Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

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Sunday, 19 January 2025 : Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

John 2 : 1-11

At that time, three days after Jesus called Nathanael, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus was also invited to the wedding with His disciples. When all the wine provided for the celebration had been served, and they had run out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”

Jesus replied, “Woman, what concern is that to you and Me? My hour has not yet come.” However His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” Nearby were six stone water jars, set there for ritual washing as practiced by the Jews; each jar could hold twenty or thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them to the brim. Then Jesus said, “Now draw some out and take it to the steward.” So they did. The steward tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing from where it had come; for only the servants who had drawn the water knew. So, he called the bridegroom to tell him, “Everyone serves the best wine first, and when people have drunk enough, he serves that which is ordinary. Instead you have kept the best wine until the end.”

This miraculous sign was the first, and Jesus performed it at Cana in Galilee. In this way He let His glory appear, and His disciples believed in Him.

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Sunday, 19 January 2025 : Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Corinthians 12 : 4-11

There is diversity of gifts, but the Spirit is the same. There is diversity of ministries, but the Lord is the same. There is diversity of works, but the same God works in all.

The Spirit reveals His presence in each one with a gift that is also a service. One is to speak with wisdom, through the Spirit. Another teaches, according to the same Spirit. To another is given faith, in which the Spirit acts; to another, the gift of healing, and it is the same Spirit.

Another works miracles, another is a prophet, another recognises what comes from the good or evil spirit; another speaks in tongues, and still another interprets what has been said in tongues. And all of this, is the work of the one and only Spirit, who gives to each one, as he so desires.

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Sunday, 19 January 2025 : Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 95 : 1-2a, 2b-3, 7-8a, 9-10a and 10c

Sing to YHVH a new song, sing to YHVH, all the earth! Sing to YHVH, praise His Name.

Proclaim His salvation, day after day. Recall His glory among the nations, tell all the peoples His wonderful deeds.

Give to YHVH, you families of nations, give to YHVH glory and strength. Give to YHVH the glory due His Name.

Worship YHVH with holy celebrations; stand in awe of Him, all the earth. Say among the nations, He will judge the peoples with justice.

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Sunday, 19 January 2025 : Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Isaiah 62 : 1-5

For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace, for Jerusalem I will not keep silent, until her holiness shines like the dawn and her salvation flames like a burning torch. The nations will see your holiness and all the kings your glory. You will be called by a new name which the mouth of YHVH will reveal.

You will be a crown of glory in the hand of YHVH, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will you be named Forsaken; no longer will your land be called Abandoned; but you will be called My Delight and your land Espoused. For YHVH delights in you and will make your land His spouse.

As a young man marries a virgin, so will your Builder marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so will your God rejoice in you.

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Saturday, 18 January 2025 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Lord speaking to us through the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded that through the great love, kindness and grace that God has given to each one of us, we have received this great promise and assurance of salvation and eternal life, all because of our Lord having come into this world in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, through Whom God made that Bridge connecting all of us back to Him, renewing and making a new and eternal Covenant with all of us through His perfect and most selfless sacrifice on the Cross. And we should realise just how fortunate all of us are, having received this great love and grace from God.

In our first reading today, from the continuation of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author of this Epistle spoke about the power of the Word of God which had been made flesh, incarnate in our midst, and Whose power has penetrated through our every beings, our bodies, hearts and minds, revealing unto us the truth about the Lord, His love and great desire to save us all from certain destruction and eternal damnation. He has given is all this way of salvation through His Son, the Incarnate Word of God, in the person of Jesus Christ, Who has become one like us, assuming our human nature and existence, and yet without the taint and corruption of sin. By that, as mentioned by the author of the Epistle, He has become our one True and Eternal High Priest, offering on our behalf the sacrifice worthy of redeeming us from our sins.

This is what we are constantly being reminded of, the love of God that has been manifested in His Son, and this Son, our High Priest has willingly embraced our human existence, having gone through all the temptations, challenges and difficulties, all the trials that He had to face throughout His life, ministry, and ultimately His Passion and death on the Cross. He did not hesitate to go through all of these ultimately because of His ever enduring and present love for each one of us. He has obeyed so perfectly that by His total obedience and love for His heavenly Father, He, as the New Man, might become for all of us the perfect role model and inspiration to follow, in becoming the perfect Man, the perfect Lamb to be offered for us, and the perfect High Priest to offer this generous and most selfless offering for the sake of our redemption.

Essentially, through Christ, we have received the assurance of forgiveness from our sins and the path to eternal life and true happiness with Him, because He is truly God Himself in the raiment of our human nature, and by His power and the grace that He has freely offered us, He has the power to forgive us from our many sins, calling on each and every one of us to come to Him and to embrace His rich forgiveness and grace, reminding us that there is no sinner without a future, as long as we trust in the Lord and believe in His compassion and rich mercy, and cooperate with Him in His desire to reunite us all with Him, leading to us all being freed from the bondage of sin, walking down the path of repentance and turning away from the darkness, walking towards the light and salvation in God.

