Wednesday

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Wednesday, 16 October 2013 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hedwig, Religious and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious and Virgins)

Be righteous and be good, be loving, forgiving, and be compassionate, and finally be slow to anger and slow to judge on others. That is the Lord’s message to us in the readings today. These are the attributes of those who are truly belonging to God and reflect the nature of His love.

This is because, brothers and sisters in Christ, He does not want as His people those who are empty in them, empty of love and compassion, and empty of His presence. What He wants is that we would be filled with His Holy Spirit and His love, that we may be what He wants us to be, that is to be loving, merciful, caring, and compassionate.

We must not be enslaved to our pride and arrogance, the natural result of our love for ourselves and our sense of accomplishment. We love to be praised, and have good things whispered in our ears. We love words like, ‘Well done!’ or ‘Amazing!’ or ‘You have done a good job!’. There is in fact nothing wrong with these statements, as they are justified in their use if we truly deserve such praises, but it must not be overdone.

Pride and arrogance is the main reason and culprit behind why the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law cannot accept Jesus, less still whatever He had taught the people of God. That is because in their state of wisdom and learning, they like to consider themselves to be well above the other people, whom they often regard as being less pious than them, as well as lacking in the knowledge of the Law, where in fact, they were the ones misguided by their pride, and in turn misguided even more people themselves.

The Lord cursed them because of this, and denounced their selfish and self-serving behaviour. They were cast down because in their pride, they had not given glory to God, but instead attributed glory to themselves. In their pride, they have rejected the Lord who came to save the world, in Jesus Christ, just as their ancestors had rejected, tortured, and murdered the prophets and messengers of God’s love.

To be a true disciple of the Lord, one requires a great humility and faith, and not just any faith, but also the living faith empowered by love. That requires us to not be idle and thus take up actions proactively, to ensure that the faith within us remains burning brightly and alive. We must always also make sure that our words and actions truly reflect our faith in God, that all who sees us, will see God reflected in us.

Today, brethren, we celebrate the feast of St. Hedwig, a religious from Bohemia, and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a virgin and devout servant of God from France. St. Hedwig was the consort of the ruler of the area now known as Czechoslovakia and also Poland, and she was well known, together with her husband, for her immense piety and charity, especially to the poor and the neglected. And after her husband died early, she entered a monastery to dedicate herself to a life of prayer and contemplation.

St. Hedwig continued to live devoutly, and invited many religious priests and nuns into her country, greatly helping the cause of evangelisation, especially because her country was often notorious for its heresies and rebellions against the true faith by certain individuals. She also donated her possessions and wealth to the poor, giving everything she had for charity and dedicating herself fully to the Lord.

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was also a very devout religious nun, who devoted herself to a life of prayer. What made her most well-known was the vision and appearance of Jesus Christ our Lord to her, revealing to her and the world, of the love He has for all mankind, through His most Sacred Heart. Jesus advocated the need for the world to devote themselves to Him, and devote themselves especially to His Sacred Heart.

That such devotion indeed can help mankind to overcome their sinfulness, and help them on the path towards salvation. That was the beginning of what we would now know as the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. This important devotion helps many to reorientate themselves towards the Lord and salvation in God.

Therefore, brethren, let us humble ourselves and seek the help of the Lord, by asking Him for His mercy, and devote ourselves, and following in the ways of St. Hedwig and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, and in the latter’s devotion to the Sacred Heart of our loving God, Jesus Christ, who came down to us, to bring salvation to us, out of His undying love for all of us. God bless us all and protect us forever and ever. Amen.

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Wednesday, 16 October 2013 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hedwig, Religious and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious and Virgins)

Luke 11 : 42-46

Jesus said, “A curse in on you, Pharisees; to the Temple you give a tenth of all, including mint and rue and the other herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. These ought to be practiced, without neglecting those.”

“A curse is on you, Pharisees, for you love the best seats in the synagogues and to be greeted in the marketplace. A curse in on you, for you are like tombstones of the dead which can hardly be seen; people do not notice them, and make themselves unclean by stepping on them.”

