way of the Lord

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Thursday, 18 February 2016 : 1st Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 7 : 7-12

At that time, Jesus said to the people and to His disciples, “Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks, receives; whoever seeks, finds; and the door will be opened to him who knocks.”

“Would any of you give a stone to your son, when he asks for bread? Or give him a snake, when he asks for a fish? As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”

“So, do to others whatever you would that others do to you : there you have the Law and the Prophets.”

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Thursday, 18 February 2016 : 1st Week of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 137 : 1-2a, 2bcd-3, 7c-8

I thank You, o Lord, with all my heart, for You have heard the word of my lips. I sing Your praise in the presence of the gods. I bow down towards Your Holy Temple.

And I give thanks to Your Name, for Your love and faithfulness, for Your word which exceeds everything. You answered me when I called; You restored my soul and made me strong.

With outstretched arm, You save me from the wrath of my foes, with Your right hand You deliver me. How the Lord cares for me! Your kindness, o Lord, endures forever. Forsake not the work of Your hands.

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Wednesday, 17 February 2016 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the story from the prophet Jonah, where he was sent to the city and to the people of Nineveh, the great city and capital of the mighty Assyrian Empire, the world superpower at the time. The Assyrians conquered many nations, and they enslaved many of the peoples around them, and they grew mighty and proud with their achievements.

But the Lord knew of their pride and haughtiness, and he sent Jonah to them to warn them of their impending destruction because of whatever sins and wickedness that they have committed. And the prophet Jonah did just as what he was told to do, and preached the word of God to the people of Nineveh. He told them that catastrophe and destruction would soon come to claim the whole city and all who dwelled in it.

What was remarkable and noteworthy was how the people of Nineveh, from the king and the greatest nobles, to the humblest and the smallest of the people, all turned from their evil ways and repented, hoping that God would spare them the destruction He had intended for them. And so sincere was their desire to repent and to change their wicked ways, that God had mercy on them, forgave them and gave them a new chance.

God did not carry out the sentence which had been intended for them, and He spared them from the destruction which He had designed on them because of their repentance, and He had mercy on them. God forgave them their sins as an example to all mankind, that if they too, are to turn their back to the sins and wickedness of their past, they have a chance at salvation and redemption in God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ rebuked the people in our Gospel today, and chided particularly the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law because of their refusal to believe in what the Lord Jesus Himself had come into this world to reveal to them, and despite all the good things and the miraculous wonders He had performed before their very own eyes.

And the people of Nineveh who did not even see what Jesus or what God Himself had done, and they neither saw anything performed by Jonah, as it was not mentioned that Jonah performed any miraculous deeds in that city, and yet they all believed, repented and changed their ways. They did not see and yet they believed, and for their faith, they were justified by God.

Remember what Jesus told one of His disciples, Thomas, who initially did not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead, when He appeared to him on one occasion? Thomas had not believed until Jesus had risen from the dead and Jesus said that while his faith was indeed good, as he believed, unlike those who had seen all the miracles Jesus had performed and refused to believe, but better still are those who have not seen and yet believed.

And the people whom Jesus rebuked did not believe, no matter what, and they asked for signs from Him. And Jesus replied that the only sign He would show is the sign of Jonah, and we knew how Jonah was swallowed by a whale for three days and three nights, before he was then released at the seashore. In the same way therefore, Jesus had died and then was buried in the earth for three days before on the third day He rose from the dead.

And how is this significant for us, brethren? This Lent, we are all called to be believers, and not just any believers, but true believers of our Lord in faith and in action. Let us be inspired by the examples of the holy saints whose feast we celebrate today, namely that of the seven Holy Founders of the Servite order, who were faithful servants of God, who devoted themselves to the service of God and of His people.

The seven holy founders were once merchants of the city of Florence, during the height of the medieval era, who left everything they had, that they might discover the Lord, and they led a new life of poverty and penance, withdrawing and turning their backs completely against the sins and wickedness of their past lives. They led a life of virtue and purity justified by God.

