing to open ourselves to accept His free offering of love and forgiveness?

During this season of Lent, we practice fasting and abstinence, as ways for us to restrain our human desires and to open ourselves to contemplation and direct our thoughts towards the Lord. However, when we fast and abstain from certain pleasures in life, we must also keep in mind that we must do them with the right reason in mind, or else, as mentioned in the Gospel today, we will end up falling back into sin. Do not fast or abstain for the sake of being praised by others, but rather because we want to return to God’s loving embrace.

Let us all then renew our faith in God, and commit ourselves to a new life, turning away from all the past sins we have committed, discarding from ourselves, the anger, the jealousy, the greed, the worldly desires and all that have thus far been obstacles in our journey back towards the Lord. May this time of Lent be a turning point in our lives, that we may reorientate ourselves towards God, to He Who loves us and reconcile ourselves with Him. May God be with us always, throughout this journey of faith. Amen.

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Tuesday, 13 February 2018 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as today marks the last day in the season of the Ordinary Time prior to the season of Lent, in which we prepare ourselves in our heart, mind, body and soul to celebrate the most important occasions in our faith during the Holy Week and Easter, let us make use of the Scripture readings we heard today as reminders for us how we should live a good Christian life.

In the first reading today, taken from the Epistle written by St. James the Apostle, we heard his exhortation to the faithful reminding them to be careful of the temptations that came about with their evil desires, and how they ought to guard themselves against such desires or else they would fall onto sin. He also reminded them that in God alone can be found all things that are good, while if we depend on ourselves, it is likely that we will end up falling into temptation.

In the Gospel passage we heard today, Jesus warned His disciples in the same manner, by telling them to be careful of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod. Why did He mentioned these two people with such a tone? Yeast at that time according to the Lord, has two connotations. One as used in the parable of the kingdom of God, mentioned as yeast hidden within three measures of flour allowing the whole mixture to rise, represents the gifts of God given to us.

The other connotation refers to the impurities and wickedness that causes corruption of the whole being, as when yeast is added to unleavened bread, it rises and becomes leavened. In the Book of Exodus, during the time just before Israel left Egypt for the Promised Land, they were all told not to leaven their bread, and they were to eat only unleavened bread for a period of two weeks.

It is likely the second and latter mentioned connotation is in force for this case. The Pharisees and the mention of Herod represent the two extremes which Jesus was unhappy against. The Pharisees represent the extreme and puritanical observances of the laws of Moses, who enforced a strict adherence to those laws among the people, and they did not hesitate to strike at those whom they deemed to have violated the laws.

But Jesus rebuked them because most of them were hypocrites, who did all that they did because they were concerned with their own prestige and image in the society, their influence and teaching authority, and not because they wanted the people of God to follow the right path. They did not make the people to follow the right ways and misled the people into sin.

On the other hand, the mention of Herod, the king and ruler of the lands of Judea and Galilee referred to the secular leaders and the influential members of the society at the time, which also represent the Sadducees, another group which came to oppose Jesus as the Pharisees had done. These people had also been corrupt in their exercise and assumption of power and responsibility over the people.

The Lord rebuked these groups because they gave in to the temptations of worldly desires, of pride, of greed, of hunger for power and praise, of vanity and many others that led them into sin and disobedience against God. To that extent they also caused great bitterness and difficulties to happen against the Lord and His disciples even as they went about doing God’s works among the people.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through all these we are reminded that we have to resist those same temptations that will surely come our way, or else we will end up doing things in contrary to what the Lord had taught us to do, and therefore we end up falling into sin. Let us all strive to be better Christians by practicing what we believe in our daily work and actions, following the examples of the Lord Jesus Himself, Who loved His people, and as mentioned in today’s Gospel, fed them when they were hungry.

