Weekday Homily

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Thursday, 1 August 2019 : 17th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard the message of the Sacred Scriptures speaking to us about the establishment of the Holy Tent of Meeting, as prescribed by the Law of God and instructed by God Himself. The Holy Tent of Meeting was the precursor of the Temple of God, which was the centre of the entire community of the faithful, where the Altar of God was placed at, and where the whole community revolved around.

The Lord was with His people at all times, gathering them all together, guiding them along the entire journey in the form of the great pillar of cloud at daytime and as a great pillar of fire at night. He was the focal point of the entire journey, and Moses acted as the mediator between God and His people, as he went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with God and to deliver His will and revelations to the people of Israel.

This Holy Tent of Meeting and the community of the people of Israel, if we also then recall what we have heard in our Gospel passage today, on the parable of the kingdom of God represented as a great fishing net gathering many fishes of various kinds, are in fact representations and prefigurements of how our Church today looks like. For the Church of God is just like Israel of old, the community of the entire faithful people of God.

Just as the entire community of Israel was gathered around the Holy Tent and were included within the boundary of the entire camp, thus the whole Church of God is centred and focused on the Holy Presence of God in Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Who is truly present in our midst in His own Most Precious Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist, as the tangible focus of our whole lives, the very centre of our Christian faith.

There is also parallel to what happened in the old times of Israel and our Church today, as while in those days, people who were deemed to be unclean were cast out of the camp into the wilderness until they were able to prove themselves to be clean before they were allowed to join the camp once again, in the Church, we also have what is called excommunication, when this most severe of penalties is reserved for those who have acted in a most unfaithful way, with the intention of helping the person to reflect on his or her errors and repent from his or her sins.

The significance of what we have heard in today’s readings cannot be understated, as the Gospel parable also reminds us that those who are wicked and unjust, unfaithful and evil shall have no part in God’s kingdom and inheritance. They will be rejected and cast out forever just as they have willingly and consciously rejected God and refused to follow His laws and commandments.

Do we want to be included or counted among those who will be condemned to eternal damnation? Or do we rather stay on the Lord’s good side? The choice is completely in our hands, and indeed we have been given many opportunities to make our conscious choice. God has given us the free will to choose between good and evil, between obedience to God and disobedience against Him, between righteousness and wickedness.

Today, all of us celebrate together the feast of the Founder of the Redemptorist religious order, or the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. St. Alphonsus Liguori is a great figure filled with faith, sincerity and devotion to God, who can be a great example to each and every one of us in how we ought to live out our lives with faith, and not just any faith, but a living and genuine faith in God.

St. Alphonsus Liguori was once a great lawyer, but after having spent quite a few years in that profession, he found his true calling in serving God and chose to abandon his former life and embraced the call to priesthood and service. And as a priest, he reached out to the poor and the marginalised in the society, gathering all of them and managed to gain many people to return to the faith.

St. Alphonsus Liguori, his dedication and hardwork, his dedication to the Lord and to the people, his efforts to bring the lost souls and sheep of the Lord are things that can inspire us all to live ever more faithfully as true Christians from now on. Are we able to follow in his footsteps in being good examples of faith for one another? All of us have been given the same mission from the Lord, that is to gather His people, our fellow brethren, in the Church that He has established in this world.

Let us all together as one people, one community of the faithful people of God, one Church, serve the Lord with all of our hearts and believe in Him wholeheartedly from now on. May the Lord bless us all and may He continue to guide us all throughout this journey of life. May St. Alphonsus Liguori also intercede for us all sinners. Amen.

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Wednesday, 31 July 2019 : 17th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of God in the Sacred Scripture speaking to us about the moment when Moses came down from Mount Sinai where he encountered and spoke with God Who gave him the new two tablets of stone containing the Ten Commandments which He had given to His people Israel, after the first stone tablets were destroyed when Moses in his anger broke them at the moment when Israel rebelled against God by erecting a golden calf idol over themselves as their god.

Moses appeared before the people bearing the Law of God in the Ten Commandments, showing all of them what the Lord has revealed to him, and they all saw that his face was radiant, full of the glory of God, having seen God Himself face to face. Perhaps this also refers to the great joy and happiness that Moses has experienced when he stood in the presence of God, listening to the wonderful truth and the love which God has for His people.

How is this related to our Gospel passage today? In fact, what we have heard in our first reading today on Moses and his reception of God’s Law at Mount Sinai is the moment mentioned in the Gospel, of how he has found and discovered the true treasure of mankind, that is God and His Law, His truth and His ways. The Lord Jesus mentioned to His disciples the parable of the true treasure that is the kingdom of heaven.

In that parable, He compared the kingdom of heaven with a great treasure that a person has discovered, likened to to a great treasure and to a pearl of great value that a trader has discovered in the sea. And using these approximations and comparisons, the Lord wanted us all to know that just as Moses was radiant and most likely joyful of having known God Himself that time, all of us too should seek the true treasure of our lives.

And what is this treasure, brothers and sisters in Christ? What is the treasure of our lives? Is it wealth? Is it prestige? Is it worldly glory? Is it fame? Is it human achievements and praise? Is it pleasures of the flesh? If these are the treasures that we seek in life, then I am afraid that we have not managed to find the true treasure that we ought to seek, which can be found in God alone.