Many people followed their examples, and they helped establish what would be known as the Servite order. They obeyed the Lord and served Him faithfully, helping to lead the people of God back to Himself. They did not have a smooth journey however, as challenges and rejections came their way, but they remained faithful and they met the challenges with full faith in the Lord.

Through these examples, the dedication and commitment of the founders of the Servite order, let us all also follow in their footsteps, and let us all renew our own commitment to God, and let us all in this season of Lent be ever filled more and more with the righteousness and justified actions, that we will draw ever closer to God and to His mercy and love. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 16 February 2016 : 1st Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about God Who came into this world to bring it to salvation, and we heard about God Who is indeed our loving Father, Who always look down at us from heaven above, and He Who does not abandon us in times of distress. God is our Father, Who cares for us all just as all fathers care for their children.

God does not let us all to suffer alone in the darkness, and He Who created us with love, wants all of us to be reunited with Him and to be gathered back into His embrace and into His presence, no longer scattered and lost, but reunited and be freed from our bonds of sin and from our attachment and defilement by wickedness and by the darkness of this world.

And through Jesus, God had made His love evident and real in this world. He was the Son of God, Whom He had granted to the world, that all of us mankind might be saved through His works and intercession. And Jesus then showed us all how to pray to our Lord and Father, Who is always listening to us and to our petitions and words, because He is indeed longing to speak with us, to converse with us and to communicate with us.

And in this season of Lent, all of us should spend more time with our Father in heaven, praying to Him and speaking with Him, spending our moments with Him and withdrawing ourselves for a while from the daily business and the daily occupations we had, that we may discern and reflect from our encounter with the Lord in prayer. That is the problem with many of us, that we have spent way too short a time in prayer.

But whenever we pray, do we pray in the proper way, brethren? Or were our prayers filled instead with litany of wishes, petitions, desires, wants, or even demands? This is what our prayers tended to be, and many of us might even have the misconception that when we pray, we are asking the Lord to do us a favour, or even that He would listen to us and grant us what we asked of Him.

That is why when we do not get what we wanted, then we become angry at God, and we even abandon Him for some other things which we think as those that can provide us with what we wanted. But this is not what we ought to be doing, brothers and sisters in Christ. In this season of Lent, a season of renewal, repentance and forgiveness, it is a time for us to understand what it truly means to pray to our Lord and God.

To pray to God means to open ourselves, our hearts, minds and entire being to God, so that He may come in us and speak deep in our hearts. God is always trying to contact us, to touch us and to impact us with His words, and He desires always to communicate with us, for that is what prayer is, that is communication between us and God. And just as in our communication with each other, we talk and at the same time also listen to another person we are talking to, we should be doing the same with the Lord our God too.

That is why we should see how our Lord Jesus prayed to His Father in heaven, which we know now as the Lord’s Prayer, or the Pater Noster, the prayer addressed to God Who is our Father. When we pray, we should first give glory to God, and thank Him for all the blessings which we had received from Him, and even if we are in the direst and the most difficult of moments, we should still always be thankful for the very life which He had given to us.

Let us all rediscover our faith in this time, the time of mercy and forgiveness, and let us approach our Lord, God our Father, and spend more time with Him, communicating and talking with Him in prayer, a pure prayer not made up of our petitions, wishes and wants, but rather a prayer of the love and desire which we have to be loved by our Lord, and to receive His everlasting mercy.

May God bless us and strengthen our resolve to lead an ever more righteous life in this season of Lent and beyond, and may He keep us strong in our faith as always. May He keep us on the path to salvation and everlasting life. Amen.

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Monday, 15 February 2016 : 1st Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard the Scripture readings which told us about the Last Judgment, where Jesus told the people about what would happen at the end of time, when the Lord will come again to judge all creation and all mankind, both the living and the dead. And the fate of those who are to be judged, including all of us, will depend on what had been done and what had not been done.

In the first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, we heard about how God through Moses His servant, reminded His people of the importance of obeying the Law in their actions and deeds, and not to do things that lead to sin and to disobedience against Him. They were reminded not to commit sinful things before the Lord, such as being oppressive and show injustice to one another.

