Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 121 : 1-2, 3-4a, 4b-5
I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” And now we have set foot within your gates, o Jerusalem!”
Jerusalem, just like a city, where everything falls into place! There the tribes go up.
The tribes of the Lord, the Assembly of Israel, to give thanks to the Lord’s Name. There stand the courts of justice, the offices of the house of David.
Liturgical Colour : White
Ephesians 4 : 7-16
But to each of us divine grace is given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said : When He ascended to the heights, He brought captives and gives His gifts to people. He ascended, what does it mean but that He had also descended to the lower parts of the world? He Himself Who went down, then ascended far above all the heavens fill all things.
As for His gifts, to some He gave to be Apostles, to others prophets, or even evangelists, or pastors and teachers. So He prepared those who belong to Him for the ministry, in order to build up the Body of Christ, until we are all united in the same faith and knowledge of the Son of God. Thus we shall become the perfect Man, upon reaching maturity and sharing the fullness of Christ.
Then no longer shall we be like children tossed about by any wave or wind of doctrine, and deceived by the cunning of people who drag them along into error. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we shall grow in every way towards Him Who is the Head, Christ. From Him comes the growth of the whole body to which a network of joints gives order and cohesion, taking into account and making use of the function of each one. So the body builds itself in love.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Popes)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law in how they propagated and practiced their faith, and He also rebuked them for their behaviour and in how they oppressed and misguided the people of God with their way of observing the commandments of the Lord.
He criticised them using the example of a cup and a dish, which He compared to the Pharisees as those who have cleansed the outside of the cup and the dish so that they looked good and clean to those who saw them, but leave the insides dirty and unwashed. It does not make sense at all, since if we have a cup or a plate, we are using the inside and not the outside. They may appear good from the outside, but if the inside is dirty, then what use will they have?
What Jesus used as a comparison today is a comparison of our own beings, like what He had told the people about the Pharisees, the elders and the teachers of the Law. These people were the elites in their society, and they often walked around proudly, proud of their status and their influence in the governance over the people. They wore their vestments as the symbol of their superiority, and they often looked down on others.
They prayed loudly and with gestures in order to be seen by the people, and they had no qualms to criticise those who did not follow their ways and teachings, as mistaken and misguided as they were. And they were adamantly unrepentant of their behaviours, forcing the people to accept their way of observing the Law of God, focusing solely on the outward appearances, on the menial matters even such as washing of the hands and feet, the way to do them properly to the smallest details, the imposition of no work during the Sabbath days and others.
But in their hearts, in truth, they did not have God in them. They were so full of themselves that God did not take any priority for them. They always tried to bring themselves to the fore of the society, despising all those whom they considered as threats to their power and influence. And that is why, if you are wondering why these Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who were supposed to be intelligent and the most educated especially about the laws and ways of the Lord, were to refuse Jesus when He came to this world.
Human ambitions and greed can indeed be very dangerous, and very powerful at the same time. Just as what we heard today in the Epistle that St. Paul wrote to the faithful in Galatia, where he rebuked those who pretended to be righteous and just in their ways, and yet in reality, they have fallen further and further away from the Lord and His salvation. They have only obeyed the Lord in their exterior application, but inside they remain rotten and unchanged.
That is why we should follow the example of the holy saint, Pope St. John XXIII, one of the Popes of the last century, whose life has been exemplary in his faith and dedication to the Lord. Through him we can see the example of how the faithful ought to live their faith, and be thoroughly devoted of their ways to the Lord both in their exterior and interior, and not just their exterior as what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done.
Pope St. John XXIII was born as Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the son of a poor farmer in a poor family in the northern region of Italy. At that time, life was simple and hard for him and for his relatives. His father wanted him and his siblings to continue his work as farmers, but with the help of a relative, Angelo Roncalli was able to attain education in a seminary in the nearby town, where gradually he felt the calling of the Lord.
