unity

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Friday, 22 March 2013 : 5th Week of Lent (Scripture Reflection)

Jesus Christ, is indeed the Son of God, a third of the Holy Trinity, in perfect unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, as one and only God. He came from the Father to save us from the certainty of death caused by our rebellions against God, and the sins that our forefathers, beginning from Adam and Eve, had done in the past. He came as the bringer of a new covenant and of salvation, through His own death and resurrection on the third day after that death.

Christ had brought a new hope for all mankind, for all creation to be brought back to be once again together in God’s great love and God’s loving embrace. He had given us Himself on the cross, that He had delivered us from the hands of Satan and his evil angels, who are determined to drag us away as far as possible from God and His love, and His grace. Christ through the cross had brought a new dawn, a new light, for all the people to see. That the people who lived in darkness, are now in the light, and became children of the light, and no longer that of the darkness.

Why did the Jews then not see the goodness of Christ, that of His mission, and His redemptive actions in this world? That is because they were blind, blinded by their blind obedience to their laws, in which they failed to see that the laws and the prophecy of the prophets of times past, all of them simply pointed out to God’s love, which He was to show through the Messiah, the Saviour, who would save God’s people, all mankind, from the destruction because of sin, evil, and death.

That is why today, we have to be careful, brothers and sisters in Christ, that we too will not fail into blindness as they were, but remain in the light, and remain aware of God and His loving presence, and His good works which are still always manifest through our Church, through His ministers, our Pope, bishops, and priests. Through them, we learn about Christ, and we know about His love through their teachings, and also through the Sacred Scripture upon which we base our faith, guided by our teachers in faith.

For all of us, we are already in the light through our baptism, and our eyes are already opened to God’s love, to Christ’s mission in saving all mankind, and our hearts are already opened to receive the new covenant Christ had brought with His death and resurrection. But, we must always cultivate the love and the fruits of the Spirit that God has planted in us, that they will remain alive and robust, and that they will not stay only within ourselves, but be shared for all others around us, especially those who still closed their hearts and their minds from God and His presence.

Teach one another and bring love to one another, that they too can learn about God, and feel God’s divine presence. Not necessarily by any miraculous experience, but even our simple loving acts will make God’s love and light manifest through us, to them, allowing them to witness God’s presence firsthand, and hopefully will bring them closer to God, and accept Him as their Saviour and their Lord.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, today, let us renew our resolve to love Christ, our Lord, ever more. For He is our Saviour who had brought us from death into life, through His own death and resurrection. Let us strive to share this love with one another, especially those who still yet to find out God’s love. Bring God to them through our own actions, and keep on praying for them, for all of us, and for all those who are working hard in the ministry of the Lord and His Gospels. Amen.

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Wednesday, 13 March 2013 : 4th Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

John 5 : 17-30

Jesus replied, “My Father goes on working and so do I.” And the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him, for Jesus not only broke the Sabbath observance, but also made Himself equal with God, calling God, His own Father.

Jesus said to them, “Truly, I assure you, the Son cannot do anything by Himself, but only what He sees the Father do. And whatever He does, the Son also does. The Father loves the Son and shows Him everything He does; and He will show Him even greater things than these, so that you will be amazed.”

“As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life to whom He wills. In the same way the Father judges no one, for He has entrusted all judgment to the Son, and He wants all to honour the Son as they honour the Father. Whoever ignores the Son, ignores as well the Father who sent Him.”

“Truly, I say to you, anyone who hears My word and believes Him who sent me, has eternal life; and there is no judgment for him, because he has passed from death to life. Truly, the hour is coming and has indeed come, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and, on hearing it, will live.”

“For the Father has life in Himself, and He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself. And He has empowered Him as well as to carry out Judgment, for He is Son of Man. Do not be surprised at this; the hour is coming when all those lying in tombs will hear My voice and come out; those who have done good shall rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.”

“I can do nothing of Myself, and I need to hear Another One to judge; and My judgment is just, because I seek not My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”

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Monday, 11 March 2013 : 4th Week of Lent (Scripture Reflection)

Jesus shows today that faith in God is important, for God shows pity and mercy on all of His children, and those who believe in Him, He will save and protect. Those who put their trust in the Lord will not be disappointed. Jesus rewards the man’s faith with the healing of his son from certain death.

