way of the Lord

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Sunday, 19 April 2015 : Third Sunday of Easter, Tenth Anniversary of the Pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, Vicar of Christ and Supreme Pontiff (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 3 : 13-15, 17-19

Peter said to the people, “The God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you handed over to death and denied before Pilate, when even Pilate had decided to release Him. You rejected the Holy and Just One, and you insisted that a murderer be released to you. You killed the Master of Life, but God raised Him from the dead and we are witnesses to this.”

“Yet I know that you acted out of ignorance, as did your leaders. God has fulfilled in this way what He had foretold through all the prophets, that His Messiah would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.”

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Saturday, 18 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about two stories, one from the Acts of the Apostles which told us of an account of how the deacons were selected and chosen for the community of the faithful, to serve them and distribute the communal goods to them. And in the Gospel we heard also about how Jesus came to the disciples in the midst of a storm, and calmed the Apostles who were afraid of the sudden apparition.

The deacons are an extant order in the Church, which we know even until today, as one of the hierarchy within the servants of God, who were once initially meant for the distribution of goods in the community of the faithful, who shared everything they had in a truly communal way of living, filled with love and care for each other. The deacons helped the people of God, serving them even as they still do today, albeit in a much different way.

Today’s readings are calling us to give more to the Lord, more of our dedication and efforts, and more of our faith and trust for Him. The deacons have been called and chosen by our Lord to give their loving and heartful service to the people of God, to minister to them and guide them on the path towards the Lord. They assisted the Apostles and the priests of the Lord, who taught the faith to the people and led them in their journey of faith.

Therefore, all of us are also called to do the same too. The servants of our Lord, all in the order of priesthood, our Pope, the Cardinals, the bishops and all the priests, and even the deacons themselves, be it transitional ones on their journey to the priesthood, or those who have committed themselves to a lifetime of permanent deaconate, all of them need our help, assistance and active participation.

Many of us falsely thought that it is the job and duty of the priesthood and the deacons to serve the people, the poor and the unloved, and that we all in the laity can just sit back and relax while we see these faithful servants of God doing their job. And many of us even criticised them when we thought that they were not doing their ‘supposed’ and ‘expected’ duty.

But do we know that we ourselves also have responsibility and duty as fellow members of God’s Church and community of the faithful? We have to carry out this duty, that is to care and love for each other, and to give what we have more to those who have less or none. The laity formed the vast majority of the faithful, and those who have given themselves to the service of the Lord is just a tiny minority amongst the faithful.

We have to realise that within the Church, there should be clear division of labour. We who have been baptised have also shared in the ministry which God had entrusted to His disciples. Today serves as a reminder for all of us to help one another, and most importantly, to help all the faithful servants of God who had dedicated their time and effort for the cause of us all.

Let us all therefore renew our faith and commitment to our Lord, that inspired by the example of the holy deacons, especially that of St. Stephen, who worked hard and zealously to spread the Good News of Christ until his death, as the first martyr of the Faith, we too may grow to serve the Lord in ever more ways and devote ourselves ever more to Him. God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 17 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard the reading that is very famous and certainly known by all of us, that is the reading of the feeding of the multitudes of five thousand men and many more, uncounted women and children among all those who followed Jesus and heard His teachings. The feeding of the five thousand with a mere five loaves of bread and two fishes which Jesus miraculously transformed into food of abundance that filled them all showed the world that He is indeed the Christ, the Lord, the Almighty One who had come into the world.

And for He is God, He is our Lord and Father. He cares for us all with all of His heart, and His love for us is ever generous and boundless. He showed mercy and compassion when He saw the multitudes of people went hungry and weakened by the lack of food, even though they stayed on to listen to the teachings of Jesus. He would not let the people to go hungry, and He fed them with food, both physical and spiritual food.

The people were filled and satisfied, but many of them did not understand what God truly wanted from them. If we follow on the story, the people after that tried to seize Jesus and force Him to become their king, and rebel against their Roman rulers. They did so because they wanted earthly and worldly satisfaction, the satisfaction which only such greatness and wonders can give them.