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the famous saint who is the founder of the Society of Jesus, also popularly known as the Jesuit Order. St. Ignatius of Loyola together with several like-minded men like St. Peter Faber, St. Francis Borgia, St. Francis Xavier among many others founded the Society of Jesus during the time of the Counter-Reformation where they were at the forefront of action.

But St. Ignatius of Loyola had a very different beginning, and it was probably most unlikely for him when he was young to have foreseen what he would eventually become, especially when he was born and raised with intense expectation for glory and fame. St. Ignatius of Loyola was particularly attracted to martial combat and the ideals of chivalry, and that was why he joined the military at a young age, seeking worldly glory and fame.

Initially he had great success and acclaim, but an unfortunate accident changed his whole life forever, when during a battle, one of his legs was shattered by the force of the explosion of a cannonball. He had to go through a painful process of healing and recovery, and from then on, physically disabled and never fully regaining the strength in his injured leg, his path of worldly glory through combat was over.

This was the beginning of a period of spiritual conversion and change in the young St. Ignatius of Loyola’s life, in which the future saint began to read up on the Scriptural texts and the lives of saints, gaining more understanding and comprehension of what his true treasure and purpose in life were. From then on, St. Ignatius of Loyola would no longer dream on pursuing worldly ambitions and chivalrous ideals, and instead, he sought to imitate the saints.

He embarked on intensive study of the faith and as mentioned earlier, gathered like-minded men to begin the foundation of the Jesuits. At that time, the whole of Christendom was in turmoil due to internal divisions and heretical ideas, and at the same time the threat of external invasions and conquest by the forces of unbelievers brought about a truly dark time in the history of the Church.

But St. Ignatius of Loyola and his fellow Jesuits devoted themselves to be at the forefront of the concerted efforts to bring about a change in the direction of the Church, the conversion of many sinners and all those who have been swayed away or left the Church and the faith, as well as for the evangelisation of more people both within Christendom then and also in faraway mission lands.

Through the examples shown by St. Ignatius of Loyola, his change in mindset and spiritual conversion, all of us should be inspired to look deep into our own lives and see in what way we ourselves can change and be converted spiritually and indeed, wholly in our entire beings, from those who seek after the worldly treasures of fame, human achievements and glory, wealth and pleasures of the flesh, into those who seek the true treasure found in God alone.

Let us all therefore refocus and redirect our attention and efforts from now on, that gradually we may grow stronger in our faith as well as becoming ever closer to God, our loving Lord and Master. As St. Ignatius and the Jesuits’ motto says, ‘Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam’ or ‘For the Greater Glory of God’, let us all live our lives from now on with the intention to glorify God. May God continue to guide us in our path and bless our lives, that we may be ever closer and be more faithful to Him, following the examples of St. Ignatius of Loyola and many other holy saints, holy men and women of God. Amen.

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Tuesday, 30 July 2019 : 17th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Chrysologus, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us about the we listened yet again to the wonderful love of God being ever present in our midst, reminding us of what we have received through these ages and throughout our history, in God’s faithfulness and commitment to the Covenant which He had made with each and every one of us.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of Exodus we heard about God Who led His people Israel through a long and arduous journey in the desert as they made their way towards the land promised to them. God led them on the journey as He followed them along in the form of a large pillar of cloud at daytime and a large pillar of fire at nighttime. And He instructed His people through Moses, in passing to them His laws and commandments, precepts and regulations to help them to remain true to Him.

And Moses humbled himself before God and petitioned Him for the sake of the people, admitting the sins that the people had committed, all the sins and wickedness that they have committed throughout their journey. Their refusal to obey the Lord’s words and commandments have caused them to sin against Him, and as a result, many have perished along their journey by their own choice and refusal to follow the Lord.

Still, as Moses mentioned, how God is truly a loving and forgiving God, He is truly full of compassion and mercy, He still continued to love His people nonetheless, despite all the wickedness they have committed, and despite all the disobedience and rebelliousness that they have displayed throughout those years and even beyond, after they have reached the promised land and dwelled there.

On this day, we listened in our Gospel passage another story, that of the explanation of the parable of the weeds by the Lord when His disciples asked Him to explain the meaning of that parable to them. And the Lord explained how the weeds represent the people who have not obeyed the Lord and followed Satan instead of Him. The weeds were sown in the field by the enemy, Satan himself, amidst the good and healthy wheat, representing the faithful people of God.

But the Lord, represented by the owner of the field, did not want to pull out the weeds right away, but instead, allowed the weeds to grow alongside the wheat. In this way, the Lord showed His mercy and compassion, His magnanimity and great love for all of His people. How is that so? That is because God’s love for each and every one of us is unchanging, despite of all of our sins and wickedness.

He always loves us all, even when we have not listened to Him, even when we have disobeyed Him and sinned against Him, even when we have chosen other paths beyond and away from the path that He has led and guided us into in our lives. But we must remember that although God loves us all very dearly, as long as sin is present in our midst, sin will become a great obstacle that will prevent us from truly being able to reach God and be reunited with Him.

We must not forget that God is all good and perfect, and no imperfection and corruption can stand in His presence. If we continue to disobey the Lord and refuse His constant and generous offer of forgiveness and mercy, eventually, it will be by our own rejection and stubbornness that we will fall into eternal damnation, because while God is ever generous with His mercy and ever sincere with His love, our hearts and minds are closed to all of these.

