Ut omnes unum sint

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Friday, 13 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the theme of the readings that we hear is sin and forgiveness of that sin, which had been the bane for all of us men. Sin came about because of the disobedience which we had shown to the Lord, when we chose to listen to the words and sweet temptations of Satan rather than listening to the will of God.

In the first reading, taken from the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, we heard the account of how mankind fell into sin for the first time, the sin of our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, who listened to the wicked serpent, that is Satan, eating the fruits of the forbidden tree which God had forbid them to eat from. That tree of knowledge of good and evil is the reason why we mankind have ever since been exposed to evil and to sin, which is because of our inability to distinguish between the two due to the limitation of our intelligence, wisdom and abilities.

We were too greedy, brothers and sisters in Christ, and since the days of our ancestors, we have desired to seek many things that we ought not to have with us. As a result, we fall into a state of disgrace and separation from the love of our God. Sin entered into us, and we are rendered sick, blinded, deafened and made mute by the taints of that sin.

And yet, someone did not give up on us, no matter how fallen and wicked we have become, and no matter how hopeless we appear to have become. And that One is our Lord Himself, who loved us so much beyond everything else. He loves us all and He is concerned about us, worried about the fate which will be ours if we continue to walk on this path towards disaster, that is the path of sin.

That is why in the Gospel today we heard the story of when Jesus our Lord healed the deaf and dumb man, whom the Lord healed by the outpouring of His mercy and love, to open the ears and the mouth of the man and enable him to finally speak and listen again. Indeed, to listen to the wonders of the nature, all of God’s creation, and to speak of the Lord’s glory and everlasting life for all of us.

Too long we have dwelled in the darkness, and too long we have been corrupted by the snares of Satan. We have been blinded, made deaf and mute by the sins which Satan had tempted us with, and with our desires and greed piling up and growing, it is increasingly becoming more and more difficult for us to escape from the snares and the chains that kept us in this world of darkness. But, our salvation comes from the Lord, and He personally came to ensure that all of us be saved from the dangers of death and annihilation because of our sins.

In baptism according to the traditional and reverent rite, the same ritual is performed, following what Jesus did to the man, by touching the ears and the tongue with spittle, and saying the words ‘Ephphata!’ which means, ‘be opened!’. This is to symbolise that through baptism, our Lord had lifted us up from the darkness of sin, and by cleansing us with the holy water of baptism, He had unveiled from us, the true light that exists within us, dispelling all the veils and the falsehoods that Satan had planted all around us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, today let us all recall our own baptism, the time when we have the waters of baptism being poured onto us. Baptism is the important moment in time when we are freed from the shackles of sin that hold onto us, and brought by the Lord to enter into His eternal light. Thus, as we remember our own baptism, let us all renew our commitment of faith to God, and awaken in us all the passion and desire to love Him more and more.

Let us all shun all forms of sin, repent and be glad once again, for our Lord had come to liberate us, and all of us who believe in Him, will not be disappointed, but will forever enjoy the grace and love of our Lord. God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 13 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 31-37

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

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

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

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Friday, 13 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 31 : 1-2, 5, 6, 7

Blessed is the one whose sin is forgiven, whose iniquity is wiped away. Blessed are those in whom the Lord sees no guilt and in whose spirit is found no deceit.

Then I made known to You my sin and uncovered before You my fault, saying to myself, “To the Lord I will now confess my wrong.” And You, You forgave my sin, You removed my guilt.

So let the faithful ones pray to You in time of distress; the overflowing waters will not reach them.

You are my Refuge; You protect me from distress and surround me with songs of deliverance.

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Friday, 13 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Genesis 3 : 1-8

Now the serpent was the most crafty of all the wild creatures that YHVH God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say : You must not eat from any tree in the garden?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden, but of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden God said : You must not eat, and you must not touch it or you will die.”

The serpent said to the woman, “You will not die, but God knows that the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” The woman saw that the fruit was good to eat, and pleasant to the eyes, and ideal for gaining knowledge. She took its fruit and ate it and gave some to her husband who was with her. He ate it.