Then in our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. Mark the Evangelist, we heard of the moment when the Lord Jesus called Levi, a tax collector to be one of His disciples. And in this Gospel we heard the example of what the Lord had desired to do with His coming into this world to heal us all from our afflictions and forgive us all from our many sins. This is because the tax collectors during the time of the Lord were often reviled, despised and hated by many of the people because of the prejudice they experienced based on their line of work and what they did, which were disliked by the people. Their job was to collect taxes on behalf of the rulers, be it the Herodian rulers, the descendants of Herod the Great, or the Romans, who were the true rulers and overlords of the land that time.

No one would love to allow their hard earned money, wealth or possessions to be taxed, and the various taxes they had to endure not only make the livelihood the people were having to be more difficult and challenging, but the common perception was that the tax collectors were enriching themselves with the taxes and the money that most of the people had toiled and laboured hard to earn. Therefore, there was a strong prejudice against those tax collectors, who were deemed as great sinners and wicked people, unworthy of God and His grace, and many among the people, especially the self-righteous Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, would have nothing to do with those tax collectors, as according to their teachings, interacting with those tax collectors would defile and corrupt the person who did so.

That was what the Lord set to break and set right as He went directly to call on Levi the tax collector to follow Him. And we heard how Levi left everything behind and decided to follow the Lord. Levi must have had a good and comfortable life, and his nature of work meant that he must be quite well educated. He could have done other jobs in the administration if not being a tax collector, and yet, he chose to put his trust in the Lord and follow Him wholeheartedly, becoming the disciple of the Lord henceforth and committed himself to a lifetime of service, eventually dying as a martyr many years later in the midst of his work of evangelisation. But before all that, we heard how Levi, the future St. Matthew the Apostle, called on all the other tax collectors who all wanted to listen to the Lord and all of them came to have dinner at Levi’s house with the Lord.

Now, as mentioned earlier, this was something taboo for the Jewish people and the Pharisees, and some of those Pharisees who were present there immediately criticised the Lord for His choice of action, of coming to eat in the house of a sinner, according to the interpretation of the Pharisees. Yet, the Lord told those Pharisees off and rebuked them for their prejudice and also lack of faith in Him, because while many of those Pharisees had refused to believe in Him and His words, questioned and doubted His authority and works, those tax collectors, who were supposedly wicked and great sinners, were all flocking to come and seek the Lord, wanting to listen to Him and to atone for their mistakes and faults. And this is what the Lord desires from us, that willingness from each one of us to come and seek Him, His forgiveness and mercy so that we may all receive from Him pardon and healing for all of our sins, and be redeemed and reunited with Him, worthy to enter into the eternal kingdom prepared for all of us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore remind ourselves and one another of God’s great love and mercy, striving to follow the example of Levi and the tax collectors, fully realising that we are all sinners, wicked and unworthy of God’s forgiveness and grace. And yet, the Lord has generously provided us all with the means to come back towards Him and to embrace His love and mercy. Let us all not take this great love, grace and mercy for granted, and commit ourselves henceforth from now on to walk ever more faithfully in God’s Holy Presence, and love Him with ever more dedication, now and always. Amen.

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Saturday, 18 January 2025 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Mark 2 : 13-17

At that time, when Jesus went out again beside the lake, a crowd came to Him, and He taught them. As He walked along, He saw a tax collector sitting in his office. This was Levi, the son of Alpheus. Jesus said to him, “Follow Me!” And Levi got up and followed Him.

And it so happened that when Jesus was eating in Levi’s house, tax collectors and sinners sat with Him and His disciples; there were a lot of them, and they used to follow Jesus. But Pharisees, men educated in the Law, when they saw Jesus eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to His disciples, “Why does your Master eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus heard them, and answered, “Healthy people do not need a doctor, but sick people do. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

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Saturday, 18 January 2025 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

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 judgements 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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Saturday, 18 January 2025 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Hebrews 4 : 12-16

For the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and judges the intentions and thoughts of the heart. All creation is transparent to Him; everything is uncovered and laid bare to the eyes of Him to Whom we render account.

We have a great High Priest, Jesus, the Son of God, Who has entered heaven. Let us, then, hold fast to the faith we profess. Our High Priest is not indifferent to our weaknesses, for He was tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sinning. Let us, then, with confidence approach the throne of grace; we will obtain mercy and, through His favour, help in due time.