Do we want to end up like the weeds at the end of time, according to the parable? Those weeds shall be gathered and burnt, and destroyed, while only the wheat will be collected and stored. If we continue to sin, we are the only ones who will reap the sufferings and pains in the end. Do not let the temptations to sin and our stubbornness to bring about our downfall, brethren!

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Peter Chrysologus, a holy and devout servant of God, whose life examples can be good inspiration to each and every one of us in how we ought to live up our lives from now on, that we truly can be worthy of being God’s faithful people. St. Peter Chrysologus was named such, with the term ‘Chrysologus’ meanings ‘Golden Tongued’ because of his very eloquent and inspiring sermons, by which he called many lost souls back to the faith.

St. Peter Chrysologus was a very holy and devout man, who dedicated himself as the Bishop of Ravenna during the later days of the Roman Empire, ministering to the people of God and calling on them to turn away from their sinful ways, explaining the faith clearly to them and showing them how they ought to live their lives through simple terms and simple actions, by his own personal holiness and exemplary life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, each and every one of us are also called to be like St. Peter Chrysologus in our faith and in how we live our lives. Are we willing to follow in his footsteps and make the concrete effort to be real and living witnesses of Christ in our own communities and families? We should therefore do our best in our own respective lives to be exemplary, to be faithful even in the little things and actions we do that everyone who witness us will know that we truly belong to God.

Let us all reorientate ourselves and refocus our attention on God from now on, He Who is so loving and compassionate towards us despite of our sins and disobedience. Let us all devote ourselves to Him through prayer and by spending more of our time and effort. May the Lord bless us all and our good endeavours, now and always. Amen.

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Monday, 29 July 2019 : 17th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Martha (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture explaining to us about the love which God has for each and every one of us, His beloved ones, and therefore how, by right all of us should thus also show the same love, care and attention to God, in the way that He Himself has loved us so wonderfully from the very beginning of time. God had never stopped loving us and so should we.

On this day we listened to St. John who wrote in his Epistle about the love of God which He has given to us, not just in intangible terms, but in truth, has presented itself in the most tangible way possible, as the love of God has been made Man, in the flesh, in the person of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man. He is the Divine Word of God, the Son Who has been sent into this world and assumed the fullness of our humanity.

And how did God’s love manifest itself? We ourselves see a glimpse of His love in our Gospel passage today, when the Lord Jesus came to His good friend Lazarus who just died after suffering from a serious sickness for days. Martha, his sister, came to the Lord and she had faith in Him that He would be able to do what was considered impossible, that Lazarus would be raised from the dead back into life.

In the context of today’s Gospel, although it was not mentioned, but the Lord raised Lazarus from the dead in the sight of the many people who had come to the place to grief with Mary and Martha, his sisters. The people who saw that miraculous deed of God rejoiced and gave thanks to God for the love He has shown to His people. And that was just a foretaste of what the Lord would be doing for them.

For God indeed so loved the world that He extends the same love and saving grace to all of His people, by embracing the suffering and pain of the Cross. The Lord Jesus willingly took up His Cross and bore it on His own shoulders, agreeing to suffer for our sake and in our stead, bearing those same burdens that we have received because of our sins. He bore His wounds and the torture, all the agony and pain so that by His suffering, we may be freed from our fated destruction due to our sins.

Today, all of us celebrate the feast of St. Martha, the same Martha who was the sister of Lazarus, the man whom the Lord Jesus raised from the dead. According to the Gospels, the same St. Martha was also the one whom the Lord Jesus reminded when she and her sister welcomed Him into their house, and St. Martha was busy preparing for all the things and chores to welcome the Lord. The Lord reminded her that she was focusing on the wrong things by preoccupying herself with so many things.

Now, having heard of what we have just talked about God’s love and how much He has loved us all, and on St. Martha, who was once reminded by the Lord not to focus on the wrong things in life, but to focus herself wholly on Him, let us all reflect then on our own lives and how we have lived them thus far. Have we loved God as we should, or have we instead been so busy and been so preoccupied by so many things in life as St. Martha had once done, that we have sidelined God and even forgotten about Him?

All of us must embrace God’s love and understand just how great His love for each and every one of us is, without any exception. He has gone through so much Himself for our sake, and suffered so much for us all, to free us from the power and bondage to sin and death. So it is just right and true for us to love Him as much as we can, to the best of our abilities.

Let us all therefore follow the examples of St. Martha and all of our holy saints, those who have lived their lives faithfully, and like St. Martha, who grew in faith and showed her faith and dedication to God in believing wholeheartedly in His love, by which He has rescued and liberated all of us, His beloved people. Let us all love the Lord all the more, each and every single days of our lives from now on. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 28 July 2019 : Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we heard from the Scripture passages on the matter of trusting in God and how each and every one of us can ask Him and approach Him, seeking for Him to help us and to provide us with what we need. This is in fact something that many of us as Christians may have taken for granted throughout our lives, not realising that God has always been by our side all these while without fail.

In our first reading today, we heard of the encounter and exchange between Abraham and God Himself, as He revealed to him what He had planned for the great wickedness of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He would destroy the two cities for all the sins the people in them had committed and their stubborn refusal to repent from those sins and continuous living in wickedness and corruption.