Even though his father initially refused to allow him to become a priest, but eventually with some help, he was able to make it and thus he became a priest of the Lord, serving the poor and caring for the people, both spiritually and in material terms. In one occasion, when there was a riot in the diocese where he was serving as a priest, due to the unfair labour laws, Angelo Roncalli helped his local ordinary, the bishop who was supportive of his flock and calling for greater equality and fairer treatment of the workers.
He was then appointed as the Papal representative to Bulgaria, where he became one of its first Apostolic Delegate, caring for the people of the faith who lived there, and became the representative of the Vicar of Christ to them. Many did not welcome him as he was representing the authority of the Roman Church, while many Bulgarians belonged to the separatist Eastern Orthodox churches. However, through his persistence and many charitable works, including helping out when a major earthquake struck the country won him many people’s support.
Even in his later works as the Apostolic Delegate to Greece and Turkey, the future Pope St. John XXIII helped many people, including the Jews who suffered under the NAZI Germany rule, where on one occasion it was told that he helped many Jews to escape by persuading the German soldiers and commanders that the train did not carry Jews but instead pilgrims to Turkey.
Eventually he was elected to be the leader of the Universal Church, and there were even more good things he had done in leading the faithful people of God, helping to reduce the Cold War tension between the superpowers which at that time was at the breaking point due to what happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. He wrote and published the Papal Encyclical ‘Pacem in Terris’ dedicated t world peace. He also convened the Second Vatican Council to address some unfinished issues in the Church.
In the end, looking at the examples that Pope St. John XXIII and the many other holy saints and people of God had done, we ourselves should be inspired to follow in their footsteps and do the same. We should not be like the Pharisees whose faith are for appearances only, but instead, we should practice what we believe through our own actions. May the Lord help us to be more devoted to Him, and may He bless us in all that we do, that we may receive glory with Him at the end of our days with the glorious saints. God bless us all. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Popes)
Luke 11 : 37-41
At that time, as Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked Him to have a meal with him. So He went and sat at table. The Pharisee then wondered why Jesus did not first wash His hands before dinner. But the Lord said to him, “So then, you Pharisees, you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside yourselves you are full of greed and evil.”
“Fools! He Who made the outside, also made the inside. But according to you, by the mere giving of alms everything is made clean.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Popes)
Psalm 118 : 41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48
Give me Your unfailing love, o Lord, Your salvation as You have promised.
Take not the word of truth from my mouth, for I would also lose my hope in Your word.
May I always keep Your word forever and ever.
I shall walk in freedom, having sought out Your laws.
For I delight in Your word, which I fear.
I will lift up my hands to You, and meditate on Your commandments.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Popes)
Galatians 5 : 1-6
Christ freed us to make us really free. So remain firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. I, Paul, say this to you : if you receive circumcision, Christ can no longer help you. Once more I say to whoever receives circumcision : you are now bound to keep the whole Law.
All you who pretend to become righteous through the observance of the Law have separated yourselves from Christ and have fallen away from grace. As for us, through the Spirit and faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. In Christ Jesus it is irrelevant whether we be circumcised or not; what matters is faith working through love.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the message of today’s Scripture readings is very, very clear to us, and in case any of us have not realised and understood what this message is, then let us all discuss them here together, that all of us may understand the importance of what we heard today from the Holy Scriptures, for the sake of the salvation of our souls.
From the first reading taken from the Book of Wisdom, we are exhorted to look for the true treasure that we can find in this life, that is not wealth or possessions, neither pleasures of life or joys of this world, neither in food or revelry, neither human praise nor in fame, but in the knowledge of the wisdom of God, and the understanding of the truth that can only be found in God.
In the psalm today, we heard the very last line, which said to us that we ought to know the shortness of our lives, and asking us to let ourselves be filled and be completely taken by the wisdom of God, which will fill us up with true grace and wonders, that cannot be offered or be given by the world, for the wonders of God’s wisdom and might is infinitely far better.
This is to let us all know that for all the greatness and the wonders that the world can offer us or boast to us, all these are mere fleeting and temporary, and nothing of these can offer us true and lasting joy. And that is what Jesus in the Gospel today is trying to let us all know as well. For the wealth of this world is perishable, just as much as our flesh and bodies are perishable.