However, we must indeed be careful, for the Lord also warned us against believing only by entrusting in miracles and what we see. For such a faith is not a true faith, as we believe because we see great things that unravel in front of our eyes, and then we believe that this supernatural works must have been done by a divine being, that is Christ. This kind of faith is weak and is no true faith, for, as shown when Jesus was arrested and brought before the people after He was arrested.

The people who were there mocked Him and also called for His death. Why? Even though these were likely the same people that have listened to His preaching, His parables, and also witnessed His miracles and healings? That is because their faith is shallow, shallow and have not grown well, just like in the case of the parable of the sower, where the seed had been sown on a rocky and barren ground. The seed of faith found it difficult to grow in them, as their faith came mainly because of awe in the miraculous powers of Jesus.

When Jesus seemed to ‘falter’, which is by being arrested and accused by the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious body at the time, as being a heretic and blasphemer, these people lost their faith, and Satan took away their seeds of faith, just like those seeds that were eaten by the birds on an open road, a clear and easy opportunity for the evil one to come and take the faith away from them.

This is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, I would like to highlight to all of you, the very importance of nurturing our faith, of maintaining our faith, that not only that it will remain strong and unbroken, but even also bear fruit manyfold, like the seeds that fell on the rich soil, and produced much fruit. How to do so? By acts of love, justice, and compassion, that is by doing what God has commanded us to do, the commandments of love Christ had given us.

The commandments of love says that we have to love God with all our hearts, minds, and souls, with all our beings, and therefore not just with our eyes and senses, which will then lead into a true faith in God. But this is not enough, as we also have to love our neighbours, our brethren as much as we love ourselves, and as much as we love God. These are the good works that the Church has encouraged us to do, to live and make our faith in God manifest, in our good works for the sake of the less fortunate, the suffering, and the poor around us.

Remember that the Lord said that all that we do for the sake of these around us, we also do it for the Lord. That is because, through our actions, He can see indeed all our living faith, that is not dead, not superficial, and not mere words, and not mere profession of faith. For faith and service are inseparable, and bound to each other tightly in our journey towards the Lord, as the two pillars of strength supporting us in salvation.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us strive, especially in the perfect chance in this Year of Faith, strive to learn more about our faith, about the teachings of the Church, and the traditions of the Apostles passed down through the Church to us. By understanding all these, we can strive to grow deeper in our faith, and even more so through a solemn and active participation in the liturgy of the Mass, as do not forget that the liturgy of the Mass, when done properly and solemnly, can only serve to strengthen our faith in God our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

As the Mass is the very representation of the Holy Sacrifice Christ had made on the cross in Calvary, and united with that Sacrifice, through which we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, transformed from the bread and wine that we offered, we receive Christ into ourselves, that He will live in us, and reside within us, to transform us from within, that our faith in Him will ever be stronger. This is why it is important for us to participate fully and actively in the Mass by seeking to understand more the liturgy and the Mass.

Then of course, after that, let us all strive to make concrete and visible our faith in God through our service to our fellow brethren around us. It will not be easy, but little by little, beginning within even our own homes, our own families, our own friends, we can slowly begin to propagate acts of love, and acts in accordance with God’s will, that will make us justified before God, that is through our living faith, proven by our good works, and not just empty and dead faith, shown only by words and not true dedication.

May God bless all of us today, and bless our Holy Church, and of course, bless the Cardinal-electors and send the Holy Spirit to them that our new Pope will soon be elected. Amen.

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Thursday, 7 March 2013 : 3rd Week of Lent, Memorial of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, Martyrs (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today let us stand with God and declare our faith and love in Him, that we would not be like the stiff-necked people in Israel in the past, and those who spurned God’s love and even accused Him of doing evil in His divine ministry in this world. For they were blind, blinded by their human weaknesses, blinded by sin and evil that they have committed.