Abraham naturally asked the Lord to show mercy, because first of all, we have to remember that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were also the places where Lot, Abraham’s relative has been living at that time after he and Abraham went on their separate ways. Surely Abraham wanted his relative and his whole family to be saved from such a destruction, and that was why Abraham pleaded for the sake of him and for the people of the city.

But at the same time, we have to also take note that Abraham could have just asked God directly to spare the lives of Lot and his family, instead of asking God to spare the lives of everyone in the two cities. After all, weren’t the people living in those cities very wicked and sinful? They surely had deserved death while Lot and his family deserved to be saved. Why is that, brothers and sisters in Christ?

That is because Abraham must have firmly believed that God is so loving and merciful that He would not have done what He had revealed to Abraham He would do to Sodom and Gomorrah. Just as Abraham himself had been so beloved by God, he must not have been able to believe that God wanted to bring such a fate of destruction on so many people living those two cities. That was why, he continued to plead for the sake of the two cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, asking God to spare the city should there be fifty, forty-five, forty, and so on until if there were even only ten righteous people living there.

And God did listen to Abraham, brothers and sisters in Christ, just as He was patient listening to his many pleas in His presence. Linking with what we have also heard in our Gospel passage today, in which the Lord Jesus taught His disciples who asked Him how they ought to pray, and making comparison of God as One Who will listen to those who ask of Him, Abraham in our first reading today is truly like a child asking for favours from his father.

The Lord Jesus was making a comparison between God and His actions with those of a friend and to a father of a child. He was mentioning to His disciples how even a friend, no matter what happens, will move to help should we ask for help, even when that causes that friend discomfort and unhappiness, just because by helping that friend of ours can get rid of our constant nagging and requests. And God, in truth, is much more than just a friend to us.

And a father, no matter what, will not give something that will harm his child, or give whatever that is totally contrary to what the child has been asking for. And God indeed is our Father, our heavenly Father and Creator, Who created us all out of His perfect love for each and every one of us. He is far more than all of our earthly fathers, and because of that, His love for us is truly genuine, true and powerful beyond comparison.

Now, as highlighted just earlier, prayer is the way how we communicate and ask God, our loving Father and Creator. But then now, we need to spend some time reflecting on prayer, on how we pray and if we have even made our prayers faithfully in our own respective lives so far. Have we made our prayers with the right intentions and purposes in mind? Or have we fallen into the same mistake that so many of us have done in making our prayers?

Many of us have this misconception and misunderstanding that prayer is like a magic and works like magic, fulfilling whatever we wanted. And many of us may have thought that God will listen to us no matter what and that He will fulfil every single one of our prayers. Consequently, we reduced our prayers into the ones consisting of litanies of requests or even demands. And when God did not fulfil what we wanted, we ended up being angry at God or left Him behind for other ‘gods’.

We have to understand that, first of all, we cannot reduce God into One that is subservient to us, since He is after all, the Creator, Lord and Master of all the universe, and He is the Master of us all. How can we act in our prayers as if He is our slave that will heed all of our every biddings and demands? This is a wrong attitude and way of praying, and if we are guilty of this, then we should reflect again on the Scripture passages today.

If we read on after the part taken for today’s first reading from the Book of Genesis, we should know that eventually, Sodom and Gomorrah would still be destroyed by God, with a rain of fire and brimstone from the heavens. Then we may be wondering, did Abraham not ask the Lord to spare those two cities for the righteous who lived in them and for the sake of Lot and his family, Abraham’s own relatives?

We must then understand that everything that happens in this world and indeed, in the whole universe and creation, must follow the will of God and all that God had intended everything to be. It does not mean that God does not listen to His people and to our prayers. He did listen and He is a much better listener than all of us are. He answered Abraham’s prayers by rescuing Lot and his family through His Angels that He Himself sent to Sodom and Gomorrah to rescue them.

But it was fated and by God’s will that the two cities were destroyed because not even ten righteous people could be found in them, like Abraham requested from God. Only Lot and his family, who were less than ten in number, could be considered as righteous, from what we read on from the Book of Genesis’ accounts. And in that occasion, when Lot begged God through His Angel to spare the small town of Zoar because he was afraid that he would not be able to reach safety in time, God listened to him and spared the small town.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us then recall what the Apostle St. Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in Colossae, our second reading today, when he mentioned about our baptism and the wonderful gifts that God had given us from that baptism. This is significant because by baptism, all of us have not just received pardon and forgiveness from all of our sins as mentioned in that Epistle, but even more so, that we have been made nothing less than sons and daughters of God Himself.

And that is because through baptism, we become sharers in Christ’s Passion, suffering, death and Resurrection. We share in the glory of the Cross, by dying to our past sins and by embracing Christ and believing in the glory of His Resurrection. Just as Christ is the Son of God, we share through His humanity as the Son of Man, the same relationship with God, our loving heavenly Father.

Today, let us all realise that the best way to pray and communicate to God, our loving Father, is to follow the example of Christ, Who prayed to His heavenly Father in the purest and best prayer known to us, which we all know as the Pater Noster, or the Lord’s Prayer. In that prayer, all the four essence and intentions of prayer is covered, namely that of ‘Adoration’, ‘Thanksgiving’, ‘Atonement’ and ‘Petition’.