Then a teacher of the Law spoke up and said, “Master, when You speak like this, You insult us, too.” And Jesus answered, “A curse is on you also, teachers of the Law. For you prepare unbearable burdens and load them on the people, while you yourselves do not move a finger to help them.”

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Wednesday, 16 October 2013 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hedwig, Religious and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious and Virgins)

Psalm 61 : 2-3, 6-7, 9

My soul finds rest in God alone; from Him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and salvation; with Him as my stronghold, I shall not be overcome.

Find rest in God alone, o my soul; from Him comes my hope. He alone is my rock and my salvation; with Him as my stronghold, I shall not be overcome.

Trust in Him at all times, my people; pour out your hearts before Him; God is our refuge.

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Wednesday, 16 October 2013 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hedwig, Religious and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious and Virgins)

Romans 2 : 1-11

Therefore, you have no excuse, whoever you are, if you are able to judge others. For in judging your neighbour, you condemn yourself, for you practice what you are judging. We know that the condemnation of God will justly reach those who commit these things, and do you think that by condemning others you will escape from the judgment of God, you who are doing the same?

This would be taking advantage of God and His infinite goodness, patience and understanding, and not to realise that His goodness is in order to lead you to conversion. If your heart becomes hard and you refuse to change, then you are storing for yourself a great punishment on the day of judgment, when God will appear as just judge.

He will give each one his due, according to his actions. He will give everlasting life to those who seek glory, honour, and immortality and persevere in doing good. But anger and vengeance will be the lot of those who do not serve truth but injustice.

There will be suffering and anguish for everyone committing evil, first the Jew, then the Greek. But God will give glory, honour, and peace to whoever does good, first the Jew, then the Greek, because one is not different from the other before God.

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Wednesday, 9 October 2013 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Denis, Bishop and Companions, Martyrs, and St. John Leonardi, Priest (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Priest)

Forgive and you shall be forgiven. Have mercy and mercy will be shown to you. Show love and love will be shown to you. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we heed the readings today, this is the common theme that we all can and should certainly be able to pick up and identify, as a common virtue of our faith in Christ. Christ in today’s Gospel taught His disciples how to pray to God, and that prayer, as we are all familiar with, is the Lord’s Prayer, Pater Noster, or our Father.

That prayer is a simple and yet perfect prayer, and indeed how all prayers should be. Prayers is less about glorifying ourselves before God, and even less still a litany of wishes and desires that we often request or even demand from God. How many of us have been angry at God for not fulfilling our wishes, which we constantly include in our prayers?

Prayer is truly about opening oneself to God and to His eternal love, that is to let Him embrace us with the warmth of His love, that we are made perfect once again in love. That is the essence of prayer and the essence of our loving dedication to God who is our Father. Prayer is a line of communication between Him and us, as a medium through which we do not just speak, but also listen, to the words of the Lord being spoken within our hearts.

Too often the noise of this world prevents us from being able to listen to the word of God, and we become preoccupied in our own worldly dealings, in our own emotions and prejudices, in that we end up trusting our own judgments more than we trust or believe in the wise judgments of the Lord. That is also the essence of today’s readings, in that, we need to be able to overcome those personal prejudices and ill emotions within our hearts, that we will be able to make a reasonable judgment.

Indeed, remember that in fact we are not in a proper place to judge, not even ourselves, since as many sins as we can see in others around us, there are often in fact even more sins within us that we cannot see. To judge others for their sins and to condemn them for those sins is not right, for if we judge them for those, surely we will be judged too, for our own, equally if not more numerous sins.

That is why the Lord reminded Jonah of this fact, of the need for one to be merciful and forgiving, for the virtue of mercy and forgiveness is abundant, and out of them, love will be born. Love cannot exist if we do not first show mercy and forgiveness, especially to those who had wronged us, and to those who had caused us pain and suffering.

It is important that we as the followers and children of the Lord, to be chain-breakers. Why so? Which chains are we talking about? It is the chain that binds our heart and shut it tight, hardening it against the love of God and preventing us from sharing our love with our brethren around us. These chains are sin and worldly temptations that bind us to themselves and to hell, preventing us from being saved.