May the Lord strengthen each and every one of us in our faith, and may we make the best use of the Lenten season which begins with Ash Wednesday tomorrow. May all of us come to greater realisation of our responsibilities and our place in God’s plan of salvation. Let us all go towards God, with hearts open to Him and seeking His love and mercy all the time. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 12 February 2018 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s readings from the Scripture we are reminded of the need to have faith in God, and not just any kind of faith, but a living and genuine faith. From today’s Epistle written by St. James the Apostle, we heard of his exhortation to the faithful at that time, regarding the need to believe in God with focus in Him and not to doubt and falter in their faith.

He mentioned that there would indeed be moments when their faith would be tested, and that doubts would come to their minds and hearts. But it is possible to remain true to our faith in God, since the faith that we have must be based and anchored in God, or else we will easily lose our faith. St. James often reiterated in his Epistle the importance of a living and genuine faith, one that is based on actions and good deeds, and not one that is empty and dead.

In the Gospel passage we heard today, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law doubted Jesus and His teachings, and set out to test Him and ask Him to perform signs and miracles among them. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were among the most well-educated people in the community at that time, and they were well-versed in the Scriptures and matters of the Law. Yet, why was it that they opposed the Lord and His good works?

That is because, they put their trust in their own intelligence, understanding and comprehension of the teachings of the Law. They did not allow other forms of interpretation and understanding of the laws and rules, and hence, saw what the Lord Jesus and His disciples had done among the people as serious threats to their own teaching authority and prestige in the society.

As such, they opposed Him and His disciples, and they made it very difficult for Him at every available opportunity, trying to test Him and make any evidence to be against Him, that they might arrest Him and thus remove that dangerous threat to their authority and power. Hence, having closed their hearts and minds to God, no matter what they had seen, all the miracles and signs that the Lord Jesus had performed, they did not believe in Him and refused to believe.

Unfortunately, we mankind are people who are often stubborn and difficult to persuade otherwise, and we tend to follow what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done. And the issue here is exactly because we have our pride and our intelligence, thinking that we are better than everyone else. Everything tends to revolve about ‘Me’ or ‘I’ or ‘We’ and not about ‘you’ or ‘they’ or ‘others’.

That is why if we do all these things, we can never be truly faithful to the Lord, just as St. James mentioned in his Epistle today, how people who do not have true faith and doubt because of their own stubbornness and refusal to believe, will always have two minds and will stumble in the end because of their inability to commit wholeheartedly to the Lord and to His cause.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is not what all of us as Christians should be doing. We should be thinking less about ourselves and more about others. And in order to see that for ourselves, we do not need to look any further than to see what the Lord Jesus Himself had given to us, a sign and proof beyond any worldly signs or proofs the world could have conjured, far beyond what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law could have expected.

He gave Himself up for us, suffering for us, bearing our own mistakes and sins upon Himself, carrying the cross up towards Calvary, and having born all of our trespasses upon Himself, He laid bare everything, dying for us and in the process, gaining for us the way to eternal life and salvation. He showed us the example of a perfect and undying love, of self-sacrifice and genuine care for others. He forgave His enemies, the same Pharisees and teachers of the Law who cried out for His death.

And we as Christians, should do the same in our own lives. Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us from now on, be sowers of the seeds of love, peace, harmony, compassion and care, by doing what we can in our own respective lives, to love one another as best as we can, and showing concern for our brethren in need. We must no longer put ourselves at the forefront of every concerns and thoughts, but instead, learn to let go of our greed and pride, and learn to serve others humbly with love, as the Lord, Our God Himself had done.

May the Lord awaken in each and every one of us a strong and courageous spirit to love, to care and to be good Christians in action, word and spirit. May He continue to bless us and all of our endeavours, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 11 February 2018 : Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we commemorate the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, the Marian apparition to St. Bernadette Soubirous in what is now famous as the pilgrimage site of Lourdes in southern part of France. The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God appeared to the young St. Bernadette Soubirous, calling mankind to repentance and to be forgiven from their sins, by sincerely turning away from their past wickedness and embrace God’s mercy.