For they have no true love for the Lord in their hearts. They love not the Lord but the praise of men and worldly honour. For these people failed to see the works of the Holy Spirit in Jesus, in healing the disabled, and casting out demons from the possessed. They instead submitted to their human jealousy and hatred of the good deeds of the Lord. There were also those, as mentioned in the Gospel today, put the Lord to the test, to see if He is really sent by God, to test His powers by sending a sign for them to see.

In fact, the act that Jesus did in casting out demons from the possessed had been the very sign that they have sought, in order for them to believe in Him. But they still failed to see, for their eyes were veiled with a thick layer of worldly sin and filth, that prevented them from seeing the works of God that is good. Jealousy is another thing, that it was indeed possible that in the hearts of some of the people gathered there, there brewed jealousy for the powers that God had, in Christ. It was the same case in the Acts of the Apostles, where Simon the sorceror attempted to bribe the Apostles to have the same authority and power given to them. But the authority of God is not purchaseable, and God gives it only to those whom He deems worthy.

Indeed, brothers and sisters, today God wants to show us that we have to believe in God, and not to be distracted by the evil one, that we begin to accuse God’s works as evil, out of our blindness to see the truth, which eventually will cause divisions between us, and in the end, as Christ had said, we will not be able to stand united, and shall fall down.

Truly, we are One, One in Christ, one as a member of the One Body of Christ, that is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, that is our Catholic Church. We must all always remember the warning that Christ had given us today, that no house divided against itself will be able to stand and survive. The devil will not survive if he is divided against his servants and his collaborators, and therefore, so does our Church.

Throughout the millenia since the birth of the Church, there had been many dissents and divisions that led to the painful separation and destruction of unity in the Church of Christ, in parallel to the civil war of the nation as mentioned by Christ. We managed to stay together as the Catholic Church, and even managed to welcome some of our separated brethren back into unity with the One and only Church of our Lord. But even within our Church today, there are divisions, that will threaten to destroy the unity and harmony between all the faithful ones in God.

There are those who are blinded to the reason for unity, and chose to separate themselves from the Universal Church to pursue their own goals and ideas, rejecting all other ideas and anything that our Church had come through in the past 50 years since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. On the other hand, there are many who had succumbed to the world, and buoyed by the evils of the world, begin to demand for worldly changes and innovations to enter the Church.

We must learn to be courageous and say no to all these things that brought disunity and discord into the holy Church of God. We must stand firm despite all the pulls that the world and evil that tried to break up the unity of the Church. How are we to bring back our separated brethren in Christ, those who had been lost in their long journeys in the faith, into the One Church of God, if we ourselves are divided in a civil war against ourselves?

Therefore. brothers and sisters, once again let us pray for unity, both among ourselves, the faithful in Christ already united in His Church, and ourselves and our separated brethren in the myriads of ‘churches’ throughout the world, with our brethren in the Eastern Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox Churches, and that very soon, Christ’s prayer and wish that all of us may be one (That they all may be One) just as He and the Father is one and indivisible, will be fulfilled, and all faithful in God, will be One.

Today, we also commemorate the memorial of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, who were martyrs in the early days of the Church. Saint Perpetua and Saint Felicity were a noble mother and her slave respectively, who were martyred in the height days of the Roman Empire, due to their steadfastness to stand by their faith and their God, and refused all forms of persuasion for them to leave their faith and convert back into paganism. Their faith in God and solid stand had earned them martyrdom and thus eternal life and place in heaven with God who loves them and all of us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us not be divided among ourselves and instead strive for unity, beginning from those near to us, and gradually let us work for unity of all, reach out to our brother Christians who is not yet in full communion with the Holy Church of God. Pray that all will soon return and be united in Christ in the Church He had established on Peter, the Rock.

Pray for us, Saints Perpetua and Felicity, that we also can follow in your footsteps and imitate the strong and unshakeable faith both of you had in the Lord, even to giving up your life for God’s sake, out of love for Him and His children, all of us. Amen.

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Silver Wedding Anniversary (25 years) of my parents : May God bless their marriage and grant them happiness!

