understanding the faith

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Sunday, 27 April 2025 : Second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday we mark the occasion of the Second Sunday of Easter, which is also known as the Octave Day of the Easter Octave, the eighth day since the glorious Easter Sunday. On this Sunday all of us are called to continue to keep in mind the core belief of our Christian faith in the suffering, death and Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. We all believe that Jesus is truly the Son of God, the manifestation of God’s most wonderful and generous love in the flesh, through Whom God has made His will clear and evident, and by Whose victory and triumph over sin and death, all of us, the faithful and holy people of God, have been shown the clear and certain path to eternal glory and true happiness with God, our Lord and Master, our Mighty King and also our most Merciful and loving Father.

In our first reading passage this Sunday, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, we heard of the account of the works of the Apostles, who continued to carry out the missions and works which the Lord Himself has entrusted to them, and we heard how they had performed many miracles and signs before the people much as how the Lord Jesus had done when He was still carrying out His ministry in this world. The fact that those miracles and signs, wonders and great works were performed by the Apostles even after the Lord had died and then risen in glory, and ascended into Heaven, is a clear evidence that God was still with His disciples and Church, and He still performed His many good works through the hands of His Apostles and other disciples, the missionaries of the Kingdom of God.

Through their works, the Apostles and the other disciples of the Lord showed to all of God’s people, primarily and at first the Israelites and then the non-Jewish people or the Gentiles, the great love and compassion that God has for all of them, without exception. To the Jewish people, the descendants of the people of God, the Lord wanted to show them that He has fulfilled and accomplished all the promises that He had once made in the Covenant sealed with their forefathers, with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and renewed again and again throughout history. And then, to the Gentiles, God shows that His salvation, His love and kindness are not reserved only for the Jewish people only, as everyone, through God’s Church have been made partakers of the same New and Eternal Covenant that the Lord Himself has established through His Son.

Then from our second reading passage taken from the Book of Revelations of St. John the Apostle, we heard of the vision that St. John had received while he was exiled in the Isle of Patmos at his old age, during one of the episodes of persecutions against Christians by the Roman Empire. St. John saw the vision of the Lord, in all of His glory, appearing before Him in Heaven, the appearance of the Son of Man, that is Jesus Himself, in His heavenly glory, with His glorified Resurrected Body. The seven lampstands in the vision marked the seven Angels that always stand before the Holy Presence of God, and therefore, highlighting the Divinity of Christ, Who is truly fully Man and fully God alike. And in that vision, the Lord told St. John to record everything that he had seen so that he could propagate them to the Church communities then, and therefore to help the faithful to come to know God more.

Through what St. John experienced in that amazing heavenly vision, he saw the Lord Who proclaimed Himself as the Almighty God, Who has triumphed and conquered sin and death, overcoming the fetters and shackles keeping us mankind from reaching out to Him, by the incarnation of His Son in the flesh, and by Whose death and Resurrection all of us have been made partakers of the New and Eternal Covenant of God, sealed by the Most Precious Blood of the Son of God Himself. And the Lord did all of these because of His ever enduring and ever present love for each one of us, the love which He desires to share with us, and which He has manifested clearly before us through Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, the manifestation of God’s love and mercy in this world, making this love and mercy tangible and reachable to us.

Lastly, from our Gospel passage this Sunday taken from the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, we heard of the moment when the Risen Lord appeared before His disciples, and gave them the gift of His Holy Spirit, revealing at the same time that He has truly risen from the dead and was not merely a spirit. He was truly indeed Risen in the Body and Spirit, and He gave them all the authority and power to forgive sins, to perform the many miracles and signs, just as we have heard in our first reading today. Then we also heard about how St. Thomas the Apostle, the one who often doubted the Lord was not there when the Risen Lord first made His appearance, and how he challenged the Risen Lord to appear before him so that he could ascertain whether he was truly Risen or not.

That was just precisely what the Lord did, as He appeared before all the disciples including that of St. Thomas, and asked the latter to do as he had wanted to do, to put his fingers and touch the marks of the nails and the wound at His side. We heard how St. Thomas finally believed and made the public profession of faith, ‘My Lord and my God’ before everyone. Through this event, we are yet again reminded that our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Son of God had truly risen from the dead and triumphed over sin and death. And through Him all of us shall receive the assurance of eternal life, which has been provided to us through what He had gone through on the Cross, and as He triumphantly rose from the dead, the manifestation of the Divine Love and Mercy of God, having been made accessible for all of us.

This is why on this Sunday as we celebrate the Second Sunday of Easter and also the Divine Mercy Sunday, we are reminded of this Aspect of the Lord in His most generous and rich mercy towards all of us. The Divine Mercy has revealed Himself to us through one St. Faustina Kowalska about a century ago, who made known the revelations through her diary, which went through many hurdles and struggles before finally being accepted by the Church as part of its official teachings. Today, the devotion to the Divine Mercy is one of the most popular devotions in the Church, with millions praying the devotion daily and more. This is truly a very heartening matter as through this particular devotion to the Divine Mercy, the Merciful Aspect of God, many people are coming towards the Lord seeking His forgiveness and healing.

For all of us members of the Christian faithful, we are reminded that if we seek God sincerely with a repentant and contrite heart, God, the Divine Mercy, in His infinite and boundless mercy will show us His compassion and love, and will heal us from all of our afflictions, our sins and wickedness, our corruptions and evils. And this is why as we commit ourselves anew to the Lord, the Divine Mercy, we should continue to do our best in this world to be truly faithful to Him in all things, becoming good role models and inspirations for one another and for others around us, to show the love and mercy of God to the world. And we are constantly reminded this Easter season that through God’s most wonderful love and mercy, we have been brought into the path towards eternal life and true happiness with God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore put our trust and faith in the Divine Mercy of God and continue to live our lives most faithfully in the manner that we all should do as Christians, that is as the disciples and followers of Christ. All of us are reminded that we should not remain idle in our faith and lives, but we must embody God’s love and mercy in our daily lives, in doing our very best to show love and compassion to our fellow brothers and sisters around us. We must always practice love and charity in our everyday actions, in everything that we say and do, in our every interactions with one another, to our brethren around us and even strangers in our midst. May the Lord, the Divine Mercy continue to bless us all and guide us with His compassion and love, now and always. Amen.

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Saturday, 26 April 2025 : Saturday within Easter Octave (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures and as we continue to journey through this blessed and most joyful season of Easter, we are all reminded again of the great love of God manifested to us through His Most Beloved Son, Our Saviour, Who has embraced death itself to save us all mankind from certain destruction due to our many sins and wickedness. Through His loving sacrifice on the Cross at Calvary, and by His selfless giving of Himself, Christ our Risen Lord has shown us all the ultimate love of God and His ever strong desire to be reunited and reconciled with us sinners. By His Resurrection, the Lord showed all of us that nothing can separate us all from His love, not even death itself. And this is something that should restore hope to our hearts and minds.

In our first reading today, we heard of the continuation of the discourse from the Acts of the Apostles in which the Apostle St. Peter and St. John had been defending their actions before the members of the Sanhedrin or the Jewish High Council after the latter arrested them in conjunction to their works at the Temple of Jerusalem, where a crippled man had been healed by them in the Name of Jesus. Those chief priests and other elders among the Sanhedrin had declared that it was forbidden for anyone to teach or to perform any miracles or works in the Name of Jesus Christ, the One Whom they had just condemned and accused falsely of blasphemy and treason, and sent to the Romans to be killed by crucifixion. And yet, not even all those things could stop the Lord, as news came soon of the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, how He was seen by His disciples after He had risen.