Indeed, we need to be loving and forgiving at the same time in our lives in this world, in our calling as the disciples of Christ, the One who is Love. We cannot remain bound to those chains we had talked about, and rather, we must break free, both from our own chains of sin, or break free the chains that bound others, that all of us will be loved by God for eternity.

Today we commemorate the feast of St. Denis, the bishop of Paris in the Roman province of Gaul, at where is now known as France. He was a zealous servant of God who lived upright and just life, during the time of great persecutions against the Church and the faithful. The Emperor Decius reigned at the time St. Denis was martyred for his faith. Decius was known to be strongly opposed to the Church and to the faith in God, and ordered one of the most vicious and brutal of all the persecutions of Christians by the state.

St. Denis and some people who were condemned to die with him were beheaded on a hill in what is today Paris, and yet, a miracle happened. It was told that St. Denis did not die even though his head had been cut off from his body. St. Denis picked up his head and walked for several miles, preaching and testifying the greatness of the Lord, made evident in the miraculous occasion of St. Denis himself. He only died when he reached a spot where he was then buried, and where now stands a basilica erected in the honour of his name, that is the Basilica Cathedral of St. Denis in Paris.

Today we also honour St. John Leonardi, an Italian priest living during a time of trouble for the Church and for Christendom, at a time when the Reformation rebels were spreading wildly their heresies and teachings across Europe and gained sizable following. St. John Leonardi was devoted to the people of God, especially the weak and the poor, and did many charitable acts to help and love them.

He also spread the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and promoted the observation of the Liturgy of the Hours, a dedication of one’s prayer in daily basis, as well as the Adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist. Not limited to that, St. John Leonardi also established the religious order of the Clerks, who took part in and contributed to the effort in stemming the Protestant heresies.

Both these saints and their companions had been devoted to their cause, their calling, and committed themselves fully to both the Lord and His beloved people. Therefore, should we then not do the same? Our calling in life is to love, that is to love both the Lord and to love one another, that in love, we truly become worthy of being called the children of God, who is Love. If we instill love in one another, that love will grow to encompass us, and we will grow to love even more, and then, we will truly be worthy to be called God’s children, of God who is love.

May the Lord continue to bless us and strengthen us with His love, caring for us and providing for us, that we will always ever be covered by His grace and blessings. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 9 October 2013 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Denis, Bishop and Companions, Martyrs, and St. John Leonardi, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Priest)

Luke 11 : 1-4

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

And Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say this :

Father, may Your Name be held holy, may Your kingdom come; give us each day the kind of bread we need, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive all who do us wrong; and do not bring us to the test.”

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Wednesday, 9 October 2013 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Denis, Bishop and Companions, Martyrs, and St. John Leonardi, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Priest)

Psalm 85 : 3-4, 5-6, 9-10

Have mercy on me, o Lord, for I cry to You all day. Bring joy to the soul of Your servant, for You, o Lord, I lift up my soul.

You are good and forgiving, o Lord, caring for those who call on You. Listen, o Lord, to my prayer, hear the voice of my pleading.

All the nations You have made will come; they will worship before You, o Lord, and bring glory to Your Name. For You are great, and wonderful are Your deeds; You alone are God.

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Wednesday, 9 October 2013 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Denis, Bishop and Companions, Martyrs, and St. John Leonardi, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Priest)

Jonah 4 : 1-11

But Jonah was greatly displeased at this, and he was indignant. He prayed to YHVH and said, “O YHVH, is this not what I said when I was yet in my own country? This is why I fled to Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and full of love, and You relent from imposing terrible punishment.”

“I beseech You now, YHVH, to take my life, for now it is better for me to die than to live.” But YHVH replied, “What right have you to be angry?”

Jonah then left the city. He went to a place east of it, built himself a shelter and sat under its shade to wait and see what would happen to Nineveh. Then YHVH God provided a castor-oil plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade over his head and to ease his discomfort. Jonah was very happy about the plant.