Then their eyes were opened and both of them knew they were naked. So they sewed leaves of a fig tree together and made themselves loincloths. They heard the voice of YHVH God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, and they, the man and his wife, hid from YHVH God among the trees of the garden.

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Thursday, 12 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are presented with the readings which tell us about the relationship we have with one another, from the Book of Genesis which is our first reading that tells us about the creation of man and woman, and how woman was made as a companion to man, to help him and that she can also be helped by man. It is therefore a mutualistic relationship, where man complement woman and vice versa.

And that is why we have marriage and the institution of the holy matrimony and the holy institution of the family. That is because the union between man and woman had been decreed and ordained by God since the beginning of time, when He first created man and woman to complete each other and make each other perfect in the sight of God. And He had also given this world to our care, and blessed us all to bear children and spread all around the world.

The union of man and woman had been blessed by God, and indeed God had said that what God had made one, no man shall divide and separate. And from that blessed union, the gift of children came, and many young ones were born, to continue the legacy of mankind, as the new generation of humanity to walk in this world. However, unfortunately, sin entered into the hearts of men, and we became defiled by its darkness.

The people of God had been disobedient, and repeatedly they had abandoned the Lord their God to worship the horrible idols of the world, and allowed themselves to be corrupted by sin. They disregarded the commandments of the Lord and allowed their lives to be filled with the wickedness of sin and evil. But God did not give up on them, just as much as He hated their sins and evils, so much so and even more so that He loved them all and desired their salvation.

That was why He gave Jesus, His own Son, who became Man and incarnate in flesh, to walk as one of us and dwell in this world. He came into the world to reveal the truth to a people who have long walked in the darkness of the world, and bring them into the fullness of God’s love, mercy and salvation. But yet, His own people rejected Him, because they were so full of themselves, so immersed in their pride, and so reluctant to let go of the possessions and things of the world which they had accumulated in their earthly life.

This is where this attitude is contrasted with the attitude of the faithful Syro-Phoenician woman, whose daughter was afflicted and possessed by an evil spirit. She had great faith in Jesus, and knowing and accepting who Jesus was, she poured out her heart to Him, and in great humility, she beseeched Him to help her daughter. She did not even mind being insulted by what Jesus apparently said to her when she asked Him for help.

What Jesus said to the woman was in fact the prejudice and bias which the people of Israel often had of those around them who did not belong to the race of the Jewish people. They have always taken pride of the fact that they were the chosen people, and as the recipients of God’s planned salvation, they took great pride and thought lowly of those who did not belong to their race.

Thus, it is truly a surprising fact and occurrence when the Syro-Phoenician woman, considered to be among the Gentiles, or the non-Jewish people, had so great a faith for the Lord, when the very chosen people of God had refused to believe in Him and hardened their hearts against Him. And for her faith, she was rewarded and her daughter was cured from her afflictions.

Jesus did not intend to demean or insult her at all, but instead, He was rebuking the Jews and the people of God, who was so haughty and proud to the point that they lost their focus in the Lord, and thus they were unable to recognise Him in Jesus. He wanted to chastise His prodigal people, the unfaithful people, that they would be awakened from their long and deep slumber, and follow what the Syro-Phoenician woman had done, that is to be truly and genuinely faithful to the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, today, let us all follow the Lord with all of our hearts and with our entire being focused completely at Him. Let us also be faithful to Him and follow all of His ways and teachings. In this era, we know that the institution of marriage and holy matrimony, as well as the family itself are under great threat. Let us be brave and courageous defenders of marriage, the sanctity of the union between man and woman as ordained by God.

May all of us strive to be holy and pure just as our Lord is. Let us all shun all forms of sin and become righteous as we were all intended to be. Reject Satan and all of his lies, and reject all forms of worldliness. May Almighty God be with us all and bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 12 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 24-30

At that time, when Jesus left the place where He condemned the Pharisees, He went to the border of the Tyrian country. There He entered a house, and did not want anyone to know He was there, but He could not remain hidden. A woman, whose small daughter had an evil spirit, heard of Him, and came and fell at His feet. Now this woman was a pagan, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she begged Him to drive the demon out of her daughter.