Today, Thursday, 28 February 2013, will indeed forever be a memorable day to me. Since, as you all know, that today, is the day when our beloved Pope Benedict XVI will no longer be our Pope as he is stepping down to make way for his successor, whom he thinks will be more capable of handling the duties of the Papacy than him in his old age.

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Indeed, today in fact, will be memorable to me, because it is also the day of the silver wedding anniversary of my parents, who were married on 28 February 1988. Since then, their marriage, although has had its share of troubles, had been mostly happy and filled with grace. I hope that through me, God will always bless my parents.

It has not always been easy for my mother in particular, and for me to an extent, as my mother and my father were not bound by a Christian marriage solemnised with the Sacrament of Marriage, because my father is not yet a Catholic, until the moment I write this post. My mother had been fearful of going to the Church again since her marriage, as she was afraid of what my father would say or act. Thankfully, recently she had been more courageous to go to Church again after my continuous insistence and encouragement. Deo gratias!

Nevertheless, would it not be for my mother, who passed to me her old Catholic Bible when I was young, I may not be here today, and this blog would not have existed. I have to give thanks to her for bringing me up tirelessly despite the problems that I caused her from time to time. I do pray that my whole family will be brought together in Christ soon, that my father will finally be receptive to the Word of God and want to be baptised into the Church.

It has always been my wish that my entire family can one day pray together as one family, and sharing meals together, giving thanks to God for all the blessings He had given me and my family, and for all these 25 years my parents had been together. I cannot thank God enough for that, but that He keeps them safe while I am away overseas, is already great enough a blessing for me.

My mother does have her reservations, especially coming from a rather traditional Chinese family, but indeed gradually she is becoming much more receptive to my calling to be a priest. Mother, if God is willing, and if God calls, it is not for us to reject is it not? For if Mary obediently answer the Lord and gave herself fully to Him, that through her the salvation of this world came, so too even a Pope or Cardinal or bishop would not have been a Pope, Cardinal, or bishop had God not called him first, and had the family not been supportive, especially in prayers.

I do not deny that I do have the desire to be higher in the hierarchy of the Church, as human as I am, but all this is because, I love God’s people, and I want to be able to give myself more to them, to reach out ever more to them, but again, with greater mission, comes greater responsibility. First, is to be a simple priest, what next is for the Lord to decide for me. I am all yours, o Lord.

Therefore, I ask all of you, to pray for me, and my family, that first my parents’ marriage will ever be happy, blessed, and filled with love that is of God. And that God will care for them and bless them as they have blessed me all these while. Pray for me too in my journey, that I will be ever stronger in faith, stronger in love, and stronger in hope, and stronger ever in my dedication to serve God and His people, my brothers and sisters.

That when the time comes, my parents will be the one who will present to me my first chasuble, and hopefully then, my whole family will be able to receive Communion from me, and hence have been united with me in Christ. Pray too for our Church, that in these turbulent times, we will be able to receive a wonderful new Shepherd, filled with God’s Spirit and strength to lead the Church as Pope Benedict XVI had.

We pray for him too that in his prayerful retirement, he will help the Church to become ever holier and ever more powerful in its resolve to fight against evil and all the corruption it has wrought on this world. God bless us all, and God bless my parents and our Pope! Amen!

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Monday, 28 January 2013 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflection)

Today, once again we see Jesus in His role as the High Priest and the Messiah sent by God. He is the Son, one of the Trinity, whom the Father sent down to us, for our sake, out of His great love for us. He is filled with the Holy Spirit, unlike the slander of the teachers of the Law as mentioned in the Gospel, who accused and slandered Jesus’ miracle work to be the work of Satan and his evil spirits.

Then why was Jesus so angry with them such that He rebuked them mentioning that sinning against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven, although He said that even those who insulted God can be forgiven? The reason is because, we need to differentiate between those who does not know God, but can recognise good works and miracles, which eventually originated in God, and those who claim that they know and love God, but cannot even recognise the very work of the Holy Spirit, which is manifested in the good works and miracles, as Jesus did.