What does this mean? This means that all the money, the properties, houses, cars, buildings and all forms of wealth both tangible and intangible are all perishable by the forces of nature and by the hands of men. Take for example, a natural disaster like fire or earthquake or many other manifestations of these disasters, can easily destroy all that we have gathered so hard for our own satisfaction and pleasure.
And if we think that if we store our possessions in banks and similar institutions, or convert them into something like bonds and stocks, thinking that they are safe, then we really ought to realise how wrong we are. Banks and other institutions, even the mightiest ones, have fallen low and be destroyed by their own greed, or by other reasons, and when they fall, they bring together with them all of those who have entrusted what they had invested in them.
Surely we have seen how throughout history there are those who placed their trust and hopes in the upsurge of stock prices only to be sorely disappointed and even crushed by collapse or meltdown in the financial markets. Countless millions had experienced sufferings because they lost their hard earned money thinking that they could earn even more money quickly through such methods.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Gospel today spoke about Jesus our Lord, who spoke to a man who said to Him that he had done everything that the Law of God, or more specifically, the law of Moses had asked him to do, the commandments, the rules and obediences that he had to perform in accordance to the Jewish customs and faith, but who did not feel satisfied in his heart, because he did not feel the true satisfaction, and thus he asked that question to Jesus.
And Jesus told him the fact, the hard truth, that in order to be truly faithful, obedient, and ultimately to find the true satisfaction, one must be ready to part with all that he has, and abandon everything and follow Him in His ways, walking together the path of Jesus towards eternal life and salvation. This is the fact that Jesus had spoken to the man, which unfortunately was too much for him to bear.
And Jesus did say that the more that one has, the more difficult it is for one to part with all the multitudes and myriads of things that they have. And this is indeed very true, because it is our human nature to be greedy and to be filled with desire, and this desire is for things that satisfy the lust and greed of our human flesh, of our mortal bodies, the desire for money, for praise and fame, for adulation and glory, for pleasures of the body and sexual gratification and many others.
The more we have all these, and the more we make it a norm and a habit for us to have these, to pursue these and to want to have these, then we have to realise that we will be drawn ever further away from God’s grace and salvation, for in exchange of all these worldly pleasures and goodness, that are illusory and temporary, we have sold our rights and inheritance of God’s everlasting kingdom, by committing sins that make us unworthy to receive His grace and blessings.
Yet, we have to understand also that God did not mean that we should take His words completely at the literal level and sell everything we have, destroying all of our possessions or disowning them, or breaking apart our families and relationships just because Jesus said so to the man and to His Apostles. Indeed, He said that no one who had left behind worldliness and attachments to this world that will not be rewarded richly in the presence of God, but what He truly meant is different than what we understand if we read it merely at the literal level.
What our Lord meant is that we must be willing to forgo and break our attachments to the things of this world, that are the temptations that Satan and his tempters are presenting to us daily in order to tempt us and pull as away fron ever reaching God’s salvation, but it does not mean that those worldly goods are inherently evil in themselves.
Money and possessions can be beneficial when they are used appropriately, and they can be used for good purposes, such as helping the needy and supporting one another, that everyone can have a good life without suffering. And relationships and family ties are indeed necessary, for the family is truly the heart of our Christian faith. It is one of the strong pillars that supported the Church, for without strong and good Christian families, I fear that countless souls will be lost to damnation.
What our Lord Jesus is condemning is our unhealthy attachment to those things of this world, that caused us to behave in a wicked manner, in acts of selfishness and disgrace that brought about suffering to others around us. This is evident in how many people refused to share or give even a little of what they have, in order to help alleviate the suffering of others around them, and instead, endeavoured to gain even more of what they already had, or even engaging in the exploitation of the weak and the poor for this purpose.