And despite their best efforts to keep these things hidden by forbidding the Lord’s disciples from speaking of it and oppressing them harshly with threats and punishments, they could not keep the truth forever. Then, despite the falsehoods they attempted to spread by paying off the guards of the Tomb of Jesus to tell their version of story that the disciples had come to steal the Body of the Lord, and claiming that the Lord had risen, all these were easily dispelled by the two disciples of the Lord performing wonderful miracles in His Name. If the Lord Jesus had indeed been a fraud and if His Resurrection had indeed been a lie, then none of those miracles should have happened, and the works of the Apostles should not have been possible for they were calling upon a False Messiah, if what the chief priests had been saying was true.

On the contrary, the Resurrection and its proofs, the witnesses by so many people who had seen the Risen Lord and also the many signs, miracles and wonders that accompanied those people who have testified for the Resurrection, all pointed to the fact that everything which they had proclaimed and professed have been all true and authentic. And the disciples were strengthened and encouraged by the Lord through the Holy Spirit so that they might be firm enough in their resolve to stand up for their faith and for the truth and beliefs that they uphold, in entrusting themselves to the Lord and His providence. Not even the threats of sufferings and persecutions by the chief priests and the other members of the Sanhedrin could dissuade the Apostles and all the others who have witnessed the Resurrection to remain silent and not to share their joy to others.

Then, in our Gospel reading today taken from the Gospel of St. Mark the Evangelist, we heard of the account of the occasions when the Risen Lord appeared to His disciples, to St. Mary Magdalene, who was first to bring the news of the Resurrection to the other disciples, and also the other two disciples who met the Risen Lord on their way to the village of Emmaus. All these accounts and evidences summarised what we have listened to in these past few days of the events of the Resurrection of the Lord and how there were truly many witnesses who had seen the Lord after He had risen from the dead, the same ones who had witnessed His death on the Cross. Hence, again, it is a reminder for all of us that what we believe in our faith about the Lord Jesus Who has suffered and died on His Cross, and rose gloriously from the dead is not just a fairytale and myth, but was rather a real and genuine occurrence.

That was how so many of the early Christians in particular were willing to suffer and die in defending their faith, with many of the Lord’s disciples facing persecutions and hardships, trials and oppressions, enduring martyrdom, as how most of the Apostles except for St. John the Apostle were martyred for theirri faith. They would not have been willing to suffer or endure such great tribulations had their faith not been backed up by genuine evidence and experience, and their faith have inspired many others around them who witnessed their great faith, and becoming therefore the ones to strengthen the faith of the next generations of the faithful. And this faith had been transmitted in this manner, again and again, down throughout history and through the generations, one after another, all the way to us living here today in this world.

This is therefore a reminder for all of us that as Christians, each and every one of us are called to be active and faithful missionaries and bearers of our faith to the nations, just as the Apostles and the other disciples of the Lord had done, and as how our many predecessors, the holy saints and blesseds had done throughout the whole history of the Church. Just as many of them are our inspirations in life and in what they had done, therefore all of us should also be likewise and similar in the manner how we carry ourselves in our everyday moments. We must not be idle in the living of our faith, in how we live each day in accordance to the Lord’s commandments and precepts, in showing love first and foremost to the Lord, Who should be at the very centre of our lives and existence, and also in loving one another as God Himself has taught us all.

May the Risen Lord continue to bless us always and guide us in everything that we do, so that by each and every one of our commitment, our dedication to serve Him and to proclaim Him in our daily living, we may be good role models, inspirations and the worthy bearers of God’s Light and Good News to the world, and to more and more of those whom God had called and chosen to be His own. Let us all truly be a most joyful and courageous group of missionaries in doing our best each day in living our lives worthily in the Lord as much as we are able to. May God bless our every efforts and good works, and be with us, throughout this journey of faith and life. Amen.

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Friday, 25 April 2025 : Friday within Easter Octave (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures and as we continue to progress through this joyful time and season of Easter, we are reminded constantly and again about the importance for us to embrace Christ and His truth, His teachings and what we believe in our Christian faith, particularly with regards to the Resurrection, so that we may truly be genuine in living our lives as good and committed disciples of the Risen Lord, our Saviour and King. Those disciples had seen and witnessed the Lord’s Resurrection and encountered Him in His Risen glory, and they therefore testified courageously throughout their missions and works thereafter about the truth behind the messages and teachings of the Lord to everyone, even to those who have persecuted them.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Acts of the Apostles, in which the Apostles St. Peter and St. John were arrested by the Temple authorities after they had miraculously healed a crippled man by the gate of the Temple of God, and then spoke courageously in proclaiming that everything had happened in fulfilment of what the Lord had given to His people through the various prophecies of the prophets and messengers that He sent to them. The Temple authorities and officials were angry at the actions of the Apostles especially since they had expressly forbidden anyone from teaching or using the Name of Jesus, the One Whom they had condemned and blamed for blasphemy and other accusations, and sent to the Romans to be condemned to death.

And in this occasion, those people who had frequently opposed the Lord, doubted Him and refused to believe in His words continued to deny the reality of the truth that the Lord had brought into their midst, as well as words, predictions and prophecies of the prophets that had become reality and were fulfilled in the works of the Lord. They chose rather to trust in their own intellect and flawed understanding, appreciation and knowledge of the Law which resulted in them not willing to open their minds and hearts to welcome the Lord and His truth. Their sense of superiority and arrogance, their ego, pride and ambitions had become their undoing as they hardened themselves against God and His truth, and in continuing to persecute the Lord and His disciples, preventing them from carrying out their works and missions.

That was why those chief priests and the elders still tried to deny the Lord’s Resurrection, and how that this Holy One of God, Who had even conquered death itself was truly not a fraud or blasphemer, but the True Messiah. St. Peter thus spoke courageously and truthfully, empowered and inspired by the Holy Spirit that he and the other disciples had received from God. He spoke with such great Wisdom that it amazed all those who were assembled, no matter how much they opposed and despised the Lord, because many among the Lord’s disciples, including St. Peter himself, was uneducated and illiterate, and no one would have expected him and the others to speak with such great Wisdom and eloquence, which they all received from God Himself through the Holy Spirit.

As we have heard in our Gospel passage today, St. Peter himself and the other disciples have witnessed the Lord after His Resurrection, how He was truly risen from the dead, in the Body and not just in Spirit. We heard how He made His appearance before all of them in Galilee, at the time when the disciples were going out to gather fishes from the lake. He showed Himself to them and made them to catch so many fishes after a night out without any success. It was St. Peter himself who first recognised the Lord and he went to Him with great joy, seeking his Lord and Master that he had once denied, and for which action, he deeply regretted it. From then on, he would truly indeed be a fisher of men, together with those other disciples, whom God would send out into the world to call more and more people to Himself.

The Apostles themselves had seen the Risen Lord and witnessed Him being truly risen from the dead, eating before them and interacting with them, and all these truly convinced them that everything that the Lord had told them about His sufferings, death and resurrection had been all truth and not merely myth or lies. That is why the Lord’s disciples were very committed to proclaim about Him and His Resurrection, His truth and Good News after they had received strength and encouragement from Him, and sent out to the whole world to deliver this news of salvation to everyone so that all of them can be saved and brought back towards God’s loving Presence. God does not desire anyone to be destroyed or separated from Him, and hence, He has shown us His love manifested through His Son, and by the Resurrection of Our Lord, He has opened for us the path to eternal life and joy with Him.