What we heard about is the reminder God gave His people not to commit the sins of action, namely, the actions that show disobedience to God, such as stealing, murder, jealousy, hatred, adultery and many other forms of wicked things that mankind often do, in disregard of God’s commandments. And indeed, all of us should make sure that we keep ourselves free from such actions, and resist the temptation to do those abominable things and acts.

However, we also have to take note what our Lord Jesus Christ said to the people in the Gospel today. The Lord Himself, the Great Judge revealed to the separated people, the good and the wicked, what He looks for in finding righteousness and worthiness to receive the eternal inheritance and grace He promised to all those whom He deemed to be worthy.

We often forget of the fact and reality that sin is not just about what we have done and committed. And it was not just the bad things we committed that brought us to sin, such as murder, stealing, lust and all the other forms of sins, but also things that we have failed to do, especially if we are fully capable of doing them, and yet we consciously ignore them and choose not to do what we ought to do.

This is the sin of inaction, the sin of apathy and sloth, the sin caused by our refusal to take action and to do something, when it is clearly possible and available for us to do good deeds for the sake of others who are around us. And this is just as bad and wicked as doing something that is vile and detestable before God.

Just imagine how many people have been deprived of good things, or have suffered because of our refusal to act, because of our ignorance and apathy. Imagine that in this world itself, if there are just more people who would share their blessings with each other, and care for those who have little or none, then there would be so much fewer cases of hunger, sickness, death and all the things that inflict the poor and the destitute among us.

We mankind have been given the capacity by God, through the blessings He had granted us, through the gifts and talents He had given to us, and through the opportunities that He had laid on our path, to be light, shepherds, and guide to our brethren, helping one another in their earthly lives, and guiding one another on our path together to reach out to the Lord our God.

If we do not do what the Lord had commanded us to do, and which He reminded us all yet again in today’s readings, then we can have no part in His inheritance, and that is why those who have failed to do as the Lord had taught us to do, failing to love, to care, to give our love to the poor and to the less fortunate, shall suffer the fate of those whom God had rejected and cast out from His presence into the eternal damnation.

Let us all therefore, during this season of Lent, make use of the opportunities which have been given to us, so that we may become ever more committed to become faithful servants of God, not just in mere words alone, but also through real and concrete actions. May the Lord our God strengthen the faith in each one of us, and awaken in us the strong desire to be courageous in standing up to our faith through action and good works, especially in this time of Lent. God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 15 February 2016 : 1st Week of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 18 : 8, 9, 10, 15

The Law of the Lord is perfect : it gives life to the soul. The word of the Lord is trustworthy : it gives wisdom to the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right : they give joy to the heart. The commandments of the Lord are clear : they enlighten the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is pure, it endures forever; the judgments of the Lord are true, all of them just and right.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart find favour in Your sight, o Lord – my Redeemer, my Rock!

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Sunday, 14 February 2016 : First Sunday of Advent, Memorial of St. Cyril, Monk and St. Methodius, Bishop, Patron Saints of Europe (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate our first Sunday in the season of Lent, we always hear about the temptation of Jesus Christ our Lord in the desert by the devil, who tried to tempt Him three times without avail, and who then retreated, trying to undermine the works of the Lord in another way. This temptation of our Lord Jesus Christ is tied closely to our own observation of this Lenten period, and also to the history of our faith.

Mankind, ever since the days of Adam and Eve, our forebears and ancestors, had been afflicted with the disease of sin, as Satan managed to tempt them to disobey the Lord and by making use of our human desires to subvert us and to turn us against God, by disobeying His commandments, and by selfishly giving in to our desires. Satan had many weapons, and his greatest one is our pride, our greed and our insatiable desire to fulfil ourselves and our wants.

In the Gospel, as we heard about Jesus being tempted three times, we are heeded to take note of our weaknesses, and our vulnerabilities, which Satan and his agents can easily take advantage of, in their attempt to destroy us and bring us into the eternal darkness with them. First of all, is the temptation of our stomach, the needs and wants of our body, our flesh, the temptation of food and greed.