Jesus told her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to puppies.” But she replied, “Sir, even the puppies under the table eat the crumbs from the children’s bread.”

Then Jesus said to her, “You may go your way; because of such a response, the demon has gone out of your daughter.” And when the woman went home, she found her child lying in bed, and the demon gone.

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Thursday, 12 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 127 : 1-2, 3, 4-5

Blessed are you who fear the Lord and walk in His ways. You will eat the fruit of your toil; you will be blessed and favoured.

Your wife, like a vine, will bear fruits in your home; your children, like olive shoots will stand around your table.

Such are the blessings bestowed upon the man who fears the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion. May you see Jerusalem prosperous all the days of your life.

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Thursday, 12 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Genesis 2 : 18-25

YHVH God said, “It is not good for Man to be alone; I will give him a helper who will be like him.” Then YHVH God formed from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air and brought them to Man to see what he would call them; and whatever Man called every living creature, that was its name.

So Man gave names to all the cattle, the birds of the air and to every beast of the field. But he did not fins among them a helper like himself. Then YHVH God caused a deep sleep to come over Man and he fell asleep. He took one of his ribs and filled its place with flesh.

The rib which YHVH God had taken from Man He formed into a woman and brought her to the man. The man then said, “Now this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken from man.”

That is why man leaves his father and mother and is attached to his wife, and with her becomes one flesh. Both the man and his wife were naked and were not ashamed.

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Wednesday, 11 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of our Lady of Lourdes, World Day of the Sick (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (our Lady of Lourdes)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the great feast day of Mary, the mother of our Lord and God Jesus Christ, who had appeared to her people, that is all of us, through the intermediary of St. Bernadette Soubirous just over a hundred and fifty years ago, in the quiet village and area of Lourdes in southern France. Today is the feast of our Lady of Lourdes, also known as the day of universal prayer for the sick and those afflicted with diseases both of body and soul.

We heard in the Gospel today of the creation of mankind, good and wonderful and perfect, filled with all the goodness of God, and made in the image of God. All of us were destined for a life filled with bliss and great happiness. Sickness and death were never meant for us, for these are the things of darkness, and we are the children of the Light, that is God.

Yet, it was because of our disobedience that we have sinned before the Lord and before all men, and therefore, in our disobedience and lack of faith, we brought the sickness unto ourselves, and sickness as well as corruption become a part of us. And that is what our Lord wants us to overcome and be freed from. He came into the world and through His teachings and works, He made whole a people that had been claimed by the darkness.

In the psalms, we heard about the praise upon Judith, the brave and courageous daughter of Israel and a holy woman, who despite of the great threat that faced her people, in the great force of the Babylonians under the leadership of the mighty general Holofernes, she went forth by herself to the camp of the enemy and in full faith of the Lord’s providence, she gained a great victory, triumph and salvation for her people by slaying the general when he was drunk with wine in his sleep.

Thus a great disaster was averted for the people of God, a people that had been subjected to the might and power of the conquering nation, expecting nothing else other than annihilation and slavery. It was because of the faith of one woman, who put her trust in the Lord, that salvation came for the people of God, and God heard the sincere prayers of the woman, Judith, which she made before she ventured into the enemy’s camp.

In the Gospel today, we hear something similar, and of an even greater significance for us all, as we heard about the Wedding at Cana, a story that we are surely all familiar with. In that wedding, the wedding couple who are the hosts of the wedding went into great trouble for their wine supply had run out. This is a great taboo in the Jewish society, and had the guests and the steward knew about it, the couple would be shamed and reviled for the rest of their lives.

That is when we know that Mary knew about the problem which the couple had, and she performed something that would set a great precedent. She requested for her Son to help the couple and get them out of trouble. Indeed, Jesus seemingly refused this when He remarked to her that it was not His time just yet. But, what Mary told the servants would be indeed amazing, as she said that whatever He would tell them, they have to listen to Him.

