Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Saints)
Psalm 102 : 1-2, 3-4, 8 and 10
Praise YHVH, my soul; all my being, praise His holy Name! Praise YHVH, my soul, and do not forget all His kindness.
He forgives all your sins and heals all your sickness; He redeems your life from destruction and crowns you with love and compassion.
YHVH is gracious and merciful, abounding in love and slow to anger. He does not treat us according to our sins, nor does He punish us as we deserve.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Saints)
Isaiah 40 : 25-31
To whom, then, will you liken Me or make Me equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and see : who has created all this? He has ordered them as a starry host and called them each by name. So mighty is His power, so great His strength, that not one of them is missing.
How can you say, o Jacob, how can you complain, o Israel, that your destiny is hidden from Me, that your rights are ignored by YHVH? Have you not known, have you not heard that YHVH is an everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth? He does not grow tired or weary, His knowledge is without limit.
He gives strength to the enfeebled, He gives vigour to the wearied. Youth may grow tired and faint, young men will stumble and fall, but those who hope in YHVH will renew their strength. They will soar as with eagle’s wings; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and never tire.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of God in the Scriptures, all of us are reminded of the wonderful love of God for each and every one of us, of all that He has planned for us and also promised to us, since the very beginning, that all of us are to enjoy forever the true happiness and great prosperity and joy with Him in His heavenly glory. This is what the Lord has always intended for us, and He will lead us to that.
In our first reading today we heard the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah regarding the coming of God’s salvation and grace, the promise He made of the liberation and rejoicing of all the faithful, freed from their bondage and their shamefulness, and returning to God’s loving embrace, they shall not be sorrowful or suffer any longer. And this prophecy if we note, is remarkably similar to what we have also heard in the Book of Revelations of St. John the Apostle.
In the Book of Revelations, the Lord showed His Apostle St. John the vision of what will happen in the future, at the time that the Lord Himself had appointed, for the end of the world as we know it, the judgment of all the living and the dead, and the final defeat of Satan and his forces of evil and wickedness. The Lord revealed that in the end, all the faithful shall suffer no more, shed tears no more, and not be sorrowful any more, for their Lord and Master is with them, and they are to enjoy forever the fruits of their labours and faith.
This is the completion of what the Lord had revealed first through Isaiah and the other prophets, which had been affirmed by His Saviour, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Although at the time of His first coming, He did not bring all of us mankind into eternal happiness and joy, but all these are part of God’s plan, and He revealed that, He shall return in the end, to complete perfectly all that He has revealed and promised to us.
That is why, in this season of Advent, we prepare ourselves in heart, mind and body, especially in our spiritual readiness to celebrate the occasion of Christmas. And as we prepare ourselves, we have to take special attention and care not to fall into the trap of celebrating just the materialistic and secular Christmas as how the world celebrates it, with lots of merrymaking and joy, lots of gifts and lavish celebrations and feasts, and yet, without Christ at the centre of it all.
We all ought to know that we rejoice in this season and expectation of Christmas not just because we celebrate the Lord’s coming as it had happened a long time ago. Indeed, we rejoice because we have seen the salvation of Our God, coming in the flesh, in the Son of Man, the manifestation of God’s perfect love and compassion for us, as we have also heard in our Gospel passage today, in how He showed pity and love for the people who followed Him for many days and were hungry, miraculously feeding them all with just a few loaves of bread and several fishes.
Through that show of love, the Lord wants us all to know just how beloved and precious we are to Him, and we are indeed so fortunate because of this. And that is why, in Advent, we also look forward and rejoice because of our expectation of the Lord’s return, His second coming, when He will come again as a triumphant and conquering King, and He will gather us all together, His people, and if we remain faithful, righteous and just, in the end, we shall be deemed worthy of the Lord’s eternal glory and true joy with Him.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, too many of us are too distracted with our busy lives and other preoccupations that we end up getting ourselves ever more distanced and further away from God. And we have given little time and attention for the Lord, despite all that He had done for us, all the love He has shown us. Instead, we kept ourselves busy trying to attain for ourselves worldly glory, satisfaction, wealth and all other false sources of happiness that kept us away from being able to find our true happiness in God.