The teachers of the Law belong to that second group of people, who are supposedly very knowledgeable about the Law and thus about God, but failed to see the works of God and the Holy Spirit through Jesus, and instead slanders the Holy Spirit in Jesus by attributing the works to the power of Satan. This is a kind of ultimate hypocrisy on the teachers’ side and Jesus clearly did not tolerate this, for as much as God is indeed forgiving and loving, He also hates sin. These teachers of the Law were the guides of the people, and they set the moral standard of the people of God. If they themselves slander the Lord and His great works through Jesus, then they are not a good guides of the people, since instead of bringing the people to the Lord, they will make people fall into sin instead.

Jesus Himself said : “If anyone cause these little ones (also mean the people, the faithful) who believe in Me to sin, it is better for him to be thrown into the sea with large milestone around his neck.” This is why Jesus was very angry at the teachers of the Law due to their role in deceiving people on the works of the Holy Spirit. The same too should also apply to our priests today, as they too are human, and are subject to temptations as we are. Therefore, let us fervently pray for them, that all of them will remain faithful to their calling, and will commit themselves fully to God and His works, ministering to God’s people to the best of their abilities. Let them not to fall into temptation and thus sin, as what has happened to some of our wayward priests. Pray for these priests too, that they can return to the light, and do their best to atone for whatever evil they have committed. God truly loves all and forgives all, even the worst of sinners.

Then, Jesus also emphasized again on the unity of the Church, the Church He has established and entrusted to St. Peter the Apostle. He said that if Satan is divided against himself and has his followers divided against him in a civil war, he will not be able to stand and be vanquished. The same also applies to our own Church, as how are we going to beat Satan and his evil works, if our own Church is divided against itself?

Many people throughout the centuries, fueled by personal ambitions and selfish desires had led to the fracturing of the unity of the Body of Christ, the Church. As a result, today, although technically there is still only One Church that exist, our own Catholic Church, established by Christ Himself and entrusted to Peter, there now in our world exists thousands of churches, which are the splinters and fragments of this holy Body. Even worse that instead of working together, many of these churches attack one another’s faith, and many of them also even went astray from the true faith in Christ, preferring alternative sources and leaders than Christ and the Holy Scripture itself. Many of the attacks were even directed at the Church itself, and many believed in the falseness that arose out of misunderstanding of the faith, and through centuries of division and enmity, born out of human imperfections.

Today, we celebrate the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, a great Doctor of the Church, who was called Doctor Angelicus, or the “Angelic Doctor” out of his great piety, his great faith, and most importantly, out of his great works of the faith and in the field of theology, that helps to define the basis of our modern Church, and also influenced many aspects of our modern world. He is the one person that we look up to, in the matters of the faith, and many aspirants to the priesthood should indeed read his great writings and learn more about the faith, to anchor themselves properly in Christ, that they will not be led astray like those wayward priests, or even worse to be like those teachers of the Law rebuked by Christ. St. Thomas Aquinas also defined many concepts of Christian virtues and ethics, which act as guidelines on how all of us Christians should strive to be. Let us all take some time to try and find the writings of this great Saint, read them, and reflect on them. In doing so, all of us, laity and ordained members of the Church alike, can gain great holiness.

Therefore, today, let us also strive to work for unity of all Christians, of all who believes in Christ. Let us stand up to our faith, and equipped ourselves with the knowledge of our faith and the Holy Scripture, to always be ready with answers, especially when a person who does not yet believe in Christ, or even our separated brethren in Christ came to us with questions about the faith, and about our Church, we are able to give a good answer, and may indeed help to dispel many misconceptions that others have on both the faith, and the Catholic Church, the One Church that God has established, that hopefully, one day, all Christians will be reunited again, and be able to call each other, brothers and sisters in Christ, once again.

Let us work to help fulfill the prayer of Christ to the Father : “That they may be One as we are One; I in them and You in Me. Thus they shall reach perfection in unity; and the world shall know that You have sent Me, and that I have loved them, just as You loved Me.”, and let the world truly know the Lord through our Christian unity, and stand up united against Satan and all his evil angels and supporters. God bless us all, and God bless our priests, and God bless our Pope, Benedict XVI, Amen.

St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

 

+Ut Omnes Unum Sint, ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam+

(That they all may be One, for the greater glory of God)