We all know that all living things require food in order to continue living and to survive, and without food we will eventually die of starvation and hunger. But we should also be aware of the distinction and the growing gap between the rich and the poor in our world today. All of us are indeed aware, and we should have indeed heard about how many of the poor people in places and parts of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even in the developed countries and regions, who had not enough food even to sustain themselves, less still for their children and for their families.

And yet, we also know that there are many excesses that people in our time today had committed, squandering much money and wealth in pursuit of good food and good lifestyle, a lifestyle of hedonism and excess, where a lot of waste and a lot of injustice are being done to those who have little or even none for themselves, even to keep themselves alive. And yet, there are those who rejoice, revel at themselves and feast on top of the suffering of others.

This Lent, we are fasting because we ought to resist the temptation of our flesh. Our human needs and wants is such that, hunger and starvation can lead men to hurt or even kill one another, in order to get what we need and want. If we do not restrain ourselves, then surely we shall fall into the deep trap of sin that Satan has prepared for us. Thus, let us heed what Jesus said, that we do not live on bread or food alone, as these give us just what we need in this earthly life, but we should put our trust in the word of God, our true sustenance, for it is through the Word that we can find our way to salvation.

But we have to be careful, lest the devil used our lack of understanding of God’s words in order to deceive us and tempt us further. We saw how the devil was trying to use the verses from the Scriptures to tempt Jesus to show Himself to the people, by jumping off from the pinnacle of the Temple. Indeed, the verse meant that God will protect His people, and He will send His Angels to protect us from harm, but if we test God and try to see if He really will protect us, that means we have no faith in Him.

And the second temptation was also the temptation of pride, for we mankind are all inherently vulnerable to this trait, the pride and haughtiness in each and everyone of us. We see in many people, the desire to be recognised and to be praised, so that someone will praise us and recognise us for what we have done. But at times, we can be so desperate or our desire for such things may be so great, in the end, we lose sight and focus on what we ought to do, and again, we bring harm to others.

We see how people fight and jostle with one another, either with cunning, or trickery, with words of mouth, or even through physical violence, just so that they can have an edge over another people, and gain what they desire, that is power, honour, glory, fame and many others. And this is what the devil tried to tempt Jesu with, in his third attempt, as he brought Him to the highest mountain, offering all the kingdoms of the earth if Jesus would only worship him as lord.

But Jesus was not swayed, and He was not tempted. He knew that power, human praise, fame and glory, all forms of other temptations in the world were superficial and illusory in nature. They do not give lasting satisfaction and happiness, which can only be truly found in God alone. Power in particular is very dangerous, as the saying goes, that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This means that if we allow ourselves to be tempted, and to seek more things for ourselves, in power and all the goods the world is offering us, then we will only get ourselves dragged deeper and deeper into the darkness, and we will never be satisfied ourselves. We should already know that, it is our tendency that once we have something that we desire, we tend to desire even more.

And this is why we abstain, and do penitential works, during this season of Lent. It was not just a mere obligation or something we have to do as part of our observation of the laws of the Church and the faith. If we look at it as that, then our focus is wrong, and what we have done will avail little at helping us to strive for God’s salvation.

Instead, we have to do what we must do in this period of Lent with proper understanding and with good faith, so that whatever we do, we do it because of our love for the Lord, and the deep and burning desire in our hearts to be cleansed of our sins and wickedness, and the desire to reject Satan and all of his lies, and be freed from our enslavement to our pride, to our greed and all forms of the temptations of the flesh and the heart.

Let us all follow our Lord Jesus’ examples, resisting the devil and all of his temptations, and through our actions during this time of Lent, let us all grow stronger in faith, and spiritually, so that we will grow more capable of resisting the advances of evil and all of its forces in the time to come. Let us all love one another, giving alms and helping those who are less fortunate than us during this time, sharing whatever goods, food or care that we have, so that all of us will be able to live comfortably and harmoniously in this world.

May Almighty God bless us and forgive us our sins, and may this season of Lent be a fruitful one in the salvation of our souls. Amen.