In this season of Advent, let us take some time to reflect on our lives, our actions and how we have lived our lives thus far. Have we been faithful to God, or have we instead taken His love and compassion, His kindness and grace for granted, brothers and sisters in Christ? Let us all discern in what way we can be better disciples and followers of God from now on, and let us all make best use of this time of Advent in order to renew ourselves and our faith.
May the Lord help us and guide us throughout this season of Advent, that we may grow ever deeper in faith and will be able to prepare and celebrate the true joy of Christmas together as one Christian community, all of God’s beloved people. Let us all share our joy with each other, and inspire one another to live ever more faithfully in Christ. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Matthew 15 : 29-37
At that time, from the place where Jesus healed the daughter of a Canaanite woman, He went to the shore of Lake Galilee, and then went up into hills, where He sat down. Great crowds came to Him, bringing the dumb, the blind, the lame, the crippled, and many with other infirmities. People carried them to the feet of Jesus, and He healed them.
All were astonished when they saw the dumb speaking, the lame walking, the crippled healed, and the blind able to see; and they glorified the God of Israel. Jesus called His disciples and said to them, “I am filled with compassion for these people; they have already followed Me for three days and now have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away fasting, or they may faint on the way.”
His disciples said to Him, “And where shall we find enough bread in this wilderness to feed such a crowd?” Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” They answered, “Seven, and a few small fish.”
Jesus ordered the people to sit on the ground. Then, He took the seven loaves and the small fish, and gave thanks to God. He broke them and gave them to His disciples, who distributed them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the leftover pieces filled seven wicker baskets.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Psalm 22 : 1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul.
He guides me through the right paths for His Name’s sake. Although I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are beside me : Your rod and Your staff comfort me.
You spread a table before me in the presence of my foes. You anoint my head with oil; my cup is overflowing.
Goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life. I shall dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Isaiah 25 : 6-10a
On this mountain YHVH Sabaoth will prepare for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, meat full of marrow, fine wine strained. On this mountain He will destroy the pall cast over all peoples, this very shroud spread over all nations, and death will be no more. The Lord YHVH will wipe away the tears from all cheeks and eyes; He will take away the humiliation of His people all over the world : for YHVH has spoken.
On that day you will say : This is our God. We have waited for Him to save us, let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation. For on this mountain the hand of YHVH rests.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Lord speaking to us the challenges and trials that are part of our journey as Christians and how we should keep up faith and not be afraid. This is because the Lord will always be with us and by our side no matter what, and with His guidance and strength, we shall persevere through all the challenges and trials.
In our first reading today we heard of the words from the Book of Revelations of St. John regarding the happenings of the end times as the time of reckoning and judgment is coming up on the world, and the Angels of God bearing the seven great plagues that will befall the nations and the people who refused to believe in God. At that time, the righteous and those who are still faithful in God will be persecuted and oppressed by those unbelievers, and the plagues and other signs are reminders that God is by the side of His faithful.
The Lord will not abandon His people to darkness and destruction, and He, as the Lamb of God seen in the vision of St. John, has triumphed by His Passion and Resurrection from the dead, and not even death and evil can overcome Him. For He has defeated the ultimate enemy of all, that is death, and showing to all of us that there is light and hope beyond death, and death no longer has the final say for all of us. It used to be something that we were all scared of as death is a separation from our lives in this world.
The Lord reassured us all that death that we experience is only a temporary experience and is just a mark of the new beginning of a new life with Him, when we will be reunited completely with Him and enter into the eternal glory and the eternal life that have been prepared for all of us. However, unless we believe in Him and are faithful in HIm, dedicating ourselves to Him, there will be no place for us in His eternal kingdom and glory.
And all of these relate well to what we heard from our Gospel passage today. In our Gospel passage today we heard the Lord proclaiming the revelation of what His disciples and followers as Christians would encounter soon enough, after He established His Church and they preached His Good News to the nations. They would be persecuted, oppressed, rejected and ridiculed by many of those who refused to believe in the Lord and in His message, as well as those who saw the faithful as threats to their own power and influence.