All of us have received this same truth from God passed to us through His Church, and as we have heard of the story of how many among our predecessors in faith had suffered and even perished in defending their faith in the Resurrection of the Lord, and in all the things that He had taught to us, let us all therefore be inspired by their faith and examples, doing our very best to be truly committed and faithful in all things to our Risen Lord, living our lives worthily in the manner that is acceptable and virtuous, so that we may be good role models and examples for everyone around us. We must not allow ourselves to be overcome by fear because of all the challenges, trials and oppressions that we may face amidst living our lives as faithful Christians. Instead, we should trust in Him and know that in the end, despite our sufferings, we shall enjoy forever the ultimate triumph and true joy with God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore be truly and completely faithful to God, doing our very best at every circumstances and opportunity so that we will always be wholly committed to Him, and that in everything that we say and do, we will always proclaim His truth and everything that we believe in, to all those whom we encounter daily in our lives, and help lead them all towards God. May God be with us always, and may all of us continue to rejoice together in the Resurrection of Our Lord, and look forward to our own glorious Resurrection with Him. Amen.

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Thursday, 24 April 2025 : Thursday within Easter Octave (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in our Scripture readings today we have heard more of the testimony of the Resurrection of the Lord and all the things which the Apostles and the other disciples of the Lord had experienced from the time right after the Lord has risen from the dead and how they began their ministry in proclaiming the Risen Lord to the faithful and to all others, including those who have been skeptical and refused to believe in the Lord and His truth. They have all themselves had seen and witnessed the Risen Lord appearing before them, truly risen gloriously in Body and Spirit, and He did not suffer from death, and was not merely a ghost. And it is for this faith that many of them had suffered as they endured the same persecutions and rejections that the Lord Himself had suffered from.

In our first reading today, taken from the Acts of the Apostles we heard the courageous and fiery testimony by St. Peter the Apostle before all the assembled people at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple of Jerusalem when those people were amazed by the great deed of the two Apostles who miraculously healed a man crippled from birth that had been begging there for a long time. Most importantly, the two Apostles imparted the healing through the power and authority of the Holy Name of Jesus, the Risen Lord and Saviour of the world. And at that time, the Temple authorities, the chief priests and the members of the Sanhedrin had declared forbidden for anyone to be teaching and spreading in the Name of Jesus, as well as spreading the words about His Resurrection and triumph over death.

In fact, those leaders were busy trying to suppress such news and even attempted to spread untruths and falsehoods by paying off the guards that were guarding the Tomb of the Lord that the disciples had come to steal the Body of the Lord. Amidst all those things, the two Apostles fearlessly stood up for their faith in the Risen Lord before the assembly of all the people gathered, proclaiming to all of them that it was by the power and authority given to them by the Holy and Just One, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world that the crippled man had been healed and made whole again. St. Peter also addressed how everything that happened in the suffering and death of the Lord, His rejection and persecution by the people to whom He had been sent to, all happened in order to fulfil everything that the prophets of God had been prophesying about Him.

Essentially, he told them all of the need for all of the people of God to listen to the Lord Jesus and embrace wholeheartedly all that He has taught and delivered into this world, the truth and Good News which God Himself has wanted us all to have a share in, and for us all to know the depth of His love, ever enduring and ever present towards us. God has not abandoned us all to the darkness and neither has He desired us to be condemned to eternal damnation and therefore lost to Him forever. Instead, He has crafted the perfect remedy for us through His Son, Whom He has sent to our midst, taking up our very own Human flesh and existence, to make His love, ever perfect and wonderful to be truly tangible and reachable by us, making Himself and His forgiveness and compassion to be approachable, and no longer merely a distant concept or imagination.

But many among those who opposed the Lord and His truth held on to their prejudices and biases, their misguided sense of superiority and arrogance, in thinking that they all knew it better than the Lord Himself on the matters of the Law of God, the way how the faith of the people ought to be expressed to God, and in many other issues that the Lord had patiently revealed to the people and taught to them through His words, actions and other deeds that He had performed in their midst. Yet, the Lord continued to engage with them and work with them, trying to reach out to everyone including even those who were most stubborn in resisting His efforts and advances. He has called us all into repentance and to turn away from our sins, from our pride, ego and prejudices, and all the things that can keep us away from Him.

Then, in our Gospel passage today taken from the Gospel according to St. Luke the Evangelist, we heard of the moment when the Risen Lord appeared to His disciples in Jerusalem right after He had appeared to the two disciples who were making their way to Emmaus. It was at this occasion that the Lord made His appearance for the first time among many of His disciples, the Apostles and others who were with them, after they had earlier on heard about the Resurrection from the holy women who went to the Tomb earlier in the morning. The Lord reassured them all that He was not a ghost or mere spirit, and that He was truly alive, risen from the dead just as He had foretold to them earlier. He ate the food that He asked of them to prove that He was truly there with them as ghosts and spirits cannot eat.

Through this and many other evidences of the Lord’s Resurrection, the disciples of the Lord themselves had witnessed the truth and passed them all down through the Church, as the Sacred Tradition and teachings of the Church that were kept generations after generations, and which kept the Church and the faithful strong and alive even during the harshest years and times of the persecutions, especially during its earlier years. It is inconceivable and very unlikely for so many among the Apostles and the disciples of the Lord to be so committed to their cause, even long after the Lord is no longer among them in this world, if what they had witnessed was not the truth, or if they had not actually witnessed and seen what had happened through the many signs, wonders, and all that occurred during the Resurrection and its aftermath, they would not have been willing to suffer and die for the sake of their faith in God.

Yes, many of the faithful of the early Church suffered greatly from the many persecutions that they encountered in defending their faith in God, and in the truth and Good News that He has revealed and brought unto us through His Son, Who rose from the dead and triumphed over sin and death by that Resurrection. And with this glorious Resurrection from the dead, Christ our Lord has shown us the certain and sure path out of darkness and into the light of God, into the new life that He has promised to each and every one of us, who are faithful and committed to Him. And all of us as Christians, we are all called and reminded today to commit ourselves in the same manner as how our holy predecessors had done so in being good and worthy role models, inspirations and hope for one another, in bearing the light of Christ’s Resurrection in all of us, in each and every aspects of our lives.

May the Risen Lord continue to guide us all in our journey of faith and life, empowering and strengthening us all so that we may truly be full of faith and trust in Him all throughout our lives, and in everything we say and do, in all of our actions, deeds and interactions with one another. Let us all be good and worthy bearers of the Lord’s Good News, His Resurrection and Light, the Hope and Love that He has brought into our midst, through our own exemplary deeds and works, now and always. Amen.

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Wednesday, 23 April 2025 : Wednesday within Easter Octave (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Lord contained within the Sacred Scriptures, all of us are reminded of the hope that we all ought to have in the Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and how He has given us the reassurance and the hope of healing and fulfilment in Him. Our Risen Lord has shown us that He is always with us and He has never abandoned us to the darkness, even in our darkest and most desperate moments. He has always been by our side, never leaving us alone, journeying with us and guiding us, as He had done after He rose gloriously from the dead. He appeared to His Apostles and other disciples, and as we heard today, strengthened the faith and gave courage to the two among them who were on their way to Emmaus, and making them to be truly strong in the faith and belief in the Resurrection and salvation in Him.

In our first reading today taken from the Acts of the Apostles, we heard of the interactions between two of the Lord’s Apostles, namely St. Peter and St. John, who went to the Temple of Jerusalem and saw a man who had been crippled and paralysed from birth. And as we heard the crippled man begged them for money as he had always done, but St. Peter said that they had nothing to give him save that of the healing and the reconciliation which the Risen Lord has provided to him through them. That was how then the crippled man was immediately and miraculously healed from his conditions. This proved to all of us listening to the story and what happened, that what the Lord Jesus had done in His ministry and all, are still being carried out by His Apostles and disciples, to whom He has entrusted His power and authority to forgive sins and to heal many people from their sickness, and to perform many more signs in God’s Name.

Through all those things and the miracles that they had performed, the two Apostles had shown that the Risen Lord and His message is the truth, and whatever the Temple authorities, the chief priests and the other members of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Council, tried to do in suppressing the news and the words about the Lord’s Resurrection and His truth, were truly in vain, and that they were the ones in the wrong, not the Risen Lord and His ever courageous and committed disciples. The Lord’s death on the Cross was not the end of His works and ministry, and it did not end in the manner of how the chief priests planned it, who desired to pin the blame of rebellion, treason and blasphemy on Him so that the Romans would not end the important privileges that they had given to them.