Rather than beginning His prayer with petition after petition, or request or demand one after another, the Lord showed us all that we begin by glorifying and adoring God, thanking God for everything that He has done for us, for all the wonders and glories He had shown us, and also admitting that after all, God’s will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven, not our own will or desire.

The Lord’s Prayer is a model upon which our personal prayers should be made, as prayer is in its pure essence, as all of us must realise, is an intimate form of communication between God and us, much like how Abraham communicated in private with God as shown in our first reading today. A true communication is two-way between the two parties, and not unidirectional. That was why, in prayers, we must open our hearts and minds to God just as God listens to us.

Even with all of our concerns and petitions that we wish to make in our prayers, first and foremost we must understand and realise that everything will ultimately be in God’s hands, and His will shall be done. And we must make our petitions with the openness in mind and heart at all times, allowing God to make known to us what His will is for us, just as we pray and ask Him to intervene for our sake, whatever it may be.

Can we trust in God and believe in Him wholeheartedly from now on? God will never abandon us, and He will always provide for us, as the Lord Jesus Himself assured us all. If an evil person, or any ordinary person, or any fathers know how to do good and take care of those who are dear to them, what more will the Lord will do for us, as each and every one of us are truly dear to Him? Remember all that He had lovingly done for His servants throughout history, and what He had done to Abraham and in rescuing Lot and his family from destruction.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God is always listening to us, and in truth, we do not even need to say anything at all. Of course God Who knows everything, has already known everything in our hearts and minds, even our deepest secrets and thoughts. But are we opening our hearts and minds to listen to God? Are we allowing Him to speak to us just as we speak to Him? Let us all reflect on this, and strive to improve our prayer life, so that we may truly spend the time in quality prayer with God, our loving Father.

Let us be ever more faithful from now on, and do not let the business of our life in this world, all sorts of worldly concerns and temptations to distract us from God. Let us all be open to God’s grace and be willing to listen to Him, by being ever more prayerful in our daily living. May the Lord continue to guide us and strengthen us all in faith, and may He empower us all to live in accordance with His will, as Abraham, our father in faith, has done. Amen.

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Saturday, 27 July 2019 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

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

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture which brought to our attention the Covenant which God has made and renewed between Himself and His people as our first reading today highlighted from the Book of Exodus, sealing the Covenant between God and man through the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrificial lambs on the Altar.

In that occasion, God renewed and reestablished the Covenant which He had made the ancestors of the people of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the holy patriarchs of Israel, and made the Covenant anew as He led them through the desert out of the slavery in Egypt, fulfilling the promise which He had made to His servants mentioned. He has blessed His people and made them plentiful and mighty.

He gave them His laws and the Ten Commandments, upon which all of His people must attach themselves to, as the symbol of their commitment to the Covenant which God has made with them. A Covenant in itself is essentially a binding agreement and promise made between two parties, in which both parties are obliged and bound to fulfil the conditions and the provisions of the Covenant.

God has always been faithful and committed to His Covenant, as He has proven yet again and again throughout the ages, from the very beginning, showing care, love and concern for His people; chiding, rebuking and punishing His people with whom He had made the Covenant with, whenever they fell away from the path of righteousness that they had been led along, and failed to fulfil their part of the Covenant.

It was unfortunately the people who have failed to commit themselves fully and wholeheartedly to the Covenant between them and God. They were distracted and easily tempted by the temptations of sin, which pulled them away from the right path shown to them by God. They ended up disobeying and rebelling against God as they followed their own path and pursued their own desires and wicked thoughts.

And this is what we are also hearing in our Gospel passage today, the meaning of the parable that the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples, on the wheat and the weeds growing in a field. In that parable, we heard of a sower who sowed good seeds of wheat in a field, and then, an enemy came quietly at night to sow the seeds of weeds that are not just undesirable but can also harm the good crops.

As the parable mentioned, we see clear symbolism in that parable meant to remind us of the Covenant which God has made with us, and the many obstacles in our lives that often become stumbling blocks in our journey towards God and His truth and salvation. The sower was none other than the Lord Himself, while the enemy referred to Satan and all the forces of evil seeking our destruction. The wheat referred to the good things that God has given to us, while the weeds referred to the corruptions of sin in our midst.

Another interpretation is that the wheat refers to all the righteous and faithful people of God while the weeds are those who have rejected God and refused to believe in Him, and instead walking down the path of sin. And yet, God, as the sower, did not want to remove those weeds before the appointed time, allowing the wheat to grow together with the weeds. And this is representing just how God is so loving and forgiving, full of compassion and mercy towards us.

How is that so? That is because despite of our disobedience, stubbornness and constant rejection of His love through sin, God is still ever patient and He extends to all of us the opportunities and chances to be forgiven from our sins and to be healed from all of our shortcomings and faults, by His own infinite grace and love. God cares for each and every one of His children, and blesses everyone, be it that they are good or bad.

But it is important that all of us seek to be forgiven from our sins, as ultimately, although God is loving and merciful, but the fact remains that sin has no place before God, and as sin corrupts us, our souls and our beings, if we remain adamant in our rejection of God and refusal to repent from those sins, then just like the weeds in the parable, in the end of time, we will be cast out into the eternal fire, to suffer for eternity because of our own decision to reject God and His generous love.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, are we able therefore to follow the Lord our God with all of our hearts and with all of our strength? Let us all devote ourselves to Him and let us all strive to do our best to be faithful to Him just as He Himself has been so faithful and so filled with love for each and every one of us. Let us all obey His laws and commandments, and live our lives from now on with the commitment and desire to be righteous and just, worthy of His eternal inheritance.