Hence, that was why Christians especially in its early centuries faced so many persecutions, initially from the Jewish authorities, the members of the Sanhedrin and the chief priests, the Pharisees and Sadducees and all those who were opposed to the Lord and His followers. And in addition, the Roman authorities and the state governments, as well as the Greeks and other pagan peoples who refused to believe in God also persecuted the faithful and made things difficult to them.
Yet, amidst all of that, many of our holy predecessors, the innumerable martyrs and saints of the Church remained firm in their faith and conviction to serve the Lord, dedicating their lives and all their efforts to follow the Lord to the very end. They endured those sufferings, trials, persecutions and challenges since they had faith that God would be with them and journeyed together with them even through the greatest sufferings and the deepest darkness and despair.
One of those saints is St. Catherine of Alexandria, one of the most famous and inspirational saints of the early Church. St. Catherine of Alexandria was a noble, born of a powerful family as her father was the governor of Alexandria in Egypt, a very important position in the Roman Empire at that time. St. Catherine was persuaded to become a Christian after receiving visions of the Lord and was convinced to embrace the Christian faith fully. And all these happened amidst one of the most bitter and brutal persecution against Christians.
It was told that St. Catherine was arrested and tortured for her Christian faith. And in the attempt to make her abandon her faith and to publicly denounce the Christian faith and truth, the Emperor made her to debate as many as fifty or more pagan philosophers, who were all unable to outsmart or debate her, unable to match her wisdom, the wisdom of God as passed on and revealed through the Holy Spirit. It was told that St. Catherine’s wisdom was such that even the Emperor’s own wife was touched, inspired and converted to the true faith.
And when all methods and ways had failed to persuade St. Catherine to abandon her faith, the desperate Emperor tried to turn her by offering her his hand in marriage. Normally, the temptation to abandon the faith to embrace marriage with the most powerful and influential person in the land would be so great. But St. Catherine resisted the offer and temptation, declaring publicly that she maintained her virginity and dedicated it to the Lord, refusing to stain her purity in any way, and neither would she abandon her faith. And thus, afterwards, she was martyred for remaining true to her faith in God.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, from the inspiring examples set by St. Catherine of Alexandria, as well as the many other examples made by the other holy men and women of God, who had chosen to walk with God and refused to abandon Him, let us all be inspired to follow their examples and walk in their footsteps even as challenges and trials are facing us and become great obstacles in our own respective journeys of faith. Let us all discern carefully our path going forward in life, that we may grow ever closer to God and in faith.
May the Lord be with us always, and may He guide us all in our journey of faith. May He strengthen us and our resolve that we may persevere and be more courageous in our pursuit of faith, and be ourselves inspiring examples of faith to one another. May God bless us all, now and always. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Luke 21 : 12-19
At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Before all these things happen, people will lay their hands on you and persecute you; you will be delivered to the synagogues and put in prison, and for My sake you will be brought before kings and governors. This will be your opportunity to bear witness.”
“So keep this in mind : do not worry in advance about what to say, for I will give you words and wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends, and some of you will be put to death.”
“But even though, because of My Name, you will be hated by everyone, not a hair of your head will perish. By your patient endurance you will save your souls.”
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Psalm 97 : 1, 2-3ab, 7-8, 9
Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonders; His right hand, His holy arm, has won victory for Him.
The Lord has shown His salvation, revealing His justice to the nations. He has not forgotten His love nor His faithfulness to Israel.
Let the sea resound and everything in it, the world and all its peoples. Let rivers clap their hands, hills and mountains sing with joy.
Before the Lord, for He comes to rule the earth. He will judge the world with justice and the peoples with fairness.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Revelations 15 : 1-4
Then I saw another great and marvellous sign in the heavens : seven Angels brought seven plagues which are the last, for with these the wrath of God will end. There was a sea of crystal mingled with fire, and the conquerors of the beast, of its name and the mark of its name stood by it.
They had been given the celestial harps and they sang the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb : Great and marvellous are Your works, o Lord, God and Master of the universe. Justice and truth guide Your steps, o King of the nations.
Lord, who will not give honour and glory to Your Name? For You alone are holy. All the nations will come and bow before You, for they have now seen Your judgments.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 