But the Apostles and the disciples of the Lord would not allow these oppositions and obstacles to slow them down or to prevent them from accomplishing the missions and works which the Lord had entrusted to them, and hence, as what St. Peter and St. John had done, they continued going around, healing in the Name of the Lord, proclaiming His truth and salvation despite the specific and express ban on doing so by the Temple authorities. They did not let fear or uncertainties, pressures or coercions from the authorities to prevent them from doing what the Lord Himself had entrusted to them to do. They carried out their mission faithfully and fearlessly, revealing what God had done for His beloved ones, in bringing unto them the hope through His Resurrection.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the account of the apparition of the Risen Lord to two of His disciples who were at that time on their way to the village of Emmaus located outside of Jerusalem. It was likely the afternoon of the Day of the Lord’s Resurrection, and the news had begun to spread that the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead after the many things which had happened that week. They were discussing about the Lord’s arrest and condemnation by the elders and the chief priests, how He had been publicly condemned to death by the Romans and was crucified to death. The two disciples were speaking about how they had hoped in the Lord, as was typical of that time, that He would be the Saviour to lead them to freedom from the Romans and the other oppressors, but that hope died with the Lord’s suffering and death on the Cross.

And as we heard, it was at that moment the Risen Lord made His appearance to them, without the two of them realising or understanding it at first. He talked to them and chided them for having little faith in the Lord and in His teachings, even though He Himself had said that He would rise from the dead on the third day, and everything had happened just as He said it would. They still could not comprehend or believe in what the disciples had mentioned about the Resurrection, and therefore it was the Lord Himself Who went to them and guided them throughout the journey, telling them about the Resurrection and everything that He had done for the benefit of all the people of God, in fulfilling all the prophecies of the many prophets and messengers that God had sent among His people to reveal His intentions.

In the end, God opened the eyes of those two disciples after He had encouraged them and inflamed their hearts with the courage and strength of His Word. They realised that they had seen the Risen Lord, and with great courage and determination, as we heard, they rushed back to Jerusalem, becoming yet more witnesses to the great Resurrection of the Lord, proclaiming and revealing the greatness of God to the people. They revealed to us more about the truth of the Resurrection of the Lord, how God had kept His words and showed His love unto us, and in the end, overcoming sin and death for us, gathering us all so that we may find our way to Him and receive the fullness of His love and grace, and sharing in the eternal and new life with Him through this same Resurrection.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore let us all continue to be faithful as the disciples and followers of Our Risen Lord, so that in our every actions, works and deeds, we may always be worthy bearers of His truth and Resurrection, His Good News and salvation to every one of those whom we encounter in our daily lives. Let us all continue to commit ourselves to our Risen Lord in everything that we do, in our every moments and interactions with everyone around us. May all of us be truly Christ-like in all of our actions and way of life so that we may be good role models and inspirations for our fellow brothers and sisters, both Christians and those who have not yet known or believed in God, in our Risen Lord. May He bless our every good works, efforts and endeavours, now and always. Amen.

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Tuesday, 22 April 2025 : Tuesday within Easter Octave (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as all of us continue to progress through this most joyful season of Easter, we are reminded yet again of the calling which all of us have received from the Lord, to be witnesses of His Resurrection, the bearers of His Good News and Light to all the nations, and as the ones to share and show His love manifested through us and our actions, in each and every moments of our lives. All of us have been called to bear witness to our Christian faith through our faithful actions in life, by our obedience to the Law of God and the commandments that He has taught to us through His Church. We should always be exemplary in how we live our lives so that as good and faithful Christians, we may inspire many more people in their lives and that they may also strive to come closer to God.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles we heard the conclusion of the account of what happened on the day of the Pentecost, fifty days after the Day of the Lord’s Resurrection when the Holy Spirit empowered St. Peter the Apostle and the other Apostles and disciples of the Lord with the courage and the wisdom to speak the truth about the Lord and His Resurrection to the many people assembled in Jerusalem. St. Peter spoke courageously defending their faith before everyone, stating how everything had happened to the Lord Jesus, Who was crucified in Jerusalem after being condemned by the Temple authorities and then, rose from the dead after He had died on the Cross, all of these happened because of the Lord’s desire to bring forth His salvation to all the people of all the nations by the sacrifice of His Son on the Cross.

Therefore, St. Peter spoke at length with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit and testifying for what he and the other Apostles had witnessed during their time with the Lord, revealing how God had given all of us mankind a remedy for all of our sins and all of our predicaments, providing for us the path out of the darkness. He has given us the gift and assurance of His salvation which He made evident through the baptism that He has made available to everyone through His Church and disciples. It was at that moment when the Church began manifesting itself to the world, on the day of the Pentecost, with three thousand people having embraced the faith and made themselves to be baptised by the Apostles, marking the moment when the Church became tangible to the world.

Then, from our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, we heard of the occasion when the Lord Jesus, just Resurrected from the dead, made His appearance to St. Mary Magdalene, the first to whom the Lord made Himself known and seen by His disciples right after He had risen from the dead. She and other women following the Lord had been rushing to the tomb of the Lord on the morning of the Sunday after the Sabbath to put the spices and ointments on the Body of the Lord because they were unable to do so at the moments after His crucifixion as it happened right before the Sabbath. But they were all greeted by the surprising sight of the Tomb being opened and the Body having disappeared from it.

It was when St. Mary Magdalene was distraught in that garden near the Tomb that the Risen Lord appeared to her and made Himself known to her, consoling her and revealing the truth about His death and how He has triumphed over ever death itself, just as He has predicted and told her and the other disciples. The disciples of the Lord came to know of this Good News because St. Mary Magdalene herself and the other women went rushing to them to tell them of the Lord’s Resurrection, and they all then saw the Risen Lord Himself in the flesh, in His glorified and Resurrected Body, proving and showing to them all that He was not merely a Spirit or a ghost. He took food and ate it before them, showing that He was truly alive, in Body and Spirit, and revealing to us what we will ourselves experience at well through our own resurrection.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we have discussed and heard earlier from the Scriptures, as well as from what we believe in our Christian faith, all of us believe that one day, all of us shall also share in the glorious resurrection of our Lord, risen in our body and spirit at the time of the Final Judgment, so that we may fully and completely enjoy the fullness of God’s grace and blessings, to enjoy forever the eternity in bliss and true happiness with our Lord Who loves us all, just as He has always intended for us. Sin has put a temporary stop to this and prevented us from achieving this state, while it made us corrupted and defiled because of our disobedience against God, and our inability to resist the many temptations present around us. But God Himself has shown us the path out of this darkness and predicament, opening the path for us to eternal life.

As we continue to pass through this time and season of Easter, all of us are reminded that each and every one of us should always be active in living our lives as good and courageous Christians, in standing up to our faith and beliefs in the Resurrected Christ, in the Son of God made Man, Who has suffered most grieviously for us, and which He had done willingly out of love for us. It is through this Resurrection that we have new hope in the Lord, and how we can keep on going in this world and life amidst all the challenges, difficulties and hardships we may have to endure and encounter in our respective paths. There are a lot of temptations trying to keep us away from God and His salvation, and many among us may be seriously tempted to leave behind the path of the Lord, to choose instead the path of worldliness and evils.