They wanted earthly joy and satisfaction, the feeling of satiation similar to when we have our stomachs filled. But is this true joy and true satisfaction? No, it is not. Those are temporary joy and happiness, that often distract us from seeking and finding the true joy of our life, that is to be with our Lord, our loving God. We always crave for attention, crave for that satisfaction of the flesh, by seeking worldly pleasures, and as a result, we fall into sin.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to seek the Lord, seek His truth and know about His love for us. We have to follow the example of Christ, who showed us how we should act and indeed react to the temptations lying all over around us. It will not be easy to overcome ourselves, our ego and our desires, but certainly it is possible for us to put in the effort to reject the worldliness offered by the evil one.

Jesus showed us the perfect example, that we may know how to live like a good and devoted Christian, as believers and followers of our God. We ought to imitate what Jesus had done if we would like to be true disciples of our Lord. He is humble, unassuming, and He is always obedient, even when the temptations of the world rose up to tempt Him to turn from His perfect obedience to the will of God.

He was tempted when He encountered Satan in the desert, beset with hunger and the great heat of the desert. He was tempted to show off His power by changing the stones into bread. But remember what Jesus said to Satan? Exactly, He said that men does not live on bread alone, but also on every words that come from the mouth of God. This is the spiritual food which our Lord Jesus had given us, the food that is the nourishment for our souls and for our spiritual well-being.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have shared in the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ since the time when we received it for the first time. And by that, we have the Lord dwelling in us and staying in our midst, just as God was with people, and therefore, we should keep ourselves, the Temple of His presence, to be always clean and worthy of Him, or else risk the retribution and punishment of His wrath.

We have to remember that God loves us, and that He cares for us greatly. But this does not mean that God ignores the sins and wickedness which we had committed. This does not mean that God looks away from those faults and corruptions which had kept us in the darkness. It means that God wants us to achieve sincere and genuine conversion, a total change of heart, mind, body and soul, so that in all things, we may be made whole and complete again, and blameless as on the day when we were created.

Let us vow, that as we continue to progress through this holy Easter season, we may be awakened to the need for genuine conversion and sincere faith. Yes, not faith that is just merely lip-service or empty, but also one that is living, vibrant, dynamic and real. This Easter, let us all renew our faith and commitment to the Lord. Let us no longer be paralysed by our fears and the temptations and challenges around us, but let us go forth with pride and faith, to be closer to God and to bring all mankind to Him. God bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 16 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about how the Apostles resisted the High Priests and the elders, who commanded that they stopped teaching about Christ and stopped testifying about His resurrection, by the simple words that they would rather obey God and His will rather than to obey any human or worldly authorities. These are brave and courageous words that came from the heart of those whom God had chosen and whom He had empowered with His Holy Spirit.

In today’s Gospel we also heard how St. John the Baptist spoke out his testimony about Christ the Messiah and Lord of all, just before he was arrested, put in prison by Herod and martyred for his faith and righteousness. St. John the Baptist spoke clearly and with passion, the truth about Christ, that whoever believes in Him shall be saved and shall receive their just rewards, and that those who believe in Him shall truly be able to speak up their testimony of the truth.

This means that, all of us who are faithful to God, His people and His disciples, should have that same courage in us, the courage to speak up and to stand up for our faith. This is important if we want to be true disciples of our Lord and not just merely paying lip service or having our faith, just for show. Remember, as I have often mentioned, that our faith is not a passive one, but should be an active and living faith.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is indeed easy to think that we can do this, but we should also know that temptation is plenty and challenges are abound, and if we are not careful, we are likely to be drawn in by those temptations and challenges. We have to remember that this world does not look kindly upon us, as we belong to the Lord and to His truth. This world and all of its forces belong to the darkness, which depended on the lies and the falsehoods of the evil one and his allies.

Satan certainly will not let us go easily, and he will not stay without action seeing us being rescued and saved from harm’s way by our Lord. He will certainly use all that is within his power and dominion in order to sway us back into his influence. This is his temptations, with which he tempts us daily. For example, the temptation of worldly power, of earthly pleasures and the temptation of fame and hubris, the temptation of desire and human greed and many others.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we celebrate in this holy Easter season, all of us have to realise and be awakened to this fact, that every day, a battle is raging for the salvation of our souls. And we must have the courage to overcome our fear and our desires, so that, not only that we can be like the Holy Apostles, St. John the Baptist and all the disciples of Christ in how they lived their faith, but we will also prevent ourselves from falling back into our old way of sin.

