Weekday Homily

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Sunday, 10 March 2019 : First Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we listened to the words of the Lord through the Scriptures reminding all of us of the need for us to prepare ourselves spiritually as we journey through this blessed season of Lent, a time of preparation and purification of ourselves, before we come to celebrate together the sacred mysteries of the Holy Week and the glorious joy of Easter. We are all reminded of all of the sins we have committed in life because of the temptations that Satan placed before us.

Today we listened to the temptation of the Lord Jesus by the devil in the desert, for forty days when He fasted from food and drink, right after He was baptised, to prepare Himself for His ministry in this world. The Lord met the devil who presented before Him three temptations by which the latter hoped to the good works of the Lord’s salvation to fail, by trying to tempt Him with the same temptations that we mankind often face in life.

While the first Adam, representing all of us mankind have fallen into sin, but Christ, Who became the new Adam, showed to us all that the sting of Satan, that is sin and death, no longer has power and dominion over us. The old Adam might have fallen and failed to remain faithful, but Christ showed us all mankind what it truly means to be faithful, and He defeated Satan in what can be seen as a rematch between Satan and mankind. The first man fell, but the New Man, Christ, overcome the three temptations by which Satan had tempted us throughout time, beginning from Adam and Eve.

The first temptation is the temptation of desire and selfishness, represented by the temptation when the Lord Jesus was told by the devil to turn the stones into bread when He felt hunger creeping up His flesh, just as Satan tempted Eve with the good looking fruit of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. The devil was taunting the Lord, by saying that it is well within His power and authority to turn even rocks into bread, but that would be an abuse of His power to satisfy a selfish desire, the desire to satisfy the hunger of the flesh.

This is a warning for us all that gluttony and desire of our flesh can become our undoing, unless we make the conscious effort to resist those temptations. The desire to satisfy the needs of our body can easily end up becoming an obsession and a growing craving and desire for even more, as we are often prone to fall into the temptation of wanting more of whatever good things we have already had with us.

Many of us fall simply because we cannot resist the urge and the temptation of sexual pleasures and the temptations of our stomach, desiring good food and indulgences, and it is often that all these came from as simple as by looking at another person with desire, or at their possessions, and being jealous or being filled with desire to own what others have, to satisfy our own selfish desires.

To us, many of us will not easily find it enough just to have some good things we have gained in life. Soon enough, we would crave for even more, as the satisfaction that comes from fulfilling all these desires of ours are not long-lasting or permanent. Instead, we continue to find ways to gain more for ourselves and we become enslaved to the desires of our flesh, and disobey God and sin as a result.

The second temptation Christ faced was the temptation of glory, which imitated what Satan tempted man with, when he tempted them with the glory of the world, all of its knowledge and goodness, if they were to eat the fruits of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. Satan presented to the Lord Jesus the whole glory of the whole world, which he said that he would grant Him if only He were to worship him as God. Jesus quickly rebuked Satan and did not fall to the same temptation, humbling Himself before His Father, despite of His own Sonhood and Divinity.

We know just how He humbled Himself, that eventually, He even willingly emptied Himself of all glory and dignity, when He chose to take up the cross, bearing it upon His shoulders, taking up all the heavy burdens of our sins on Himself, and to suffer and die on the same cross, so that by His humble obedience, contrasted to the pride of man and the pride of Satan, in their respective pursuits for glory, all of us have been saved.

Then, in the last temptation that Christ faced from the devil, we heard how He was brought up to the parapet or the peak of the Temple of Jerusalem, with the devil asking Him to jump down from the top of the Temple with the intent to prove that God would intervene and save His Saviour from harm. The devil did this to make the Lord Jesus fall by means of ego and pride, by testing and doubting God at the sane time, just as he has tempted Adam and Eve, to be like God if they were to eat from the fruit of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge.

This is a very common temptation that we often encounter all around us, especially because pride is most often the most dangerous of all kinds of sins. It was exactly the sin of pride that caused Satan to fall from the grace of God because of his vanity of pride, thinking that his seeming perfection, beauty and glory, as the greatest and most brilliant among the Angels God had created, gave him the right to boast about his own might and desiring even to take over the place of God.

Therefore, this is a sin that the devil is certainly well-acquainted with, and by which he will relentlessly assault us, to make us to fall as well into the same path towards damnation and destruction. And we easily fall into pride, to succumb to our ego and the ambitions inside our hearts. When people praise us and say good things about us, it is easy to slid into our prideful mode, and grow more and more egoistic and ambitious, thinking that we are greater than who we actually are.