But we must not lose faith in the Lord, and instead we should deepen our faith and trust in Him even more, by developing a truly genuine and healthy relationship between us and God. And how do we do this, brothers and sisters? It is by spending good time in communication with God, through prayer, charity and other works that we do in His Name. Each and every one of us are God’s beloved and holy children, we have been given the assurance from God that we will be with Him and share with Him the joy of the Resurrection when the time comes for us to experience it, if we remain truly faithful in Him, and are righteous and worthy in our deeds and lives. Let us all therefore strive to do our part in being worthy bearers of the truth of God’s Resurrection, His Good News and salvation to the nations. Let us all continue to bear witness to the Lord in wherever we are in our communities, and do our best to serve the Lord at all times.

May our Risen Lord continue to strengthen us in faith and guide us all towards Him, and may He bless us all in everything we do, in our every good efforts and works, for His greater glory, now and always. Amen.

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Monday, 21 April 2025 : Monday within Easter Octave (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all continue to rejoice greatly during this Easter Octave and season, we are all reminded that as Christians it is our responsibility and calling for us to proclaim the Lord’s truth and Resurrection, His Good News and everything that He has revealed to us and taught to us through His Church. As Christians, it is imperative that we should always be exemplary and worthy in all and everything that we do in each and every moments of our lives, being inspiration and role models for all those around us, our brethren in faith. It is through our commitment to the Lord by our worthy lives and also our faithful testimony of the Risen Lord that we can truly be called as good and faithful Christians, as we all should be.

In our first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles, we heard from the words of the Apostle St. Peter who continued to proclaim about the Risen Lord together with the other Apostles right after the Holy Spirit descended and came down upon them during the time of the Pentecost, the fiftieth day after the Passover and the Lord’s glorious Resurrection from the dead. The Holy Spirit that came down upon the Apostles gave them the courage and strength to speak up the truth and overcome their fears and uncertainties, as they embarked on the mission which the Lord Himself has entrusted to them, that is to proclaim His salvation and Good News to all the people of all the nations. Despite all the threats and oppositions faced by St. Peter and the other Apostles from the chief priests and the other enemies of the Lord, they all proclaimed courageously what the Lord had done for His people.

And this included all the good things that God had done in fulfilling the words of the prophets, in completing the long planned and awaited God’s plans to rescue all of us mankind. St. Peter spoke of how the same Christ, Jesus the Son of God, Who had been sent to the world to save everyone, and had been rejected and persecuted by the Jewish authorities who refused to listen to Him and His truth. And yet, as the Apostles had testified, that the Lord Jesus did not remain in the state of death, but having triumphed over sin and death, conquering those and showing everyone that truly there is hope and life after and beyond death, the Risen Lord has proven the truth and veracity of all of God’s promises, how He would liberate us all from the tyranny of sin and all the forces of evil that have kept us bound and dominated all these while.

This is a reminder to the people of God of just how once He had shown His love to them by leading them all out from their enslavement in the land of Egypt, showing them His might and power as He rained down destruction on the Egyptians and their Pharaoh while keeping His people safe, and finally leading them all out from their slavery through the sea, to the land of freedom and plenty which He has promised to their ancestors and to all of them, the descendants of those faithful people whom God had called and chosen to be His own. Now, through Christ, the Apostles revealed that the Lord has extended this freedom and liberation, not only from the physical slavery as once experienced by the Israelites in Egypt, but even more importantly, liberation from the bondage, shackles and slavery to our sins and evils, to the darkness surrounding and keeping us bound under its tyranny.

Then, in our Gospel passage today, we heard from the Gospel according to St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist in which we were told of what happened immediately after the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, when the Lord appeared before the women who went to the tomb early on Sunday morning, on that day when the Lord gloriously rose from the dead, appearing before all the disciples afterwards and fulfilling everything that He had promised to them about His suffering, death and ultimately how He would rise in glory on the third day after just as everything He said it would be. But the chief priests and the Temple authorities wished to keep this news on the Resurrection which began to rapidly spread at that time, from spreading even more, and as we heard in the Gospel passage, they tried to spread lies and falsehoods to counter the truth about the Resurrection of the Lord.

And why did those Temple authorities and chief priests did so, brothers and sisters in Christ? That is likely because they feared the ever growing influence of the Lord that had made them to be jealous and unhappy at the rapid spread of the Lord’s teachings and ways, many of which they disagreed with, as many among them proudly kept on to their way of observing the Law and commandments of God, refusing to listen to the Lord and to believe in His teachings and truth. And that led to them putting false accusations on Him and condemning Him to death, but yet all those did not manage to stop the Lord and His truth. In fact, the Resurrection of the Lord proved all the truth behind everything that He had revealed, leading to those who still refused to believe in Him to scramble and panic in trying to contain the news.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through what we have heard in today’s Gospel and other Scripture passages, we are therefore reminded of the need for all of us to be courageous in standing up for our faith in God and in His truth. If the Apostles at that time had not allowed the Lord to lead and guide them in their paths, and giving them the courage to defend the Lord’s Resurrection, then the truth would have been hidden and buried forever, and few if any would have benefitted from the loving sacrifice of Our Lord, Who has revealed God’s long planned salvation for all of us mankind. We should do our best in our daily living so that by our courageous faith and our desire to proclaim the Lord in all of our daily activities, we may be His faithful and devoted missionaries, not just through words but also genuine actions.

May our Risen Lord therefore continue to help us in our journey of faith and life, in our daily commitment to walk faithfully in this path of a missionary disciple, in doing what the Lord had told us to do, proclaiming His Resurrection and the Good News of His salvation in our daily living, in being good and faithful disciples of our Risen Lord at all times. We should be good role models and inspirations for our fellow brothers and sisters, and in inspiring many others to live lives that are truly worthy of God in all circumstances. May God be with us all, and may He bless our every good efforts and endeavours, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 20 April 2025 : Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Alleluia! The Lord is Risen! He has triumphed and conquered sin and death, and has brought us all into a new Hope and Light of His salvation, let us all rejoice and be glad! All of us have come to this most joyful and happy occasion of Easter, and on this Sunday, the day of Easter Sunday, we remember all of the preparations that we have done in getting ourselves ready to celebrate this most momentous and important occasion. It is at the core of our Christian beliefs and faith that we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Son of God Who has been crucified for the sake of all mankind. And this belief in the Resurrection of Jesus is truly important because without the Resurrection then our faith is nothing more than an empty faith and belief.

Without the Resurrection of the Lord, then Jesus Christ is no more than just a mere Man or a Prophet like others, and worse still, it might have affirmed what the Jewish elders and chief priests had accused the Lord of doing, that is being a False Messiah and as someone who has blasphemed against God. But the reality is that the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead and this faith has been passed down to us for generations after generations to our present day through the Church of God. The Resurrection is something that we ourselves have not seen, experienced and witnessed and yet we chose to believe in this truth, just as many of our predecessors had done before us. All of us truly believe in Jesus Christ, in Him being the Son of God Incarnate, in everything that He had taught and revealed to us, and in His suffering, death and resurrection.

People always debate on whether Christmas or Easter is the greater and more important celebration. The truth is that it is more complicated than it seems to be, and it is truly imprudent and inappropriate to compare the two of them. The reality is that both of them are very important events in the history of our salvation and neither is complete without the other one. But ultimately, Easter is more important and crucial to our salvation because without what happened at Easter, then the Child born into this world at Christmas would just be another one of the countless mankind that had been born into this world, just like any one of us. If Christ never rose from the dead, then everything that He had taught, all the prophecies that He had fulfilled all ultimately would have come to nothing, and His followers would have eventually scattered and ceased to exist just as what had happened to so many other False Messiahs.

But at the same time, Christmas is important because it provided the foundation for what happened during the whole Holy Week and Easter. In Christmas, we have seen the manifestation of God’s love made Man, the Divine Being Himself being incarnate in the flesh and appearing before us. After spending nine months in His mother Mary’s hallowed womb, the Lord Himself was born into this world and showed Himself to us, from the once intangible and unapproachable, transcendent beyond imagination into the realm of reality, approachable, touchable and tangible to us. Through Christmas, we know that God has made His salvation clear and tangible to us, and not merely just a mighty deed done from afar, but a real action from a loving God Who has assumed our Humanity, and becoming Man as we are, He has united us all to Himself and made His salvation available to us.