It is imperative that we use this opportunity of Easter to reform and change ourselves thoroughly. We rejoice this Easter because of the love and mercy which God had shown us mankind through Jesus Christ His Son, whom He had sent into the world in order to save it. Can we put the effort to make ourselves to be worthy of that mercy which God had shown all of us?

We must break free from our fear, our doubts, uncertainties and all the things which prevent us from revealing our potential as the children of God. We all have been given the rich gifts of the Holy Spirit, in order to testify to the world, and show the world the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ. We should follow the example of the Holy Apostles, and find courage in ourselves to stand up for our faith. For if we do not stand up for it, then who will?

Let us all commit ourselves to a renewed faith in God, one that is not just mere passivity and silence, but one that is filled with vigour, strength and courage, to carry out the word of God through our concrete and real actions, by the love which we show to our fellow men. God be with us all, and may He bless all of our endeavours. Amen.

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Thursday, 16 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 33 : 2 and 9, 17-18, 19-20

I will bless the Lord all my days; His praise will be ever on my lips. Oh, see and taste the goodness of the Lord! Blessed is the one who finds shelter in Him!

But His face is set against the wicked to destroy their memory from the earth. The Lord hears the cry of the righteous and rescues them from all their troubles.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves the distraught. Many are the troubles of the just, but the Lord delivers them from all.

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Thursday, 16 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 5 : 27-33

So the captain and the guards brought the Apostles in and made them stand before the Council and the High Priest questioned them, “We gave you strict orders not to preach such a Saviour; but you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to charge us with the killing of this Man.” To this Peter and the Apostles replied, “Better for us to obey God rather than any human authority!”

“The God of our ancestors raised Jesus whom you killed by hanging Him on a wooden post. God set Him at His right hand as Leader and Saviour, to grant repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses to all these things, as well as the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him.”

When the Council heard this, they became very angry and wanted to kill them.

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Wednesday, 15 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about how the Apostles of our Lord were delivered from their distress, when they were arrested by the Jewish leaders and the elders of the people. They were freed from prison and brought into deliverance to continue once again to teach the word of God to all the people. And in the Gospel, we heard how Jesus made clear God’s love for us, in the famous phrase of the Gospel of St. John Chapter 3, Verse 16.

That God so loved the world, that is all of us mankind, that He was willing to send His own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, into this world so that all who witness Him and His life, His death and resurrection and then believe in Him, may be saved and not be lost. For God has decreed that all whom He had gathered upon Himself, He would not lose again, unless if we are the ones who want to be lost ourselves.

The essence of this is that, if we put our trust in the Lord, we shall not be disappointed. We shall have no need to fear for anything, as God will guard us and protect us in His own way. God will shield us from harm and bring us to safety. Such is His love and dedication to all those who have put themselves at His care. After all, He had given Himself and none less, for our salvation by His death on the cross.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is often difficult for us to comprehend the fullness of  God’s mercy and love for us. And it is often easy for us to fall into the temptations of this world and to walk down the path of corruption, that is the path of worldliness. And because we trust so much in the things of the world, such as power, fame, prestige, influence and human praise, then we cannot part from these.

We have our fears in this life because of these worldly attachments, and indeed not just attachments, but these had gone further to be addictions. Many times we mankind act in certain ways because we want to preserve ourselves and avoid being harmed in any way. And on the other hand, some of us even acted in a way that bring about harm and pain to others just so that we may preserve ourselves.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be awakened to the truth of Christ, that what we truly need is not all the worldly things that this world often impose on us. We have to be courageous in our life so that we may say no and reject all the falsehoods and the traps which Satan had set on our path. We must be able to overcome all this, and despite the challenge, if only that we can trust in God, then the path will be opened for us.

This Easter is a time for us to realise how much is the love which God had showered us with, the perfect and eternal love which He had shown us through Jesus, whom by His death had broken us free from the bonds of sin and death, and by His resurrection, had promised us the eternal promise of eternal life with Him. It is indeed time for us to change our lives for the better, and become better and more devoted disciples of our Lord.