And in time, unless we resist this temptation, we will begin to resent others and seek only personal glory and power, greatness and good things for ourselves. We will not even hesitate to cause others to suffer just so that we can enjoy what we want to enjoy and gain what we desire for ourselves, be it prestige, wealth, standing and position in society, influence, fame, and even appearances, beauty and vanity, and many others.

Even by now, we should have seen how the devil has so many means by which he is capable of attacking us with, to tempt us and even to pressure us into disobedience against God. And last of all, he tempted the Lord as he has done with us, with the temptation of worldly glory, that is to gain for ourselves everything that is good in life, the glories and wonders of the world, all of its riches and pleasures, so long as we are willing to bow to Satan and worship him.

This is what happens when we are distracted and swayed by the many idols present in our lives. These idols now no longer refers to those idols of the pagan gods, made of clay or stone, wood or gold, but rather, those idols refer to the desires that we have for worldly glory, for material wealth and possessions, for luxury in many forms, for indulgences and practices that kept us distracted in life and preventing us from living our lives as true Christians.

We may say that we are Christians and we love God, and we may think that we worship Him and serve Him alone, but as long as our actions in life show that we prefer to follow the path of worldliness, the path of selfishness, entertaining our greed and desires, satisfying our ego and pride, all that Satan has tempted the Lord Jesus with, then we are not true disciples and servants of out God. Instead, as long as we persist in walking down this path, we are the followers of Satan.

How should we then carry out our lives from now on, brothers and sisters in Christ? As long as we allow ourselves to be swayed and to be tempted by the devil, we will not be able to proceed down the path towards the salvation in God. And the best way forward for us is to listen to the Lord and follow His example, in how He Himself has resisted the temptations of Satan, to the very end.

He withstood the assaults of Satan through love and obedience to His Father, reminding us that we need to listen to the word of God, and put our trust in the words of God, rather in the words of Satan, the deceiver and enemy. This is the key essence of what each and every one of us as Christians must do in order to break out of the traps which Satan had laid down before us, through his many temptations.

If we are able to put God back at the centre of our lives, then Satan will no longer have power over us, for God will become the source of our strength and He will be our foundation in life. And in order to do this, we need to have a profound change in attitude in our own lives, from one that is selfish, self-glorifying and self-indulging, into one that is selfless, filled with love and care for others, and self-mortification.

Remember, brothers and sisters in Christ, that our primary goal in life is truly to serve the Lord and to glorify His Name, by all of our actions and deeds in life instead of to glorify ourselves. If we live only to glorify ourselves and serve our own purposes, then we must remember that our earthly life is limited, and no matter how much power, glory, wealth and worldly bounties we enjoy now, or plan to enjoy, the moment our earthly lives come to an end, or when disasters strike and destroy our hard earned worldly things, which are impermanent and temporary, what else will we have?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to follow the examples of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the new Adam and model for us all mankind, and He is calling on us to take up our crosses in life, and follow Him. We have to commit ourselves to endure the same cross of suffering that He has borne for our sake. And if the devil has struck so hard against the Lord, again and again, by stirring up the Pharisees and others who opposed Him, many times, causing so much difficulties and problems, then we can expect to encounter the same opposition, challenges and hardships in life.

This is why in this season of Lent, we are called to renew our commitment to the Lord, to turn ourselves once again to God. There may have been many occasions when we have been tempted to turn away and to give up our faith, but we must persevere on, or otherwise, we will fall into damnation with the devil, and the way forward for us is only through the Lord. Let us all carry our cross in life with faith and conviction, knowing that in God alone we have hope and true assurance.

God will be with us, and He will guide us through this difficult journey. Let us all learn to rid ourselves off all the wicked things by which the devil has tempted us with, the allures of pleasures, especially that of the flesh, the temptation of greed, and the stubbornness of pride. Instead, let us put God at the centre of our lives once again, and fill our lives with obedience and love for Him. May the Lord continue to bless us and our works, and may He continue to watch over us. May all of us have a meaningful and fruitful season of Lent. Amen.