But the next day, at dawn, God sent a worm which attacked the plant and made it wither. When the sun rose, God sent a scorching east wind; the sun blazed down upon Jonah’s head, and he grew faint. His death wish returned and he said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

Then God asked Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the castor-oil plant?” Jonah answered, “I am right to be angry enough to wish to die.”

YHVH said, “You are concerned about a plant which cost you no labour to make it grow. Overnight it sprang up, and overnight it perished. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot distinguish right from left and they have many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned for such a great city?”

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Wednesday, 2 October 2013 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, or in short our Guardian Angels, who care for us, watch us in our daily lives and intercede for our sake before the Lord, especially when we are lost in darkness, and when we are being pulled apart by the forces of the darkness.

The Lord had not left us all in this world empty-handed and without guidance. Just as He gave us His helpers through His disciples, who passed down their authority to our priests and bishops, who minister to us, He had also sent even His angels to each one of us, to be our protector, companion, and guide. That is what the meaning of the Guardian Angels is about.

An angel created by the Lord had rebelled against Him in his pride, in his arrogance. That is Lucifer, now known as Satan. Once the most brilliant and the mightiest of the angels, he had been thrown down and fell so low that he is the most disgusting of all creations, as the great Enemy, the deceiver. And with him, came down many angels who followed him into his rebellion against God. These are the fallen angels.

Satan and his fallen angels were certainly not pleased of their failed rebellion and were committed to destroy the ones that God loves, that is His creation, particularly in mankind. He came down as the snake at the gardens of Eden, to deceive Eve and Adam, our ancestors. He successfully did so, and mankind fell into sin.

God certainly did not remain silent, but He sent His help over the generations through the prophets and messengers to help bring His beloved creations back to Him, by shunning their lives of sin and embrace instead the love of God. But mankind is easily tempted, by the allures of the pleasures that are in the world, and by the temptations of Satan himself, who sent his fallen angels daily to tempt mankind and sow darkness in the hearts of each one of them.

That is where the Guardian Angels, our Guardian Angels come in. They are in constant spiritual battle against the fallen Angels Satan had sent to us, in battle for our soul, for salvation over damnation of this soul we have in us. The Guardian Angels is at the forefront of this daily spiritual battle, as is all of us. We are always barraged daily with the forces of evil, through temptations and deceit, and we must be strong if we want to persevere through this challenge to the end.

The Lord does not want us to fall into sin and into hell, which He did not prepare for us, but for the devil and his angels. That is why He sent us His angels to protect us and to help prevent us from falling to that fate. These angels, our Guardian Angels are truly noble beings, committed to our salvation, working tirelessly day and night to ensure that this happens.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, have we all then, appreciate what the Lord had done for us, all these while, through His angels that He stationed around us for our sake? Have we listened to their advice and follow their guidance? Or have we rather followed our own desires and the temptations of the evil one? We have a choice in this, brothers and sisters, and it is up to us to decide.

Let us, together with our guardian angels, persevere and fight on against the forces of evil, supporting one another in this daily struggle of the faith. We cannot be idle, but we must be proactive, reaching out at our brethren, especially those who are struggling in their faith, those who have fallen into the state of sin, and those whose life is filled with all forms of evils and corruptions of Satan.

May the Lord continue to watch over us, through His angels that He had sent for us, to be our protectors, that they will continue to pray for our sake, interceding for our purpose. May we continue to be loving in our actions, that we will remain in God’s favour, and also reject Satan and all of his approaches and persuasions. Let us continue to fight a good battle with our Guardian Angels and give thanks to them for their commitment, and to God for having sent them. Amen.

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Wednesday, 2 October 2013 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 18 : 1-5, 10

At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

Then Jesus called a little child, set the child in the midst of the disciples, and said, “I assure you that, unless you change and become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes lowly like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and whoever receives such a child in My Name receives Me.”

“See that you do not despise any of these little ones, for I tell you : their angels in heaven continually see the face of My heavenly Father.”