May our Risen Lord, Almighty God, be with us always and guide us in all the ways of our lives. May He bless us and give us strength to carry out His will in this world, and resist the temptations of Satan, resist all of our fears and worries, for in God we can trust, and He will always be faithful. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 15 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 3 : 16-21

At that time, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Yes, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him may not be lost, but may have eternal life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world; instead, through Him the world is to be saved. Whoever believes in Him will not be condemned. He who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the Name of the only Son of God.”

“This is how the Judgment is made : Light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For whoever does wrong hates the light, and does not come to the light, for fear that his deeds will be seen as evil. But whoever lives according to the truth comes into the light, so that it can be clearly seen that his works have been done in God.”

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Tuesday, 14 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard how the community of the first Christians lived, and how they shared all their possessions among themselves in a society filled with the love of God and in full obedience to the Law of God. And in the Gospel, we heard how Nicodemus continued his discussion with Jesus at night time, when Jesus told him how the Son of Man was to be raised up as the salvation for all just as Moses raised the bronze serpent in the past.

All these point out to the fact that we Christians should heed the teachings of the Lord and profess His death and resurrection at all times in our life and also in how we live as a community of the faithful ones in God. There is great symbolism in the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, the very important and singular most important moment together with the Resurrection, which is the moment when God triumphed against the forces of sin and darkness, once and for all.

Our Lord was raised up between the heaven and the earth, for all to see, the suffering which He had endured, the sins for which He had been punished for, which are all our sins and our iniquities, that He had borne in our place. The consequence of sin is death, destruction and annihilation, for we have disobeyed the Master of Life, and by right therefore, we do not deserve to live.

And yet, God is willing to forgive us, providing that we are sincere and genuine in repenting for those sins that we have committed. When the people of Israel walked through the desert during their Exodus out of Egypt, they rebelled and disobeyed against the Lord, such that the Lord sent fiery serpents to strike at those sinful people, and many died. The people repented and cried out to the Lord through Moses, and He told Moses to raise a bronze serpent, and all who had been bitten and looked at the serpent would live.

Thus, all those who have been bitten by sin, that is all of us mankind without exception, except for Christ Himself, is bound to die, and we are supposed to be destroyed and annihilated forever, without hope for redemption. But God’s love for us caused Him to show His mercy in the most spectacular and yet humblest of ways. He raised Himself up on the cross, that all of us who witness His resurrection by what we have received in faith, shall live.

We shall no longer die, that is eternal death. This means that while we still will die at the end of our earthly lives, but just as Christ rose from the dead in glory, we too shall be raised in glory and join Him in body and soul to the heavenly inheritance waiting for us. We shall live, and it is this hope and this joy for a new and everlasting life that we rejoice for this Easter.

But, another significance to today’s readings is also that because we are all a community of the faithful, and as people of the Light who had been saved from the world, and as we have heard and understood the word of God and His teachings, then we too should also showcase that faith through real commitment, real actions and deeds, that others can see and thus be saved too.

We cannot be passive in our faith. Remember what Lord Jesus told His disciples, that if salt loses its saltiness or light is hidden under a cover then these two have no meaning or use? It is the same with all of us. Having shared in the Lord, we too have been charged with the obligation and responsibility to shine with the light of Christ within us, so that all who see us may turn away from their sinfulness and be converted to the truth of Christ.

If we do not act in accordance to the way of the Lord, then it will be a scandal for us, and we may be held responsible for having turned people away from the Lord instead of bringing them closer. We have a lot of homework to do, and indeed, we have to reevaluate our lives and our ways in life. Have we been truly devoted to God and practice our faith genuinely in our actions? Let us ask the Lord for His continuing guidance, so that we may ever walk in His path. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 14 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 3 : 7b-15

At that time, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again from above. The wind blows where it pleases and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus asked again, “How can this be?” And Jesus answered, “You are a teacher in Israel, and you do not know these things? Truly, I say to you, We speak of what We know and We witness to the things We have seen, but you do not accept Our testimony. If you do not believe when I speak of earthly things, what then, when I speak to you of heavenly things? No one has ever gone up to heaven except the One who came from heaven, the Son of Man.”

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”