Wednesday

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Wednesday, 21 June 2017 : 11th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture, which in essence is calling us to be sincere and true in our faith, that is not by putting a farce or falsehood in our devotion to God in our life. It is telling us that unless we are sincere in our devotion, by genuine actions that came from the heart, we cannot call ourselves as true Christians.

In the Gospel today, Jesus told the people to do their good deeds for the right intentions, that is to really serve the people of God, our fellow brethren, and therefore to glorify God and serve Him, and not our own personal desires and interests. He used the examples of prayers and fasting, which the Jewish people according to the laws of Moses were obliged to do, especially during certain times and periods in the year.

However, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who strictly enforced the application of the rules on prayers and fasting, they themselves did so not because they truly do them for the sake of God, but instead, it was to fulfil their own vanity, their own desire to be praised and adored for their piety and commitment to the laws of Moses. They showed their prayers and fasting in order to be looked favourably upon by other men and women.

That was why Jesus rebuked them and were angry at these people, who made their faith as if they were showpieces for their own personal benefits. He was angry because the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were not doing what they preached, and yet, they burdened the people to obey the same rules to the suffering of the people. They misled the people by their actions, and were not showing true discipleship as those whom the Lord had entrusted with the leadership and guidance over His people.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, the same response of the Lord will be ours if we ourselves do not love Him, serve Him and be faithful to Him in a way that is much more than the way the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done. That is, if we live our lives in this world, but we do not do what we believe, we do not act in the manner that we have preached and claimed to have faith in.

What are some of the examples, brethren? First of all, many of us Christians go to the Mass in the Church, not because we want to really be with the Lord and spend our time with Him. Rather, some of us wanted to outdo each other in piety, and showing our fellow friends or relatives just how devout we are, by our prayers and devotions. We turn our focus inwards upon ourselves, upon our ego and desires instead of what we need to focus on, that is our love and devotion for the Lord our God.

And then, we grumble and we put up grumpy faces when we fast, because we do not truly understand what it is that we fast for, or that as the Pharisees had done, we wanted to be praised for our piety. This is not what the Lord wants from us, brothers and sisters in Christ. What He wants from us is our sincere and genuine love, devotion and commitment, through our prayers and fasting, as well as through many other ways of how we can love Him, but which must be done with true desire from our hearts.

Let us all look at the examples of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, the holy saint whose feast we are commemorating today. St. Aloysius Gonzaga was born into a noble, rich and powerful family of the Gonzagas in the late Renaissance era Italy, a few hundred years ago. He was born as the firstborn of the noble family, a position of extreme honour, as the rule was that he was to inherit all the titles, prestige, wealth and properties that his father as an influential nobleman had possessed.

But as he grew up, even though he received numerous education and preparation of a typical nobleman of his era, St. Aloysius Gonzaga slowly grew to seek and long for the Lord, by all the experiences and the readings he had done, especially on the missionary activities of the Jesuits in the faraway lands. As his desire to serve the Lord grew, eventually, things came to the point when he openly declared his intention to become a Jesuit and thus, had to renounce all that he stood to inherit.

He encountered stiff opposition from his family, particularly from his father, who tried all he could to dissuade him and stop him from joining the religious order. Nevertheless, St. Aloysius Gonzaga remained firm in his commitment and was adamant in his desire to serve the Lord through what He had called him to be. In the end, he prevailed and he became a Jesuit.

He lived his life with devotion and commitment, serving the people of God through words and action, caring for the poor, the sick and the dying, even in the midst of a deadly plague which eventually took his life. St. Aloysius Gonzaga, his strong devotion and desire to love the Lord and to serve Him by serving His people, as well as his ability to resist the temptation of human glory, desire and all the other obstacles should be our inspiration in how we ourselves ought to live our lives.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all now therefore renew our commitment to live our lives full of faith, genuine faith to the Lord, just in the same manner as St. Aloysius Gonzaga and the many other holy saints and martyrs of God had done. May the Lord help us in our journey, so that we will be able to give our all to serve Him with all of our lives, with all of our might and all of our commitment. May the Lord bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 21 June 2017 : 11th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
Matthew 6 : 1-6, 16-18

At that time, “Be careful not to make a show of your good deeds before people. If you do so, you do not gain anything from your Father in heaven. When you give something to the poor, do not have it trumpeted before you, as do those who want to be noticed in the synagogues and in the streets, in order to be praised by people. I assure you, they have their reward.”

“If you give something to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your gift remains really secret. Your Father, Who sees what is kept secret, will reward you. When you pray, do not be like those who want to be noticed. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues or on street corners, in order to be seen by everyone. I assure you, they have their reward.”

“When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father Who is with you in secret; and your Father Who sees what is kept secret will reward you. When you fast, do not put on a miserable face, as do the hypocrites. They put on a gloomy face, so that people can see they are fasting. I tell you this : they have been paid in full already.”

“When you fast, wash your face and make yourself look cheerful, because you are not fasting for appearances or for people, but for your Father, Who sees beyond appearances. And your Father, Who sees what is kept secret, will reward you.”