That is because by His perfect obedience to the Father’s will, Christ as the New Adam and the New Man showed us all what all of us mankind are supposed to be, pure, blameless, full of faith and obedience to God. God has created us all in His image and likeness, but we have all been corrupted due to our fall into sin, failing to resist the many temptations that prevented us from truly achieving our full potential in what we have been meant to be. God created us all good and perfect, all full of grace and holiness, just as the Lord Himself has shown us in His perfect humanity, untainted by sin. But we have been led astray by sin and because of this we have been forced to wander off in this world and suffer the consequences of our disobedience and lack of faith and trust in God.

Our Scripture readings this Easter Sunday then highlight to us all the things which the Lord had done to overcome sin and death, and reunite us all with our most loving God and Father, our Creator and Master. Christ our Risen Lord has endured the worst of sufferings and challenges, trials and pains, by Him embracing willingly our many sins and their punishments upon Himself, by making Himself the Paschal Lamb, the Lamb of God to be slain for the New and Eternal Passover and Covenant that God wanted to establish with us all. The sacrifice and offering of our Risen Lord has been accepted in His perfect obedience, as the one and only worthy offering that is good enough to redeem and heal us all from our afflictions and corruptions by sin, as our Eternal High Priest, offering His own Most Precious Body and Blood for our salvation.

In our first reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles, we heard of the great testimony of faith from St. Peter the Apostle, the Lord’s chief disciple who spoke courageously and full of the Holy Spirit after he and the other disciples had received the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, fifty days after the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead. He spoke bravely and courageously on behalf of the Lord because he himself had seen and witnessed everything that happened, and as recorded in the Scriptures, he and many others had seen the Risen Lord Himself in the flesh, in the glory of His Resurrected Body, which has transcended death. Initially, he and the other disciples were afraid because of the intense pressures, intimidations and efforts by the Jewish elders and chief priests who sought to keep the news about the Resurrection from spreading, even to the point of spreading false stories about how the disciples had stolen the Lord’s Body from His tomb.

But there St. Peter stood courageously before the many people assembled in Jerusalem for the Festival of the Pentecost, proclaiming all the good things that the Lord had done and accomplished through the same One Whom the people had persecuted and crucified just weeks earlier, and Who had died and yet rose again gloriously from the dead despite the lies and the falsehoods that the Temple authorities and the members of the Sanhedrin attempted against the Lord. He proclaimed the salvation which the Lord had won for all of us, the people beloved by God because of His triumphant Resurrection from the dead. And because they themselves have all experienced it, St. Peter and the other Apostles and disciples, all the witnesses of the Resurrection that our Gospel passage today had presented to us and all the great deeds that the Lord had done would not remain silent, and they proclaimed them all in great joy.

In our second reading this Easter Sunday, we heard from the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Colossians, in which he exhorted all of them to seek what is holy and worthy, and not in earthly and worldly things. He challenged the faithful people of God to live in the manner that they have been called and expected to do as Christians, as those whom God had called and chosen to be His own beloved and holy people. Therefore, this is the same reminder to all of us that we should always be truly be active and committed in each and every moments of our lives, in carrying out our every actions, words and deeds in the manner that the Lord had taught us all through His Church. We should not merely be faithful in the manner of formality only, but we must be like the Apostles, who courageously and faithfully defended their faith in the Risen Lord.

This Easter season and beyond, we are also reminded that as Christians, as Pope St. John Paul II once famously said, that we are all Easter people, and Alleluia is our song. This means that all of us are called to live a truly holy and worthy lives, lives that are truly active, committed to God and missionary, full of compassion for one another and righteousness, justice and virtues in all of our actions throughout life. We must have the right disposition and attitude in life in order for us to be able to follow the Lord worthily in our lives. And just as the Israelites still continue their journey after crossing the sea out of Egypt, which is a symbolism and prefigurement of our baptism, therefore, baptism is not the end of our journey towards God, but rather, marks the new beginning in this journey we have towards God. As we renew our baptismal promises, we are reminded of this commitment that we have in following God and obeying His commandments.

Essentially, we are called to proclaim the Lord and His Resurrection, His Good News and salvation to the world. But in order to do this, we must first live our lives worthily as good and faithful Christians, and this is something that many of us have difficulty doing because we face so many obstacles, temptations and challenges in our daily lives. And this is why as we enter into this joyful Easter season, we have to renew our commitment and dedication to the Lord, in doing our best to live our lives worthily and to commit ourselves to a truly holy and blessed existence in God, in all of our actions, words and deeds, and in how we interact with others around us. We cannot be hypocrites who claim to believe in the Lord and yet act in the manner that is contrary to our faith and beliefs in God.

That is why as we all enter into this joyous season of Easter, celebrating the Lord’s glorious Resurrection, let us all strive to commit ourselves to be ever more faithful and sincere in following our Risen Lord in everything that we say and do. Let the transformations and conversions that we have experienced during the Lenten season continue to bear their fruits through this time of Easter and beyond. May all of us be faithful and ever more courageous witnesses of Our Lord and His Resurrection, being good role models and inspirations to our fellow brothers and sisters, helping ever more people to come closer to God and His salvation. May our Risen Lord continue to bless us all and give us His light of Hope, and strengthen us in our resolve to follow Him wholeheartedly, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 20 April 2025 : Easter Vigil Mass, Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this evening on this Easter Vigil Mass, all of us finally have reached the end of our Lenten journey, a forty days long period of purification and reorientation of our lives, of more intense connection with God and renewal of our lives. Now, on this very evening we celebrate the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who has suffered and died for us, bearing all the burdens and punishments that are due for our sins and wickedness. Through His Resurrection, He has shown us the great triumph that He had won over sin and death, showing us that they no longer hold dominion and power over us. And tonight we have finally come to the culmination of our long wait for salvation, and rejoicing together as one Church and holy people of God, we cry and sing out together, ‘Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Christ has conquered death!’

All these joy and celebration that we have this evening and this upcoming fifty days of rejoicing during the whole Easter season come from the fact that we have been given the assurance of eternal life and freedom from the damnation and domination of sin, and how death no longer reigns over us. Through His glorious Resurrection, Our Lord has promised that we too shall rise with Him and enjoy forever the true joy and glory of God’s Kingdom, where we shall enjoy forever the fullness of God’s grace and blessings. This is what the Lord has always meant and intended for all of us, as each one of us have been created out of God’s overflowing love and kindness, and He has always wanted us to enjoy forever the fullness of His love, all the blessings and good things He has created in this world. However, our disobedience and sins came in between us and God.

God however never gave up on us and His love for us endures even though we have rebelled against Him and have often showed a lot of stubbornness in our attitudes and ways. He has promised from the very beginning of time, from the time when He created us all as we have heard in the account from the Book of Genesis of the creation of the whole world and the Universe, creating all the things good and perfect as He has always meant it, including us mankind, His most beloved ones, created in His own image and likeness. But disobedience caused by our ancestors’ inability to resist the temptations of the devil led them and all of us into sin, which brought corruption into the perfection that used to be ours before our downfall into sin. And this separated us from God and His love, forcing us to be separated from God and exiled from Eden, from God’s Holy Presence.