And during those apparitions, the Blessed Virgin showed St. Bernadette the place of a spring which gushed forth from the ground, and have ever since been gushing out water, which is holy and blessed, and have for the past one and a half century since the apparition, shown miraculous properties, and healed many of those who came to visit Lourdes on pilgrimage. Pope St. John Paul II himself went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes just a year before his passing, having long suffered from his illnesses.

That is why it is all the more fitting that today’s Scripture passages match so well with the occasion of the World Day of Prayer for the Sick, celebrated every year on the eleventh day of February, the commemoration of Our Lady of Lourdes as mentioned earlier. In the first reading today we heard what God instructed to Moses and Aaron with regards to the disease most feared in those days, namely leprosy, while in the Gospel passage today, we heard the Lord Jesus Himself healing a leper.

In the Old Testament, God gave to Moses the laws which He had established to be followed and obeyed by the people, which included many aspects of societal life, including what to be done when a person fell ill with diseases, in particular leprosy, which was likely a highly contagious version of the leprosy as we know it today, easily spreading from one person to another, unless certain measures were taken to prevent the outbreak of a pandemic.

Understanding the Law which God has passed on to Moses require us to look carefully into what had happened at that time, the historical and societal background of the Israelites at the time when the laws were given to them. At that time, Israel were travelling on the long journey from Egypt towards the Promised Land, travelling in a desert where staying together in a closely knitted community would be essential to survival.

Wandering off alone in the desert would bring about great risks to the people, who could end up getting lost or struck by predators without being able to get the necessary help. However, staying close together in camps and tents within the community of Israel at the time, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands if not more, exposed the whole community to great risk of disease outbreak.

That is the reason why God made the rule for the occasion such that, all those who contracted contagious disease such as leprosy were obliged to leave the camp and live outside the community until his disease and all of its symptoms have been healed. Otherwise many more people in the community would be infected by the contagious disease, and many more would have suffered.

Yet, this did not mean that those lepers who were obliged to live outside the community were forgotten. God did include the rule that should their condition improved and their disease were cured, they would be able to return to the community of the people of Israel, after having presented themselves to the priests who would then judge whether the person was to be allowed to return or not.

In the Gospel passage today, it is evident that whatever the practices were during the time of Jesus, it was no different from the practices at the time of Moses. The lepers were feared and shunned, just as it was in the past, forced to live away from the people and outside of the community until they were able to show that they have recovered from their leprosy. And it was on that occasion mentioned in the Gospel passage today that Jesus met one of those lepers who asked Him to heal him.

Indeed, He had mercy on the man and healed him from his leprosy. That is what God truly wanted with His people, for He loves each and every one of them without exception, equally and without prejudice. That was why He wanted them to be healed from their pains and sufferings, including the stigma and suffering caused by the leprosy the man and many others contracted.

This is what each of us should know, brothers and sisters in Christ, that we are all afflicted and sick. We may be perfectly healthy in the physique and the body, and we may be surprised that truly, we are all sick at the moment. You may not believe what I have just said, but what I meant is that, we are sick because of our unworthiness, our wicked actions, our disobedience against God and therefore, our sins.

Sin is the culprit for all of our sufferings and sorrows, ever since mankind first fell into sin, beginning with our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, who failed to resist the temptations of Satan. Sin is therefore a disease that strike at our soul, at the very depths and innermost part of our beings. If we are not careful, sin will eventually swallow us up entirely, just as we can succumb to the diseases that strike at our flesh and body. And sin is much worse than any of our physical illnesses, as sin defiles everything and destroys everything.