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Wednesday, 21 June 2017 : 11th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 111 : 1-2, 3-4, 9

Alleluia! Blessed is the one who fears YHVH, who greatly delights in His commands. His children will be powerful on earth; the upright’s offspring will be blessed.

Wealth and riches are for his family; there, his integrity will remain. He is for the righteous a light in darkness; he is kind, merciful and upright.

He gives generously to the poor; his merits will last forever; and his head will be raised in honour.

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Wednesday, 21 June 2017 : 11th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
2 Corinthians 9 : 6-11

Remember : the one who sows meagerly will reap meagerly, and there shall be generous harvests for the one who sows generously. Each of you should give as you decided personally, and not reluctantly, as if obliged. God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to fill you with every good thing, so that you have enough of everything, at all times, and may give abundantly for any good work.

Scripture says : He distributed, he gave to the poor, his good works last forever. God, Who provides the sower with seed, will also provide him with the bread he eats. He will multiply the seed for you and also increase the interest on your good works. Become rich in every way, and give abundantly. What you give will become, through us, a thanksgiving to God.

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Wednesday, 14 June 2017 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, the Lord Jesus reminded us that He came into this world in order to fulfil the Law and the prophecies made by the prophets, for all of them came eventually from God, and Jesus also came from the same God, the Father Who sent His Son, in order to save this world, and all of us mankind, by the revelation of truth and the salvation He offered us all through His sacrifice on the cross.

God gave us all His Law so that through His Law, we may be able to find our way to Him, for obeying the Law means for us to live according to what the Lord had taught us, in being faithful to Him, and in making ourselves worthy of Him and worthy of His love. If we are not able to follow His commandments and laws, how can we then expect to receive the fullness of His grace and love?

That was what He criticised of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, for their hypocrisy in teaching the laws, passed down onto them from Moses. The worldly concerns and desires of men had twisted the original, true and pure intention of the Law, such that the divine law of God had ended up becoming merely human laws, to serve human interests rather than God’s interests.

And worse still, as often mentioned in the Gospels, they did not act in the way that they had preached. They preached one thing but acted in a different way. That made them to be hypocrites, and that was why Jesus was not amused by the way they had behaved themselves before the people. And that is not what He wants from each and every one of us Christians, Who ought to be following His ways.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what does this mean for us? It means that all of us who are Christians and indeed call ourselves as Christians cannot be idle in our faith, or worse still, acting like how the Pharisees had acted, by doing what is contrary to our faith in God. Imagine how would others think about us and our faith, should we, who are Christians, act in the most un-Christian manner?

We cannot be Christians on paper only, or as an act of formality only. We cannot pick and choose what we want to believe in, or decide what we are to believe in the faith we have in God. When the Lord gave His Law to His people, and all of His commandments, He never allowed or permitted them to choose which law or commandment they can believe in and which one they are free to ignore or reject.

In the same manner, therefore, all of us must also be obedient to the entirety of the Law and the commandments of God. We must listen to what the Lord Jesus had told His disciples on how to obey the Lord with our hearts, minds, souls, and indeed with our whole beings. We must do our best to love and serve the Lord our God, with all of our words, actions and deeds. That is the most important commandment of all, and we have to do it by rejecting all that is wicked and un-Christian in our actions.

And by doing so, we will also have obeyed the Lord’s other commandment, that is for us to love our fellow men, our brothers and sisters in the same Lord, with genuine love, concern, care and attention. We must show love to our brethren, be kind on others, and refrain from all sorts of actions that can bring pain, both physically or mentally to our brethren.

These are what all of us as Christians must do. We must devote ourselves to what the Lord had taught us to do. Let us all devote ourselves to the Lord and obey His will through His laws and commandments, seeking to be ever more faithful from time to time. May the Lord bless us all, and may He love us always with His loving grace. Amen.

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Wednesday, 14 June 2017 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Matthew 5 : 17-19

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Do not think that I have come to annul the Law and the prophets. I have not come to annul them, but to fulfil them. I tell you this : as long as heaven and earth last, not the smallest letter or dot in the Law will change, until all is fulfilled.”

“So then, whoever breaks the least important of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be the least in the kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, whoever obeys them, and teaches others to do the same, will be great in the kingdom of heaven.”

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Wednesday, 14 June 2017 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 98 : 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Extol YHVH, our God; worship at His footstool. Holy is He! And mighty!

Among His priests were Moses and Aaron; and Samuel, among those who called on His Name. They called to YHVH, and He answered them.

In the pillar of cloud He spoke to them, and they kept His statutes and the decrees He gave them.

O YHVH our God, You responded to them; You were a patient God for them: but You punished their wrongs.

Extol YHVH our God, worship at His holy mountain. Holy is YHVH our God!

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Wednesday, 14 June 2017 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
2 Corinthians 3 : 4-11

This is how we are sure of God, through Christ. As for us, we would not dare consider that something comes from us : our ability comes from God. He has even enabled us to be ministers of a new covenant, no longer depending on a written text, but on the Spirit. The written text kills, but the Spirit gives life.