May God bless us all, and may He empower us to live ever more faithfully according to His ways from now on. May He be with us all in our journey of life and guide us towards the right path in Him. Amen.

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Friday, 26 July 2019 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Joachim and St. Anne, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the feast of the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, namely St. Joachim and St. Anne, her father and her mother respectively. They were remembered as those who were faithful and committed to obey the Lord and His laws, which they passed on to their daughter, Mary, preparing her well for the crucial role she would end up taking as the Mother of Our Lord and Saviour.

The parents of our blessed mother Mary taught her to be obedient to the Lord, to be righteous and just in accordance to the Law which God has revealed to His people through Moses, as we ourselves have also heard in our first reading passage today, which related to us the important Ten Commandments that God revealed to Israel at Mount Sinai, as the core and basis of the laws which He has provided for them.

And in the Gospel passage today, we heard of the parable of the sower which we all should be familiar with, as spoken by the Lord Jesus to His disciples and all the people who were listening to His teachings. In that parable we heard how the sower of the seeds spread the seeds that fell onto different kinds of soils and conditions, and as a result the seeds grew differently and ended up in various conditions.

The Lord also explained how all those seeds that fell by the roadside and got eaten up by the birds, or those that fell on the rocky ground and perished, and those seeds that fell among brambles and thistles and were choked to death, were symbolic of those who have received the seeds of faith from God, and yet, failed to allow those seeds to grow and germinate in them, therefore, they bore no fruits in them.

This has to be understood in the context of how the Law of God, which God has given to His people at Mount Sinai through Moses, had been neglected and abandoned by the very same people who have received them firsthand from God, and even those who have witnessed God’s miraculous wonders and works in the first place. They did not allow God’s laws and words to take roots in them, and as such, they ended up being unfaithful.

They refused to believe because they allowed the many concerns of the world, the temptations of worldly desires and the pressures of sin cause them to fall and to get further and further away from the Lord. But what if the opposite happen then, brothers and sisters in Christ? That was exactly what happened with Mary, who not only prepared especially for the role she was to undertake as the Mother of God, but she was also brought up well in faith.

It was her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne who brought her up well in faith, instructing her in the ways of the world and to be a righteous, just and obedient person, as a servant of God. In the traditions of the Church, St. Joachim and St. Anne were truly loving and caring parents who brought up Our Lady well, showing to us what it truly means to be parents to our children, and especially as Christian parents.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, through the faith and good examples shown by St. Joachim and St. Anne, the parents of our Blessed Mother Mary, we are all called to reflect on our own Christian lives, especially in our own Christian families, in how we live our lives together in our respective families, in our roles either as a father, or as a mother, or as a child, or as a son-in-law or as daughter-in-law, or as any other members of the family.

Christian family is a very important part of the Church, as without good and faithful Christian families, the foundations of the Church will crumble and collapse, and countless souls would have been lost to sin and to the devil’s machinations. And the devil and his allies know this perfectly well, and thus, they constantly assault our Christian families and the institution of marriage itself, wanting to destroy the fabric of our Christian faith.

Let us all remember that our families must stay together in faith and look upon the good examples set by St. Joachim and St. Anne, in their faith and dedication and in how they raised Mary up well in the faith. Let us all follow in their examples and do what we can to live up to the same kind of faith as they have. Let us all model our own Christian families after the example of Mary’s loving family from now on, praying together and striving to be united together in faith.

May the Lord continue to bless us and our families, and may He bless all parents, that they may continue to remain faithful to their calling as parents, in the responsibilities they have to one another as husband and wife and to their children. May God be with us all, now and always. Amen.

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Thursday, 25 July 2019 : Feast of St. James, Apostle (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the feast of one of the great Twelve Apostles of Our Lord, namely St. James the Apostle, also known as St. James the Greater, to distinguish him from another St. James, that is St. James the Lesser or St. James the Just, who was considered as one of the relatives of the Lord and the first Bishop of Jerusalem. St. James the Apostle was the brother of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, both of whom were the sons of Zebedee.

It was the same St. James and St. John who were mentioned in today’s Gospel passage, as they came together with their mother, asking the Lord Jesus for special favours and position among the disciples, seeking the place of honour by His side when His glory days were coming. The other disciples, especially the other members of the Twelve were very angry at what the two brothers had done, and only after the Lord rebuked all of them that they simmered down.

We have to understand the context of what happened at that time in order to appreciate better the significance of what we have heard in the Scriptures today. At that time, the understanding and perception among the Jewish people about the coming of the Messiah or the Saviour promised by God were that the Messiah would be a mighty and conquering King, in the mould of David, His ancestor.

The people thought of the Messiah, which they thought the Lord Jesus was, as someone Who would restore the kingdom of Israel of old, reliving and recreating once again the glorious days of the kingdom of David and Solomon, when the people of God were at the pinnacle of their glory, power and majesty among the people of the world. That was why, in several occasions, the Lord in fact had to hide from the people who had wanted to make and even force Him to become their King.