We heard therefore throughout the many readings covered in this Easter Vigil liturgy the many things that God had done in planning for and bringing about our salvation, our liberation from sin and from the dominion of death. He showed us all His love and desire to be reunited with us by calling those from among us to be the ones to prepare the path for the eventual coming of His salvation, beginning with Abraham as we heard from our second reading today, also taken from the Book of Genesis. We heard in that occasion how Abraham, with whom God had made a Covenant with, was called by the Lord to bring his beloved son Isaac to be offered as a sacrifice to God at Mount Moriah. For the context, Isaac was the son which God had long promised to Abraham and his wife, Sarah after they had long been barren without a child.

Yet, God sought to take Isaac away from Abraham, made him to be a sacrifice to be offered to God. Certainly Abraham must have had some uncertainties or even doubts about this instruction from God, and he clearly would have struggled internally over it, considering just how much he had treasured and loved Isaac. But ultimately, Abraham chose to obey God and to put his faith in Him. Abraham trusted that the Lord knew what was best for him and his son Isaac, and went up the mountain of Moriah with Isaac, with the intention to offer him up to God as a sacrifice, with a heavy heart but also at the same time, with faith and trust in God. God saw Abraham’s great faith and trust in Him, and He told Abraham at the moment that he was about to sacrifice Isaac that He had seen his faith and was testing him with the instruction, sending a ram to replace Isaac as a sacrifice, while renewing the Covenant which He has made with Abraham, affirming the blessings that Abraham and his descendants will receive.

Now, this location of Mount Moriah is very significant and the reason why this passage was chosen as one of the readings of this Easter Vigil because many centuries later, long after the time of Abraham and Isaac, another important sacrifice were to take place at the very same site. Yes, I am referring to none other than the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus at Calvary, a hill or mountain located just outside of Jerusalem. This site of Mount Moriah was historically and traditionally associated with the site of the Lord’s crucifixion at Calvary. Therefore, the sacrifice of Isaac was in fact a prefigurement of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross at Calvary, revealing the plan that God has in mind in His desire to redeem all of us from our sins.

And there are a lot of symbolisms from this event of the sacrifice of Mount Moriah when placed side by side with the Lord’s crucifixion. Just like Abraham who willingly offered Isaac, his own most beloved son to be sacrificed to God even when he could have refused to do so, God did not spare His own most Beloved Son, His only Begotten, Whom He offered willingly and freely for us all, to be sacrificed as the Paschal Lamb, by Whose sufferings and death, we may be freed and healed from our many sins and corruptions due to those sins. Through the breaking of the Lord’s Most Precious Body and the shedding of His Most Precious Blood, sharing these with us through the gift of the Most Holy Eucharist, God has crafted for us the perfect and ultimate remedy for our sins.

The death of Christ Who willingly took upon Himself our many sins and their punishments is also reminiscent of how God spared Isaac by sending a ram to be sacrificed in his place. Therefore, as we have commemorated yesterday on Good Friday, Our Lord’s crucifixion, His sufferings and death brought us to freedom from our sins because by His Most Precious Body and Blood that we have partaken in the Eucharist and by our sincere faith and desire to be reunited with Him, God has forgiven us all our sins and made us all whole once again, freed from all the shackles of sin and all the bonds of temptations and evils that have so far kept us chained and separated from Him, our loving Father and Creator.

Then from our third reading today, which is a compulsory reading for this Easter Vigil liturgy, we heard the passage of the Book of Exodus from the moment when the Lord brought His people, the Israelites to the shores of the sea, where He opened the sea before them and allowing all of them to walk on the dry seabed, protecting them from their enemies and pursuers, the Egyptians and their Pharaoh. The latter did not want to let the Israelites go and made one final attempt to capture all the Israelites or to destroy all of them, after earlier on having let them to go free to the land promised to them by God. And we heard how God rescued His people, leading them through the waters of the sea to the other side, beginning their journey towards the promised land. It was at that moment when they left the land of Egypt behind.

And of course we heard how God crushed those Egyptians and their chariots and armies, sinking them all beneath the waves. But the Israelites were brought safely to the other end of the sea, and they rejoiced greatly at God Who has shown them His great might and triumphed against their enemies and all those who have once enslaved and persecuted them. This account of the Exodus and how God rescued His people is in fact also very symbolic and very much related to what the Lord Himself would do to save His people through Jesus Christ, His Son and Our Saviour.  Again in this case, much as the parallels between Isaac’s sacrifice and that of Christ’s, here we can also see how God led His people through the darkness of sin and into a new life with Him.

That journey through the water of the sea, opened up by the Lord before the people symbolised the Israelites having left behind their past life and slavery in Egypt, and instead they then entered into new lives and existence in which they were free and were guided by God on their journey to the land of promise. This is experienced by all of us who have gone through the Sacrament of Baptism, especially those among us who have been baptised on this Easter Vigil itself. And for all those among us who are going to be baptised later after this, as they receive the water of baptism either by pouring or immersion, this is symbolic of what the people of God had once experienced in the miraculous crossing of the sea as depicted in the Book of Exodus.

Like the Israelites who have been led from the place of their slavery into a new land of freedom, all of us have been led from our past, sinful existence into a new life and existence blessed by God. And just as the Lord has crushed and defeated the forces, armies and chariots of the Egyptians chasing after them, liberating them from the shackles of their slavers and oppressors, thus through baptism, all of us as Christians have been brought to freedom as the Lord has triumphed through His glorious Resurrection that all of us celebrate today, crushing and defeating all the forces of evil, the dominion and power of sin and death. They no longer have power and dominion over us, and through this victory, God is leading us all to the new, blessed existence in Him. That is what we all rejoice for today, because in Christ, our Risen Lord, we have the hope of eternal life and overcoming death.

Death is always something that is fearsome to us, as it marks the end of our earthly existence and life as we all know it. It is something that all of us have to experience because of sin, and by our sins, all of us have to suffer through death, and yet, because we know that Christ has Risen from the dead, we now know that there is life and existence beyond death, and death is not the end of all hope. Instead, through the Resurrection, we know that by sharing in His humanity, all of us have shared in the death of Christ, the death to our past, sinful way of life, symbolised by the gift of water which destroys the Egyptians in the days of the Exodus, and then the new life which water also symbolises, as we are led into the new life in Christ, in the assurance that we will also share in the Resurrection of Christ when the time comes. This is what we have heard earlier on from the Epistle reading before the Gospel, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans.

The remaining passages of the Scripture readings today from the Old Testament highlights the promises of the Lord of His salvation through the prophets like Isaiah, Baruch and Ezekiel, all of which have come to fruition in the coming of Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord. By His coming into this world, God has revealed to us all that He has planned from the very beginning for us, to rescue us and to lead us all back to Himself. And that is why, it is important that Christ our Lord truly died that day on Good Friday, just as we have reflected about it yesterday, because without His suffering and death, then the significance of the Resurrection will be diminished and missed. It was precisely because of the death of Christ that we have been redeemed, united to Him in death, and by His offering of a most pure and holy, a worthy offering on our behalf, we have been cleansed and forgiven from our sins.

The Lord’s Resurrection is then even more important, as if the Lord had died and not risen from the dead, then truly there can be no hope for us. Since, if the Lord Himself, Who is without sin, perished and died, and did not overcome death, then how can there be hope for us? Yet, since the Risen Lord had triumphed over death itself and showed that death does not have the final say over us, and that by His grace and love, God will restore life to all of us, hence, we should no longer fear death and yet, we must remain vigilant of sin because if we still continue to sin against God and refuse His generous offer of forgiveness and mercy, then in the end, it is by our sins that we have not repented from that we will be judged against and condemned by.

Therefore, we are also reminded that as Christians, as Pope St. John Paul II once famously said, that we are all Easter people, and Alleluia is our song. This means that all of us are called to live a truly holy and worthy lives, lives that are truly active, committed to God and missionary, full of compassion for one another and righteousness, justice and virtues in all of our actions throughout life. We must have the right disposition and attitude in life in order for us to be able to follow the Lord worthily in our lives. And just as the Israelites still continue their journey after crossing the sea out of Egypt, which is a symbolism and prefigurement of our baptism, therefore, baptism is not the end of our journey towards God, but rather, marks the new beginning in this journey we have towards God.