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Saturday, 13 February 2016 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are all presented with God Who loves us all mankind, all sinners and unworthy before Him, and yet, He decided to pick us up, and bring us from the darkness where we were lost in, and bring us back into the light with Him. He went forth into this world, looking for sinners and all those who have been afflicted by the sickness of sin.

Yes, sin is a disease, as I have often mentioned, that it strikes at the depth of our soul, afflicting everything from our mind, our hearts and our bodies, ending up corrupting our beings, that in such a state, we are not worthy of the Lord, because we have been defiled by the sins that we committed, by the slander that we have uttered, and by the disobedience and betrayal which we have done against the Lord our God.

But lest all of us should be dismayed or lose our hope in despair, let us all know that despite all of our sins, and despite the fact that God despises all forms of sins, which are abominations and wicked things before Him, but His love for us is even greater than all that. And this is why He was willing to show mercy to us, even to the greatest of sinners, seeking them out and bringing them out of darkness.

We should heed how Jesus called Levi, the tax collector, whom He called from his tax office, and Levi indeed heeded the call, leaving everything behind, his occupation, his money, career, family and all that he had, and followed God from then on. And from then on, he served God faithfully, and became whom we know as St. Matthew, the Apostle and Evangelist, the writer of one of the four Holy Gospels through which we would come to know the truth of our Lord.

And in another occasion, I am sure that we would have heard about how Jesus our Lord also healed and cast out demons from the woman who had seven demons in her, who then left everything behind in order to follow Him. It was believed that St. Mary Magdalene, the faithful woman who followed Jesus, and to whom He first showed Himself after His resurrection, was this woman.

And there are many other occasions where Jesus healed people who were sick, possessed by demons and filled with sin, exhorting and reminding them not to sin again, and urged them to henceforth walk in the path of the Lord. And many of these people were to later on suffer persecution in the Name of the Lord, and dying in the defence of their faith.

We can see through all these, how even saints themselves were once sinners, just as we have sinned against God. No one was born perfect, and all of us, in one way or another, have committed errors, be it big or small, before the Lord our God. But what differentiates those who were condemned and those who received the glory of heaven in sainthood, is that the action of those who have received God’s glory have justified them.

And this action is that, they chose righteousness and justice over sin, over wickedness, and selflessness over selfishness. They have turned their backs to sin, and they abandoned all the past mistakes that they had done, and turned completely to the Lord their God, and from then on, doing only what was pleasing to God. Then, we too should indeed follow in their footsteps and be inspired by what they have done.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore today renew our commitment to God, and in all of our ways, let us all be ever closer to Him and obey Him in all of our dealings and actions. Let us in this period of Lent, turn ourselves away from evil and wickedness, and open the doors of our heart to the works of mercy and to the love of our God. May God bless us all, now and forever. Amen.

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Saturday, 13 February 2016 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 5 : 27-32

At that time, after Jesus went out, and He noticed a tax collector named Levi, sitting in the tax-office, He said to him, “Follow Me!” So Levi, leaving everything, got up and followed Jesus.

Levi gave a great feast for Jesus, and many tax collectors came to his house, and took their places at the table with the other people. Then the Pharisees and their followers complained to Jesus’ disciples, “How is it that you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

But Jesus spoke up, “Healthy people do not need a doctor, but sick people do. I have not come to call the just, but sinners to a change of heart.”

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Saturday, 13 February 2016 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 58 : 9b-14

If you remove from your midst the yoke, the clenched fist and the wicked word, if you share your food with the hungry and give relief to the oppressed, then your light will rise in the dark, your night will be like noon.

YHVH will guide you always and give you relief in desert places. He will strengthen your bones; He will make you as a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins will be rebuilt, the age-old foundations will be raised. You will be called the Breach-mender, and the Restorer of ruined houses.

If you stop profaning the sabbath and doing as you please on the holy day, if you call the sabbath a day of delight and keep sacred YHVH’s holy day, if you honour it by not going your own way, not doing as you please and not speaking with malice, then you will find happiness in YHVH, over the heights you will ride triumphantly, and feast joyfully on the inheritance of your father Jacob. The mouth of YHVH has spoken.