The ministry of the Law carved on stones brought death; it was, nevertheless, surrounded by glory, and, we know, that the Israelites could not fix their eyes on the face of Moses, such was his radiance, though fleeting. How much more glorious will the ministry of the Spirit be! If there is greatness in a ministry which used to condemn, how much more will there be, in the ministry that brings holiness?

This is such a glorious thing that, in comparison, the former’s glory is like nothing. That ministry was provisory and had only moments of glory; but ours endures, with a lasting glory.

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Wednesday, 7 June 2017 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard two stories, one from the first reading, from the Book of Tobit, in which the son of the faithful Tobit, Tobias was sent to his relative, Ragouel who has a daughter named Sara, who was beset by a powerful demon, Asmodeus. She had had seven husbands, all of whom had died before they were able to consummate the marriage, because of the work of the demon, and she was highly distressed because of that.

But through the her prayers, which she made in her time of distress and despair, the Lord had heard her call for help, and sent to her the Archangel Raphael, who with Tobias, the son of Tobit, chased the demon away from her, and Sara was given to Tobias as a wife. And the demon did not disturb her any longer, and a new family was created, eventually leading to the healing of Tobit who became blind, and could see again.

This is likely the story which the Sadducees quoted in the time when they tried to argue with the Lord Jesus, which we heard today in our Gospel passage. The Sadducees were the group of powerful and influential people, one of the two main power groups in control of the Jewish society at that time, in opposition to the Pharisees, the other group in power.

Unlike the Pharisees, whose unbending and strict adherence to the laws of Moses brought them into conflict with Jesus because of the Way which He had taught the people, bringing the real truth and meaning of the Law away from the corruptions of the laws which the Pharisees upheld, the Sadducees were against the Lord Jesus because He preached about His own death and later resurrection, as well as resurrection of all the people into a new life in God.

That is because the Sadducees were the ones who enjoyed the good fruits of this world, those who were close to the ruling nobles and rulers, especially with Herod the king of Galilee and other powerful people in the society. They were the ruling elite, who enjoyed the privileges and influences of this world, and therefore, they believed in living their lives in this world, their earthly existence to the fullest, and refused to believe of the notion of life after death.

The Sadducees therefore argued with Jesus, using the example of the woman who had had seven husbands to trap Jesus, by using the legal examples of the law of Moses, which allowed a woman to remarry the brother of her husband if her husband has died without having a children with her, which in fact, is what the Sadducees put in place against Jesus, when the woman married all the seven brothers, and all died without having any children.

Their inability to comprehend the truth and teachings of Jesus lay in the fact that they still thought of the afterlife in the same manner as their earthly existence, whereas in fact, the life after death for all of us is an existence far superior and perfect compared to what we have now on earth. The Lord told us mankind to marry and procreate to fill the earth with our descendants, because we are still living in this world, and are still bound to it, with all of our earthly desires and wants.

However, once we have been brought into the new and eternal life in God, we have no more need for such earthly desires, sustenance, relationships or other things such as money, influence, power, and all the other things we mankind normally treasure in this world, and particularly important for those Sadducees, who valued their worldly existence above everything else. No, that is not the case, since when we are with God, we have all we need through Him, and He is our Bridegroom, Who will be with us forever.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, today’s Scripture readings are reminders for us to live as how the Lord had taught us to live, as Christians, who are not so much concerned about worldly matters and worries, so as to detract us from our true goal, that is to love the Lord and to serve Him with all of our heart and strength. We should not be greedy or be preoccupied with gathering material wealth and worldly influence or power, all of which are superfluous in nature, for none of these will be ours as we pass through from death into new life in God.

Which one do we want, brothers and sisters in Christ? To enjoy so much the pleasures and goodness of life in this world, and yet then falling into eternal damnation and suffering in hell? Or rather for us to be focused on the Lord and His way, the way which He had shown us all, that as true and devout Christians, we may live our lives filled with love and care, for the Lord first of all, and then also for our fellow brethren? In the end, the Lord will reward us with life everlasting with Him, and we will experience true joy and happiness that the world cannot give.

May the Lord be our strength, and may He guide us in this journey of life, so that it does not matter what kind of problems we have encountered in life, we will always persevere through and remain faithful to the Lord, and not be distracted by the many temptations of worldly life. Let us seek the Lord and remain true to Him forevermore. Amen.

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Wednesday, 7 June 2017 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 12 : 18-27

At that time, the Sadducees also came to Jesus. Since they claim that there is no resurrection, they questioned Him in this way, “Master, in the Scriptures Moses gave us this law : if anyone dies and leaves a wife but no children, his brother must take the woman, and with her have a baby, who will be considered the child of his deceased brother.”

“Now, there were seven brothers. The first married a wife, but he died without leaving any children. The second took the wife, and he also died leaving no children. The same thing happened to the third. In fact, all seven brothers died, leaving no children. Last of all the women died. Now, in the resurrection, to which of them will she be wife? For all seven brothers had her as wife.”

Jesus replied, “Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God? When they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry, but are like the Angels in heaven. Now, about the resurrection of the dead, have you never had thoughts about the burning bush in the book of Moses?”

“God said to Moses : I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is the God not of the dead but of the living. You are totally wrong.”