Parallel to what we have discussed earlier about the treatment of those who fell ill with leprosy, forced to live outside of the community of the Israelites until they were healed, and certified as such by the priests, then it is not different at all with all of us mankind, who suffer from the disease of the soul, that is our sins. If we read the Book of Genesis, surely we would have remembered how Adam and Eve, our ancestors, were driven out of the gardens of Eden, from the presence of God, because they have sinned against God.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us reflect and ask ourselves this question, ‘What is it that we want from God?’ and ‘Do we want to be healed by God?’. These questions serve as reminders for us that in our sickened state, and as we suffer the consequences of our disobedience in this world, we are indeed in need of healing, and that we are not in a good condition at all.

Unfortunately, many of us are too proud to admit that we have been wrong, that we are in need of help and assistance. We refused to listen to God speaking to us in our hearts and through those who we encounter in life, and many of us stubbornly continued on in our way of life, filled with sin, with greed and desires of the world, with violence and jealousy for one another, and all sorts of things that kept us away from reconciliation with God.

Yet, we are fortunate to have God Who is ever and always kind and loving towards us, Who is always ever generous with His mercy and forgiveness. His arms are always open towards us, waiting for us to return to His embrace that we may be fully reconciled with Him. But to be able to be fully reconciled with God, we must be willing to listen to Him and follow His ways, the examples through which He showed us to guide us to Him.

Let us all look at the action of the man whom Jesus had healed from his leprosy. Jesus strictly told him not to tell anyone that it was He Who healed him from his illness, but the man went on regardless, telling everyone that it was Jesus Who healed him. As a result, the people shunned Jesus and the priests made it very difficult for Jesus and His disciples to work among the people, barring Him from their towns and cities.

This was because they must have heard how Jesus approached the leper and touched him in order to heal him, which was taboo according to the laws of Moses. In a sense, God made Himself ‘unclean’ in the eyes of the law in order to make the man clean, and it was to that extent that He was willing to do, in order to care for mankind, to love us and to embrace us sinners.

God knew best what was to be done, and that was why He told the man not to tell anyone about what He had done. But it was likely the man’s pride and hubris that made him to falter, as if he had told the priests he was healed naturally as Jesus told him to do, that would be entirely ordinary and usual. Instead, while it was not mentioned in the Gospel passage, but from our human experiences, it is likely that the man told everyone because being healed in such a miraculous way is something to be boasted and proud about.

And that is exactly how mankind fell into sin, when we start to put the ‘I’ or the ‘We’ ahead of everything else. Pride, ambition, hubris, jealousy, desire, and all these other obstacles to our good and loving relationship with God which will result in our downfall. It is therefore important for us all to realise that we are in need of God’s healing and mercy, because all of us are unworthy, sinners and delinquents.

Let us all learn to distance ourselves from all of those obstacles I have mentioned just earlier, the obstacle of pride, of greed, of human ambition and worldly greed and many more. Let us desire to be healed and to be reconciled fully with God, through genuine conversion and change of heart, abandoning our past sinful ways and embracing fully God’s generous and everlasting love for us all.

Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us all, pray for us who are physically sick, and also all of us who are sinners, sick of this disease of the soul, our sins, that we may seek your Son, to be healed and to be made whole once again through our faith in Him. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Saturday, 10 February 2018 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Scholastica, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the sins done by the people of God, as we continue to hear the story from the ancient kingdom of Israel, after the division of the old kingdom of Israel of David and Solomon into two kingdoms. The southern kingdom of Judah remained in the family of David until the end of that kingdom, while the northern kingdom also called Israel, started with Jeroboam mentioned in the first reading today, would change hands many times.

And the rivalry, jealousy and fear which king Jeroboam of Israel felt, having seen how the people still went to Jerusalem to worship God in the Temple built by Solomon, made him to disobey God and went on to impose a new pagan and wicked worship of golden calves. In this we see once again, how the people fell again and again into sin, disobeying God and refusing to follow Him.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, if we think that what the people of Israel had done were wicked, then so were our actions, our words and our deeds. Many of us often do not realise just how much wickedness and how many sins we have committed, sometimes even unknowingly, because for us, often sinning is the norm for us. Temptations to sin and the pressures from our peers and those around us are plenty, and that is why, we often fall again and again into sin.