It is this same understanding and perception which caused the two Apostles, St. James and St. John, to seek the Lord together with their mother, to seek glory, honour and power from the Lord, by asking Him to give them special favours over that of the rest. After all, if a King was about to rise to great power, it would have been good for whoever who stood by closest to Him, was it not?

That was where the Lord corrected their way of thinking and dispelled the false ideas that they might have in their minds when they decided to follow Him. He essentially reminded them that His kingdom and His rule were totally unlike any other in this world. Following the Lord would not be anything like following any other leaders and rulers in this world, as if they sought power, glory, honour and other forms of worldly satisfaction, they would be disappointed.

Instead, the Lord made it clear and plain that in following Him, His disciples have chosen a life of struggle and perhaps even plenty of sufferings and challenges in this world. It was what He meant when He mentioned the cup that He was about to drink, the cup of suffering that He had to endure, the suffering and pain, the burden and the heavy responsibility of the Cross. And just as He had to suffer and be rejected by the world, He revealed that His disciples likely would have to suffer in the same way too.

That was what St. James endured as he became a faithful follower of the Lord from then on, carrying out faithfully the mission which God has entrusted to him. It was told by Apostolic tradition that he went to spread the faith in lands as far as the present day Spain, where the great shrine to this saint now exists in the famous Santiago de Compostela in northern parts of Spain. St. James had to endure many challenges along his journey, and in the end, he was also among the first to be martyred.

According to the Acts of the Apostles, St. James was the first of the Apostles to be martyred, when king Herod wanted to please the Jewish people, arrested St. James and beheaded him as a show to gain favour with the Jewish religious and community elites, the chief priests and the Pharisees. The other Apostles and disciples of the Lord too, eventually, would come to suffer in the way that St. James had suffered.

But all of them have moved on from what we have seen in our Gospel passage today, the preoccupation with worldly concerns and desires for things like power, fame, influence, wealth and other forms of worldly satisfaction and joy. They have accepted the Lord’s cup of suffering courageously and faithfully, living up to their faith and devoting themselves to be witnesses for His sake, and working to the best of their abilities to spread the Good News.

As mentioned in the first reading today by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians, all of us have received a great treasure from Christ Himself, the true treasure of our lives that can never be lost from us, unless we ourselves reject the treasure that Christ has given to us. This most precious treasure is none other than the promise of eternal life and glory, true happiness and joy of sharing in God’s inheritance through the salvation which He has brought unto us.

It is hope in that promise, the promise of the great and true treasures of the Lord that helped the Apostles, St. James and his fellow witnesses of faith, to persevere even through the most difficult persecutions and challenges, knowing that while all the treasures of this world, the treasures of power, of human glory, of fame and of wealth can be destroyed and perish, the true treasure that is assured for us in God will never be destroyed.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, are we willing and are we able to follow in the footsteps of St. James and the other holy Apostles of the Lord in their dedication to the Lord? Are we able to dedicate our time, effort and focus into the service for the greater glory of God? We have all been called to be the successors of the Apostles, following in the path that they have started, through their courageous deeds and efforts.

May the Lord continue to guide our path, and may He continue to encourage us so that we may seek to live like the Apostles, shunning the tempting desires of the pleasures and the glories of this world, and instead seek the true treasure that lies in God alone, by serving Him with all of our hearts and with all of our strengths from now on. May God bless us all and our good endeavours. Amen.

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Wednesday, 24 July 2019 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Sharbel Makhluf, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us about the moment when the Israelites rebelled against the Lord in the desert from the Book of Exodus, and then from the Gospel passage we heard from the Lord Himself speaking to His disciples on the parable of the sower.

In the first reading today, we listened to the anger and rebelliousness of the people of Israel who did not show gratitude to the Lord for having freed them from the slavery in the land of Egypt. They grumbled and complained against the Lord and Moses, His servant and their leader who had led them out of the land of Egypt, saying that they would rather be enslaved in Egypt and enjoy the bountiful food and drinks there rather than to suffer in freedom in the desert.

And yet, the Lord continued to provide for them patiently, promising them food and drink, providing them with nothing less than bread from heaven, and also flocks of birds to give them meat to eat daily, as well as crystal-clear, clean and sweet water to drink. And all of these God gave to His people Israel, for the entirety of the forty years during which all of them journeyed through the desert, where there was no life, nothing to eat and nothing to quench a person’s thirst with.

Sadly, that would not be the last time that the people disobeyed God and refused to listen to Him and to Moses. They would constantly grumble, rebel, disobey and work against the Lord, as the people continued to complain that life had been better in Egypt, or that the food and drink that the Lord provided to them were not as good as what they had expected or what they thought they had experienced in their former life in Egypt.

And let us all keep all of those in mind as we move on into our Gospel passage today, in which the Lord mentioned the famous parable of the sower to His disciples and to the people. In that parable, we heard of how the sower spread the seeds to several different places, and depending on where the seeds landed, they ended up and grew differently based on the conditions of the locations where they landed at.

Those seeds that fell on the rocky ground, or by the roadside, or those that fell among the thistles and brambles were those seeds that fell on unfavourable grounds that did not allow those seeds to grow properly, and therefore preventing the seeds from growing into a well developed plant that can bear rich and bountiful produce or fruits, unlike those seeds that fell on the rich and fertile soil.