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Thursday, 25 January 2024 : Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, marking the moment when one of the fiercest and most brutal enemies of the early Christians, Saul the young Pharisee, had a total and complete conversion of heart and mind, and turned into one of Christianity’s greatest champion and defender, as St. Paul the Apostle, Apostle to the Gentiles and a very important part of the early Church and its missions in spreading the Good News of God. Through what we have heard of the conversion and calling of St. Paul to be a disciple and follower of Christ, all of us are also reminded of the great compassion and mercy of God which have always been readily made available for everyone, that even the greatest of sinners can be great saints and servants of God.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Acts of the Apostles, in which the account of the moment of St. Paul’s conversion was told to us. St. Paul was known as Saul in his youth, as a fanatical and very passionate Pharisee, who spent a lot of his time in trying to persecute the early Church and the Christian communities in Judea, Galilee and even beyond. Saul was misguided by his youthful zeal and fanaticism, likely influenced by the extreme ideals even among the Pharisees, who zealously guarded the Law of God and their own interpretation of the Law, and who mostly saw anyone who preached in different manner as being unworthy and even sinful in their ways against the Lord.

That was how Saul came to be such a great persecutor and enemy of the earliest Christians and the Church, causing untold sufferings and grievances among the faithful, as he went on his many zealous campaigns and attacks against the early Christians in various places, striking fear and sorrow amongst so many of God’s beloved and faithful people. However, Saul was chosen by God to be His follower and disciple, and in His own words, to be His tool and to be the one to proclaim His Good News and truth to the nations. And that was how God came to Saul on the way to Damascus, as He revealed Himself to him, and told him that everything which he had believed and done up to that time, were wrong and misguided.

For Saul, who was such a great sinner, and who had committed so many atrocities against Christians, to be called by God to be His servant, and to do so many wonderful and great deeds henceforth, is a clear reminder for all of us, that God calls everyone, regardless whether they are good or evil, or whether they have committed great sins, or only small and venial sins. There is always place for all of us in the Kingdom of God, and all of us are in fact equally beloved by God. What matters is that, each and every one of us must embrace God’s love and mercy, and allow Him to transform us all from people of darkness into the people of His light, to enter once again into His Holy Presence and to be filled with His grace.

Saul repented from his many sins and turned away from all of his wickedness and evils, listening to God, opening his mind and heart to welcome the Lord, that through Him and the Holy Spirit that he had received, he might be empowered to walk ever more faithfully henceforth in the path of righteousness and grace. His conversion was shown to all, and everyone was indeed astonished and amazed, among Christians and the Jewish people alike, in how his attitudes and beliefs changed almost completely, from a great enemy of Christians to be the greatest defender of the Christian faith. His change of name from Saul to Paul, much like that of Abram to Abraham, and Jacob to Israel, among others, signified this adoption of a new way of life and calling.

St. Paul the Apostle was sent to be the one to reach out to the Gentiles, or the non-Jewish people, and he fervently believed, even against the opposition of some of the believers who thought otherwise, that God’s grace and salvation are extended to everyone, even to the non-Jewish people, who do not have to obey the numerous Jewish practices and customs. He tirelessly committed himself to the missions and causes entrusted to him, going on many missionary journeys and expeditions, from cities to cities, towns to towns, places to places to expand the reach of the Christian faith, and to proclaim God’s salvation to more and more people. His many Epistles or letters helped to inspire and guide many of the faithful throughout the various regions as well.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the conversion of St. Paul the Apostle reminds us all that no one is beyond God’s grace and love, and His power and forgiveness can bring us out even from the darkest and deepest depth of our sins and waywardness, as long as we are willing to commit ourselves to this path of reconciliation and forgiveness. St. Paul showed us all that each and every one of us as Christians have the potential for great things in whatever we do, in the various areas of our lives and the commitments and responsibilities that we have in life. What matters is for us all to listen to the Lord and to respond to His call with faith.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the Lord Jesus telling all of His disciples that He was sending all of them to go forth and to proclaim the truth of God, and the Good News of His salvation, to the peoples of all the nations. He reminded them all of the responsibilities and the missions that they had been entrusted with, the commission to reach out to all the people of all the nations to call them to embrace God’s love and truth, and to baptise them all in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. At the same time, He also reassured them that they would be protected and guided throughout their journey, and they would be taken care of. In the end, even while they might have to suffer, being persecuted and even martyred, as what had happened to St. Paul himself, therefore, each and every one of us are also reminded that we should continue to trust in the Lord and put our faith in Him, while doing what He has commanded and entrusted to us to do.

Are we all therefore willing to follow the Lord and to entrust ourselves to the path which He has shown us, just like what St. Paul the Apostle had done with his whole life and ministry? Let us all do our part wherever and whenever possible, in all the things we say and do, so that we can always do our best in proclaiming God and His truth through our every words, actions and deeds. May the Lord be with us always, and may He empower each and every one of us in every opportunities, and our every good efforts and endeavours, that we too can be His great and worthy tools and missionaries like St. Paul the Apostle had been. Amen.

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Thursday, 25 January 2024 : Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 16 : 15-18

At that time, Jesus told His disciples, “Go out to the whole world and proclaim the Good News to all creation. The one who believes and is baptised will be saved; the one who refuses to believe will be condemned.”

“Signs like these will accompany those who have believed : in My Name they will cast out demons and speak new languages; they will pick up snakes, and if they drink anything poisonous, they will be unharmed; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.”