That happens in particular when God is not in our hearts and minds. Even when we think that God has a place in our hearts and minds, but often we relegated Him to a less prominent position, putting Him aside to a corner, and instead focusing on our numerous worldly concerns and desires. We forgot about God because we were too busy pursuing our worldly careers and concerns, and we only remembered Him when we were desperate and in need, thinking that God would surely listen to us.

But God will only help those who are willing to be helped themselves. What does this mean? It means that if we do not proactively live our lives in accordance with His ways, and refuse to accept His offer of love and mercy, then we cannot be helped. It is only upon our agreement of accepting His generous offer of mercy and love, which He had made unconditionally for our sake, then we can be saved.

But we can be assured of God’s everlasting and generous love, ultimately because even though despite all of our sins, wickedness and disobedience, God still loves us, each and every one of us, just as what we have heard in the Gospel today ought to assure us of this fact. The Lord Jesus saw a large multitude of people, four thousand men not counting the women and children present there, and they were all hungry, having followed Him and heard His teachings without stopping by to rest and eat.

Thus, we heard how the Lord took seven loaves of bread available in the hands of the Apostles, and blessed them before the people, breaking them all and gave the bread for all the people to eat. And they all ate well, according to what we have heard, and there were enough leftovers in fact, to fill up seven full large baskets of leftover loaves of bread. Such a miracle was God’s doing alone, and it showed also just how much He cared for us.

And not only that, not just that the Lord had pity on His people who suffered from physical hunger of the body, but He also had pity on us because of our afflictions of the soul, the mind, the heart and our whole beings. Sin has claimed us and has enslaved us under its power, and we have therefore been made unworthy and unclean before God. Without God’s help and mercy, we would have fallen without hope into hell, to suffer for eternity as a consequence for our sins.

But the Lord laid down His own life, by offering His life in exchange for ours. He willingly sacrificed Himself on the Altar of the Cross, at the hill of Calvary, when He was crucified for us and died. He gave us His own Most Precious Body and Blood to eat and drink, that by the Most Holy Eucharist He has passed down to us through the Church by the hands of our priests and bishops, we may be filled not just physically, but also well satisfied in spirit, and healed of all of our afflictions.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us think back again at our own respective lives. How many times had it been that God had been kind to us, giving us chances after chances, and opportunities after opportunities, guiding us towards the right path? We might have disappointed Him and rejected Him, but God Who loves us all very much, will not easily give up on us.

Let us all reorientate our lives that we no longer refuse His love and generous offer of mercy, but instead, follow in the footsteps of our holy predecessors, the Apostles and the saints, especially today’s saint, St. Scholastica, holy virgin and devout servant of God, whose memory we remember together. She is the sister of another great saint, St. Benedict of Nursia, and together, each of them showed many future generations of the faithful, right up to our present era, how to be truly devoted to God, in a life filled with God and His love, and for some, they followed her examples, and devoted themselves to God in a consecrated life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us fill our lives with prayer, not just prayers mumbled through the mouth, but prayers made from our hearts and minds. Let us open ourselves completely to God, allowing Him to come into us, and to dwell in us, speaking with us in the depths of our heart. Let us allow Him to transform us all by His love, so that eventually, we may be ever more like Him, and be worthy of the eternal glory He has prepared for all of those who are faithful to Him. May God be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Friday, 9 February 2018 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today from the Scriptures in the Old Testament, we heard about the moment when the kingdom of Israel was split into two parts, because of the disobedience of king Solomon, who led the people into sinful ways and pagan worship of idols and false gods. The descendants of David retained the rule over the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, having also some of the members of the other tribes, while the other ten tribes of Israel mostly rebelled and established the northern kingdom of Israel.