It is this attachment to the world, to all the worldliness and the refusal to let go of all these things that our Lord condemned from us. He chides us for our stubbornness and our constant and continued acts of selfishness that showed how far we have fallen into the trap of our own greed and desire, and the extent of which we have allowed ourselves to fall is indeed worrying.
Now, therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, the choice lie before us, on whether we choose the path of the world, enjoying the goods and riches, the wonders and the pleasures of life, seeking the easy path and succumbing to our own desires and wanting ever more good things in our lives, without realising that all we have are merely illusory and temporary, and there will be a time when all of these will be taken away from us and we are left with nothing, or we can choose to follow the path that is more difficult and uncertain in the beginning, or it may seem so to us, but in the end, will bear us the everlasting fruits of heaven.
Jesus told His disciples the parable about a rich man who had so much wealth and riches, that he boasted that he should bring down his barns and storage places to build even bigger ones to store more of his wealth. But the Lord rebuked him and said to him that he was truly a fool for believing that he had all such glory and good things, when the Lord Himself would claim him on that very night.
Thus, through this, we see again the futility of the path of greed and the path of wickedness. Instead, let us all from now on, devote ourselves anew to the Lord and commit ourselves to His ways. Let us all seek to renew our zeal and courage to stand up for our faith and resist the temptations of the devil and the allures of the world. And instead of selfishly keeping all things to ourselves, let us make use of what we have been blessed with, and share that blessing with one another.
May Almighty God awaken in each one of us a heart of renewed charity, that we may become ever more sensitive to the cries of the poor and to the needs of the poor and those who are less fortunate around us, not just in wealth, but also those whose hearts are still shrouded in the darkness of greed and wickedness. Let us help one another to reach out to the Lord, and through repentance find His mercy. May our Lord bring us all His beloved children, into His everlasting kingdom. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 10 : 17-30
At that time, just as Jesus was setting out on His journey again, a man ran up, knelt before Him and asked, “Good Master, what must I do to have eternal life?”
Jesus answered, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments : Do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not cheat, honour your father and mother.”
The man replied, “I have obeyed all these commandments since my childhood.” Then Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him and He said, “For you, one thing is lacking. Go, sell what you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven. Then come and follow Me.”
On hearing these words, his face fell and he went away sorrowful, for he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”
The disciples were shocked at these words, but Jesus insisted, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
They were more astonished than ever and wondered, “Who then, can be saved?” Jesus looked steadily at them and said, “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God; all things are possible with God.”
Peter spoke up and said, “We have given up everything to follow You.” Jesus answered, “Truly, there is no one who has left house, or brothers or sisters, or father or mother, or children, or lands, for My sake and for the Gospel, who will not receive his reward. I say to you : even in the midst of persecution, he will receive a hundred times as many houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and lands in the present time, and in the world to come eternal life.”
Alternative reading (shorter version)
Mark 10 : 17-27
At that time, just as Jesus was setting out on His journey again, a man ran up, knelt before Him and asked, “Good Master, what must I do to have eternal life?”
Jesus answered, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments : Do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not cheat, honour your father and mother.”
The man replied, “I have obeyed all these commandments since my childhood.” Then Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him and He said, “For you, one thing is lacking. Go, sell what you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven. Then come and follow Me.”
On hearing these words, his face fell and he went away sorrowful, for he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”
The disciples were shocked at these words, but Jesus insisted, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
They were more astonished than ever and wondered, “Who then, can be saved?” Jesus looked steadily at them and said, “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God; all things are possible with God.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Hebrews 4 : 12-13
For the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and judges the intention and thoughts of the heart.
All creation is transparent to Him; everything is uncovered and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we render account.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 89 : 12-13, 14-15, 16-17
So make us know the shortness of our life, that we may gain wisdom of heart. How long will You be angry, o Lord? Have mercy on Your servant.
Fill us at daybreak with Your goodness, that we may be glad all our days. Make joy endure as the misery did, and the years in which we were afflicted.
Let Your work be seen by Your servants and Your glorious power by their children. May the sweetness of the Lord be upon us; may He prosper the work of our hands.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 