And this is what had exactly happened to the Israelites as mentioned in our first reading today, as those people have received the ‘seeds’ of faith from God, having received the truth of God and His laws through Moses, and yet, they did not let the seeds of faith to grow deep in their hearts and minds. They were bogged down and distracted by the concerns of the world and by their desires for worldly pleasures.

That prevented them from being truly faithful to the Lord, and that was why they constantly rebelled against God, again and again. They did not provide the good and fertile soil for the seeds of faith to grow well in them, and as a result, they did not have a genuine faith for God. That was why they continued to slip and fall into sin, again and again. They did not allow God to enter into their hearts.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, are we going to be like them as well? God has also given us the same seeds of faith, and unless we do differently from what the Israelites had done, we will end up falling into the same trap of faithlessness and disobedience against God. And therefore, today, we should look up to the examples shown to us by one of our holy saints, whose feast we celebrate today, namely that of St. Sharbel Makhluf.

St. Sharbel Makhluf, also known as St. Charbel Makhlouf was a Maronite monk and priest, whose piety and commitment to the Lord was truly exemplary and legendary, as many people came to regard him as a paragon of virtue and faith, in how he dedicated himself completely to the Lord in prayer and through a holy life. He allowed the Lord to make use of his life as a wonderful display of what being true Christian means for all of us.

Many miracles and wonders happened after he passed away, and his body was found to be incorruptible and in excellent condition even decades after be passed away. This is the truly good example of how the Lord’s sown seeds of faith have grown wonderfully and bountifully in a fertile and rich soil, that is the rich and fertile soil of our hearts and minds that are fully attuned towards the Lord and are centred on Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore devote ourselves to serve the Lord from now on with all of our hearts, with all of our strength and courage, and with all of our abilities, and not allowing ourselves to be distracted and tempted by sin and the desires and greed within our hearts. May the Lord be our guide and may He empower us all to live faithfully from now on. Amen.

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Tuesday, 23 July 2019 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bridget of Sweden, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us about the trust and obedience that each and every one of us must have in our lives towards God, our loving Father and Creator, the One Who loves each and every one of us, and by Whose hands we have been brought to freedom from sin, through the gift of His own beloved Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour.

In our first reading today, the people of God, the sons and daughters of Israel were brought out of the land of Egypt by God’s own great power. Those who were saved enjoyed God’s saving power because they obeyed the Lord and His commands, which He made through His servant Moses. They followed the Lord’s instructions, on the Passover and what they ought to do, smearing the blood of the Passover lambs on their house doorposts.

Those who did not do what the Lord has commanded them to do, and refused to believe in the Lord and obey Him, like the Egyptians and their Pharaoh, as the latter constantly refused to let the people of Israel go free until the very end, all of these suffered because of their disobedience and stubborn refusal to listen to God. They rejected God’s truth and love, and therefore, received the wrath of God as a result.

In our Gospel passage today, this message was reiterated once again by the Lord Jesus Himself, as He mentioned before His disciples and the people, that all those who do the will of God, His heavenly Father, obey Him and follow His ways, are all those who will be considered as His brothers, His sisters and His mother. This happened when the relatives of the Lord came to see Him, and those were waiting while the Lord was busy teaching the people.

It may seem that the Lord Jesus was being rude in rebuking His own relatives and refusing to acknowledge them in such a public manner before His own disciples and so many of the people. But if we look at it more carefully and understand the context and purpose in which the Lord made that comment, then we will realise that the Lord was making a point, calling on the people to be truly faithful to the Lord.

And it also showed how the Lord would not be limited by the boundaries of societal norms and familial relations, which often caused people to be divided and grouped together, to the exclusion of others. What the Lord has done was to show that God’s love is extended to all the people equally, with no favourites and cliques. All those who has obeyed the Lord and done His will shall be considered as God’s own beloved ones.

That is precisely because of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has assumed our humanity in the flesh, the Divine Son of God Who has willingly taken up our human existence and essence to be His own, that in His person is perfectly united and yet distinct, two natures, fully Divine and fully Man at the same time. Through His humanity, and by His sacrifice on the Cross, He has made a new Covenant between us and God.

And by this Covenant, each and every one of us have been made worthy of adoption by God Himself, to share with Christ and through Him the status as the beloved children of God. But are we willing to be part of this great inheritance? More often than not, we are distracted and prevented from finding our way because of the many temptations present in this world, because of sin.

Today, perhaps, all of us should look upon the examples set by one of our holy predecessors, namely that of St. Bridget of Sweden, whose feast we celebrate on this day. St. Bridget was born into a noble family and was a devoted mother of a large family. She was remembered for her great piety and generosity in helping the poor and the needy, in being generous for all those who were in need.

St. Bridget devoted her life to the Lord, especially after her husband passed away early, and began the foundation of a religious order eventually named after her, the Brigittines, also known as the Order of the Most Holy Saviour, gathering men and women from many backgrounds to dedicate themselves to the Lord in prayer and service in monasteries. She went on a pilgrimage to Rome and stayed on there, performing many more good works throughout the rest of her life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the piety and commitment shown by St. Bridget of Sweden should become a great inspiration and example for each one of us to follow, in our own lives, that we may also do the same and may also grow ever closer to God, in our obedience and wilful following of God’s will in each and every single days of our life.

May the Lord continue to guide us all in our journey of life, and may He strengthen us all to live courageously with faith from now on, for the sake of His greater glory. Amen.