Then in the Gospel passage we have just heard today, we heard about the marvels of the Lord Jesus’ healing work among the people, as He healed a man who was deaf and almost mute. He laid his hands upon the man’s ears and tongue and said ‘Ephphata!’ which means ‘Be opened!’ signifying to the people that the man was healed from all of his afflictions and predicaments.

True enough, the man who was once deaf and almost mute, could then use his ears again to listen, and his mouth to speak words, something that the man could not do, probably for many years. Many of us take listening and speaking for granted, as we have always had the ability for many years, ever since we were born. We often do not understand the challenges faced by those who were deaf or mute, as life without the ability to listen to sound and to speak is truly difficult.

The two readings today seem to be unrelated and distant, but in reality, they tie in together well in a most peculiar way. In order to be able to see this link and understand the meaning of the passages today better, let us look deep into the circumstances of history, especially at the time of the division of the kingdom of Israel. At that time, the tribes of Israel except for the tribe of Judah, to which king Solomon belonged, grumbled against the king because of the heavy taxations levied on them.

In addition, king Solomon was well known for his many grand projects and achievements in establishing his powerful empire, but many of these were built upon the foundation of labours which were levied from the tribes of Israel. All of these caused the people to resent the rule of the king even more, and it took just a spark to incite them to rebel against the authority of the king.

Ironically, this was foreseen by the prophet Samuel, who anointed the first kings of Israel. He foresaw that if Israel, who had demanded to have a king at the time, were to have a king over them, then they might ended up being oppressed by the king who ruled tyrannically over them. And all these did happen, just as the Lord warned His people it would come to pass.

The king, Solomon, sinned against God because he failed to listen to God, even though he had perfectly functioning ears. Just as the people who had refused to listen to the prophet’s words, they have healthy ears, and all senses, and yet, they failed to perceive the truth and what they need to do in order to follow the right path and not to fall into error and sin, as what had happened at that time in Israel. The people, led by their kings, fell into sin caused by disobedience against God.

Thus, brothers and sisters in Christ, the healing miracle done by the Lord Jesus in our Gospel passage today, Who cried out ‘Ephphata!’ or ‘Be opened!’ is a reminder for all of us Christians, just as this rite is celebrated also traditionally in the conferring of the Sacrament of Baptism, that as Christians, we should open our ears, and not just our physical ears but also the ears and doors of our hearts and minds to God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray to the Lord, asking Him to heal us all from all of our stubbornness, from all of our refusals to listen to Him and to obey His words. Let us all seek His forgiveness, for all that we have wrongly done to Him, and for all the wicked things we do, having placed our own selfish desires and greed before our obligation to serve and love Him with all of our hearts, as we should have done.

May the Lord be with us always, and may He strengthen each and every one of us, that we may draw ever closer to Him, and that we may find our way to Him, receiving from Him the promise of eternal life and glory. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Thursday, 8 February 2018 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome Emiliani, and St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints and Virgins)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we began our Scripture reflections with the story from the Book of Kings, telling us about how Solomon, the mighty and great king of Israel and son of king David, another famous king of Israel, fell from grace and fell into sin, due to his weakness and submission to the many demands of his wives and concubines, giving in to the temptations of the flesh, as well as the temptations of human pride and worldly greed.

He turned away from God and became enslaved to sin, and therefore, God withdrew from Solomon and from his descendants, the promise of glory and well-being which He has promised them. That is because they had not been faithful to their part of the Covenant which they made with God Himself. Rather than putting their trust in God, they had allowed Satan to enslave them and to rule over them through sin.

In the Gospel passage today, we heard of a different story, about a woman who came to Jesus begging for Him to heal her daughter who was beset by demons and evil spirits. The woman’s daughter suffered terribly under the enslavement of the evil spirits, and as such, the mother also suffered greatly as well. Knowing and indeed, believing that the Lord Jesus alone was able to help her and her daughter, the woman came to Him.