And indeed, Jesus performed His very first miracle right there and then. He turned the water into wine, and the reputation of the wedding couple was saved. But what is the true significance of this, brothers and sisters? It is that our beloved mother and the mother of our Lord Jesus, that is Mary, never forgets us when we are in trouble. Just as she was very observant of the problem faced by the couple, she too from heaven can see our troubles and the obstacles that lay in our path.

Mary is the greatest of all saints, not just because of her piety and her faithful life, which she spent in total and complete dedication to the will of God, mirroring what Judith had done even to a much greater scale, but she is also the mother of our Lord and God, Jesus Christ our Saviour and King. And she sits the closest to her Son’s throne in heaven, at His right hand, giving Him advice, prayers and petitions from all of us.

And she is also our mother, for remember that before His death on the cross, Jesus entrusted His own mother to His disciple John, just as He entrusted John to her. In this manner, He therefore entrusted all of us to the care of Mary, His mother. And that is how significant this feast day is for us. As we know with the other famous Marian apparitions, Mary appeared to many people, calling for them to repent and change from their sinful ways. She asked the people to devote themselves more and more to her Son, our Lord.

And in Lourdes, it was no different, for Mary also mentioned to St. Bernadette Soubirous, the need for the world to be converted for the sake of Christ, that everyone may receive the grace of salvation and liberation from their sins. And through her intercession for our sake, many had received miraculous healing at the Lourdes site ever since the apparition.

The water of the spring at Lourdes appeared since the time when Mary appeared to St. Bernadette, and those who bathed and immersed themselves in the water had been healed from their afflictions. This is why today we also pray for the sake of all those who are sick, as a reminder of this great grace of God. But we have to remember that, it is not that the water has any magical properties, or that Mary is the one who performed the miracle for us.

Rather, just like at the wedding at Cana, she is our intercessor, bringing our prayers directly to her Son, Jesus our Lord. Through her prayers, we are all made whole again by the grace of her Son, Jesus, who performed the healing and the miracle for us. What is the key? None other than our faith and our effort in living up to that faith. It is our faith in the power of our Lord, and the effort we have done to seek Him, which healed us from our afflictions, both of the body, and also of the soul, that is sin.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, on this great feast day of our Lady of Lourdes, let us all renew our commitment to our loving God, and let us all be ever more devoted to His mother, Mary, who is also our mother, and who like a mother is always concerned about us and daily pray for our sake, bringing our petitions and plight before her Son in heaven. Mary, our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us sinners that your Son may bring us to a new life everlasting freed from the afflictions of our body and soul. Amen.

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Wednesday, 11 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of our Lady of Lourdes, World Day of the Sick (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (our Lady of Lourdes)

Mark 7 : 14-23

At that time, Jesus then called the people to Him again and said to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and try to understand. Nothing that enters a person from the outside can make that person unclean. It is what comes from within that makes a person unclean. Let everyone who has ears listen.”

When Jesus got home and was away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him about this saying, and He replied, “So even you are dull? Do you not see that whatever comes from outside cannot make a person unclean, since it enters not the heart but the stomach, and is finally passed out?”

Thus Jesus declared that all foods are clean. And He went on, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him, for evil designs come out of the heart : theft, murder, adultery, jealousy, greed, maliciousness, deceit, indecency, slander, pride and folly. All these evil things come from within and make a person unclean.”

Alternative reading (Mass of our Lady of Lourdes)

John 2 : 1-11

At that time, three days after Jesus had called Nathanael to be His disciple, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus was also invited to the wedding with His disciples. When all the wine provided for the celebration had been served, and they had run out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”

Jesus replied, “Woman, what concern is that to you and Me? My hour has not yet come.” However His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”

Nearby were six stone water jars, set there for ritual washing as practiced by the Jews, each jar could hold twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them to the brim. Then Jesus said, “Now draw some out and take it to the steward.” So they did.

The steward tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing from where it had come; for only the servants who had drawn the water knew. So, he called the bridegroom to tell him, “Everyone serves the best wine first, and when people have drunk enough, he serves that which is ordinary. Instead, you have kept the best wine until the end.”

This miraculous sign was the first, and Jesus performed it at Cana in Galilee. In this way He let His glory appear, and His disciples believed in Him.