Essentially, we are called to proclaim the Lord and His Resurrection, His Good News and salvation to the world. But in order to do this, we must first live our lives worthily as good and faithful Christians, and this is something that many of us have difficulty doing because we face so many obstacles, temptations and challenges in our daily lives. And this is why as we enter into this joyful Easter season, we have to renew our commitment and dedication to the Lord, in doing our best to live our lives worthily and to commit ourselves to a truly holy and blessed existence in God, in all of our actions, words and deeds, and in how we interact with others around us. We cannot be hypocrites who claim to believe in the Lord and yet act in the manner that is contrary to our faith and beliefs in God.

That is why as we all enter into this joyous season of Easter, celebrating the Lord’s glorious Resurrection, let us all strive to commit ourselves to be ever more faithful and sincere in following our Risen Lord in everything that we say and do. Let the transformations and conversions that we have experienced during the Lenten season continue to bear their fruits through this time of Easter and beyond. May all of us be faithful and ever more courageous witnesses of Our Lord and His Resurrection, being good role models and inspirations to our fellow brothers and sisters, helping ever more people to come closer to God and His salvation. May our Risen Lord continue to bless us all and give us His light of Hope, and strengthen us in our resolve to follow Him wholeheartedly, now and always. Amen.

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Friday, 18 April 2025 : Good Friday of the Passion of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is Good Friday, also known as the Good Friday of the Passion of the Lord. On this day Christians throughout the world commemorate the suffering, crucifixion and ultimately the death of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. This day is truly a Good Friday because it is a Good thing that God has died for us, as if not for this, we would have certainly perished in the eternal darkness and suffering, being separated forever from the love and grace of God. It was because of the sufferings and the pains endured by Christ, all of His wounds and hurts that we have been healed from our afflictions and sins, from all the corruptions and defilements by those sins and evils we have committed in our lives.

And indeed, God died today on this most holy and good Friday, almost two millennia ago. Such a statement is indeed baffling to many people, as to the Jews at that time, it was incomprehensible that God died, Him being the Almighty Lord and God of all Creation and the Universe, while to the Greeks and other Gentiles, such a notion that God dies, is one of foolishness and weakness, for to them, accustomed with having many gods and those gods that perished, only the strong ones remain while those that perished were weak. And yet, what God has revealed to us through His Son, the Divine Word Incarnate, Son of God and yet also Son of Man, is one of pure and ever enduring love which persists despite the many challenges and obstacles to this love that God had for us.

This death of God was made possible because in the very core of our Christian beliefs and teachings, we believe that God Himself has become incarnate in the flesh, embracing our human nature and existence, being formed and developing in the hallowed womb of Mary, whom God had sanctified and filled with His grace, keeping her away from the taint of original sin and corruption so that this vessel so pure and blameless might truly be worthy to bear the Son of God and brought Him forth into this world. We believe that in the Person of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, is a hypostatic union of two distinct and yet inseparable natures, that of Divine and Human. That means Jesus was truly and fully Divine, fully God, while at the same time He was also fully Man.

And while God in His Divinity is immortal and all-powerful, transcendent and beyond comprehension, but in His Humanity, God truly has died that day at Calvary, pierced, beaten and wounded for us all. The death of Jesus Christ is truly a real death, and not merely a symbol or appearance only, or as some would believe it otherwise, that He did not really die but was replaced by another. The Lord really did suffer and die, and He was wounded deeply because of our sins. As the first reading of this Good Friday from the Book of the prophet Isaiah highlighted to us, Christ is the One to bear all the burdens of our sins, all of our wickedness and faults, for which we should have been punished for, and yet, God’s great mercy and compassion has allowed us to find a way out through His Son, Our Saviour.

The prophet Isaiah spoke about the Suffering Servant of God, the One Whom God would punish on our behalf for all of our faults and mistakes, burdened with all of the punishments and scourges, wounds because of our disobedience and evils, all the things which we have done in this world that are not in accordance with God’s will. The Suffering Servant is the role that Christ our Saviour has taken up upon Himself, willingly and obediently accepting punishments upon Himself so that by His perfect obedience, He might craft unto us a remedy that allows us all to overcome all of our sins, through God’s forgiveness and grace, freely given and offered to us. By the willing and most loving sacrifice of our Lord and God, on the Altar of the Cross, the perfect and worthy sacrifice in atonement of our sins have been offered by our One True Eternal High Priest.

And this offering is none other than the Most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord Himself, slain and offered on the Altar of the Cross for us. And since it is none other than the Divine Son and Lamb of God offering Himself, it is the only sacrifice and offering worthy to atone for our sins. This is the continuation of the whole grand liturgy that began yesterday at the Last Supper and which will continue through to the Easter Vigil tomorrow evening, a grand sacrifice that the Lord Himself has offered on our behalf for our salvation, with His sufferings and death uniting us all to die to our own sins and wickedness, bringing us through the valley of darkness and out into the light. And by partaking His Most Precious Body and Blood that He Himself has given to us most generously through the Eucharist, God has given us all the perfect remedy for our fallen state and sinfulness, showing us the certain path out of the darkness and into the light of God’s grace and salvation.

In our second reading this Good Friday, we then heard of the words from the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in which he highlighted the role of Jesus Christ our Lord as the High Priest, Who having shared in our human nature and being truly and fully human, He did share in our pains and sufferings. It is again His incarnation that allowed Him to experience suffering and death in His Passion and what we reflect upon throughout the long Passion story in our Gospel passage today. He has been tempted also by the same temptations that we have faced ourselves, and endured the same things that we have endured. Yet, He triumphed over all those temptations and showed us all that it is indeed possible for us mankind to resist the temptations and to be truly obedient to God, just as Christ Himself has shown us.

By His humble obedience, Jesus our Lord has shown us the perfect example of how each and every one of us as Christians should live our lives in the manner that is truly pleasing to God. And today as we focus our attention on the great sacrifice that Our Lord Himself has gone through for our sake, we are reminded that all of us should not continue to indulge in our various temptations and sins. We should instead remember that each one of our sins and faults have caused hurt on the Lord Himself, with every wounds that were inflicted upon Him being every single sins that we have committed in our lives. And yet, at the same time, God has been so generous with His love for us that He was willing to go through all the sufferings and pains meant for us so that we can be saved from certain destruction and can be reconciled and reunited with Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore as we commemorate the events which happened on this Good Friday and as we continue to immerse ourselves in the important events of this Paschal Triduum, let us all grow ever more aware of our relationship with God and all of our sins, imperfections and faults. Let us all first and foremost be thankful for all the love that God has shown us, and be grateful for everything that He had done for us. Let us all lovingly gaze upon the Cross and commit ourselves wholly and wholeheartedly knowing that He has always been there for us, guiding us through our journey in life and helping us to carry our own crosses. Let us remind ourselves that whatever difficulties and sufferings we may be facing in life, the Lord has suffered them all as well, and in a manner far worse than ours. Yet, He bore them all patiently out of love for us.

Let us all therefore continue to deepen our relationship with God and do our very best to commit ourselves to Him, in everything that we do and in our whole ways of living our lives. We should be more genuine in our faith and in our efforts to build and maintain our relationship with God and we should not ignore the love that God has for us any longer. Instead, let us do our best to glorify God by our lives and our whole actions so that we may continue to be good role models and inspirations for one another in faith, as good and worthy Christians, parts and members of the Church and Kingdom of God which God Himself has established on this Good Friday through His ultimate loving sacrifice on the Cross. May our Crucified Lord and Saviour be with us always. Amen.