But the Lord was reluctant to help her, telling her that it was not right for Him to throw the bread intended for the children to eat, to the dogs to be eaten by them. What did He mean by this? It means that as at that time, the common belief was that the Messiah came only to save the people of Israel, then Jesus Who is the Messiah should not have dealt with non-Jewish people, including the woman who was a Syro-Phoenician woman.

Yet the woman persevered in her faith and commitment to see her daughter healed from her condition, and humbled herself such before God that she did not mind to accept what the Lord said to her, even though it might have sounded very insulting and demeaning to her. But in truth, the Lord did not mean to disrespect her, rather to show to all the people, having known what she would say to Him, that even among the non-Jewish people there was such a great faith.

We can see the contrast here, firstly of the famous king of Israel, Solomon, who willingly embraced the devil and his temptations to sin, going from a free state of being a son of God in good graces, into a state of slavery, because sin is indeed the enslavement of our souls under the forces of sin and evil. Then we see the contrast between that and the faith of the Syro-Phoenician woman, whose daughter was enslaved and wanted her to be freed from such slavery, and thus, begged the Lord to do so.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to reflect on ourselves and our lives as we internalise what we have heard from the Scripture passages today. We mankind have fallen into sin because of our failure to obey the Lord and His commandments, and we preferred to follow the rebellious ways of the devil, who thus enslaved us through sin and death ruled over us because of those sins.

Yet, throughout history, many of us have ended up like Solomon, failing to resist the temptations and the urges to sin, which are the stumbling blocks put in place by the devil, meant to be our downfall. We voluntarily enslave ourselves once again to sin, even though as we know, the Lord has liberated us all from sin, by His death on the cross. I am sure we can see just how ironic our actions sound like, when we come to think of it.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to be free, and indeed, desire strongly to be free, for unless our souls and our whole being are free from sin, we will still be enslaved to sin, and thus, in danger of eternal damnation. We need to take the concrete steps and make the conscious efforts to actively seek the Lord, just as the Syro-Phoenician woman had done, and beg the Lord to heal us and save us from our predicament.

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Josephine Bakhita, whose life and story truly fits into our narrative and theme today on humanity’s enslavement to sin and the need for liberation. St. Josephine Bakhita herself was a longtime slave during the early years of her life, living in the area now known as Sudan. From her young age, she had experienced slavery firsthand, having been snatched and abducted by slavers, sold as slave to the highest bidder in the slave market.

St. Josephine Bakhita went from master to master, and she suffered great indignities during her years of slavery, suffering and pain were her daily cup. Eventually, she came to be under the patronage of an Italian, who brought her away from the land of her suffering into Italy, where she eventually managed to obtain her freedom and she also came to accept the Catholic faith through faithful instruction, and eventually became a religious nun renowned for her great faith and piety.

St. Josephine Bakhita and her amazing story of conversion and liberation, not just from physical slavery of the body but also spiritual and mental slavery of sin is truly a very real and relevant example for us, as we reflect on what we have heard in today’s Scripture passage. Her experiences, together with that of the other saint we celebrate today, St. Jerome Emiliani, the patron saint of orphans renowned for his commitment to alleviating the sufferings of the poor and those who were orphaned, serve as reminders for us Christians.

All of us should first of all strive to be free from our enslavement to sin, by actively practicing our faith and shunning all that is wicked and evil from our own respective lives. And then, we should also help one another, especially when we see that some among us are in the danger of falling and slipping away into sin, that we should encourage one another to live faithfully and remind ourselves that we should resist the falsehoods and lies done by Satan to trap us.

Let us all pray, brothers and sisters, that all of us Christians may be truly free, free from all the chains and bonds of sin, which have prevented us from being able to be with God in all of our hearts, minds, souls and our whole beings. May the Lord be with us always, and through the intercession of the holy saints, particularly St. Josephine Bakhita and St. Jerome Emiliani, may we as sinners, come to seek the Lord’s most abundant mercy and receive His forgiveness. Amen.