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Saturday, 9 March 2019 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. Frances of Rome, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are all reminded that God is so full of love and mercy towards us, that He is willing to forgive us all our sins and to give us once again the wondrous graces and love, the promise of inheritance that we have once been entitled to, through the forgiveness of our sins. Although our sins may have indeed been very great, but God’s love for each one of us is even greater.

That is why He was willing to give it all to us, for our sake, that He willingly carried the heavy burden of the cross, so that by His suffering on the cross and by His death, He frees us all from the bondage of sin and death. The cross of Christ is the perfect symbol and evidence of His love for each one of us, of the great desire which Our Lord has for our salvation and for our turnaround from the path towards damnation, into reconciliation with Him.

God is calling on all of us to repent from our sins, and to turn away from our wicked paths, calling on us to abandon our past ways of disobedience and waywardness, our refusal to listen to Him and our stubbornness in following our own prideful and ambitious ways. God gives us opportunities, one after another, chances after chances, for us to turn back to Him, and to seek Him and His mercy before it is too late for us.

In the Gospel passage today, we heard of how the Lord Jesus confronted the Pharisees who criticised Him for His interactions with those whom they deemed to be sinners and to be unworthy of God’s grace and love. The tax collectors were among those who were at the bottom of the society’s regards and status, as they were widely viewed as betrayers and traitors to the nation for having apparently colluded with the Roman overlords.

But the Lord showed pity and mercy towards them, even when the Pharisees were criticising Him before the people for doing so. And the Lord made it clear that He came into the world seeking the healing and forgiveness of sinners, and those whose sins were greater, were those whom the Lord sought first, as He hoped to rescue them from the fate of eternal damnation. And many of the tax collectors were sorrowful and repentant of their sins, and they were forgiven.

And we heard how one among the tax collectors left everything behind and followed the Lord, the man who was known as Levi, later known as St. Matthew the Apostle, one of the Twelve Apostles and also one of the Four Evangelists. This example shows us how even great sinners can become great saints, as long as they turn away from their sinful ways and sincerely repented from their wickedness. Those who turn towards God and placed their trust in Him will indeed not be disappointed.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we must realise that none of us are perfect in our ways, and in some way or another, we have not been fully obedient and good, and therefore, sins have corrupted us and caused us to fall deeper and deeper into this trap, and being led further and further away in estrangement from the Lord. We should not follow the examples of the Pharisees, who took great pride in their supposed piety and righteousness.

Why is that so, brothers and sisters in Christ? That is because it does not matter how small or how great our sins are, as the fact remains that we are all sinners in need of healing and forgiveness. And it does not give any one of us the right to condemn or look down on others just because we think that our sins are lighter and smaller than others’ sins. It is not right for us to be judgmental on others just because we think that we are better than them.

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Frances of Rome, a holy woman and religious Benedictine oblate who was remembered for her devotion and piety, despite her noble and privileged upbringing. St. Frances of Rome often took care of the sick and the poor that she encountered, and despite the various challenges that she and her family had to experience, she continued to live a holy life that is dedicated to the service of God, and in her charitable love for her brethren who were in need.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today, we are called to follow in the footsteps of our holy predecessors, in how they lived their lives with holiness, turning away from sins and wickedness. God is calling each and every one of us to holiness, to be forgiven from our sins, that we may be redeemed from our bondage to that great obstacle which prevented us from being able to be reunited with our God.

Let us all dedicate ourselves anew to the Lord, our time, effort and attention, to love the Lord our God and to serve our fellow brethren, to care for those who are in need. May the Lord be with us always, and may He strengthen us all in our love and dedication for Him. May God bless us all and our good works. Amen.

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Friday, 8 March 2019 : Friday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. John of God, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are yet reminded again of the matter of fasting and how important this practice of fasting for each and every one of us. As Christians we practice fasting as well as abstinence at certain times in the year, and the practice of fasting have to be done with full understanding and appreciation of what it can do to us, if we truly practice fasting as well as abstinence with the right reasons and purpose.

What we heard today in our first reading taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah as well as the Gospel passage today ought to jolt us and to make us realise that we do not fast or abstain from meat and from other things we want to abstain from, just because it is a formality and an obligation to do so. That is because it is easy for us to practice certain acts of piety and devotions, and yet, we did them not out of love for God, but because we want attention to ourselves, or that we want to satisfy our pride, ego and greed.

That was what happened to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law during the time of Jesus. When the Pharisees asked the disciples why they did not fast just as they have done, the Lord answered them that they would fast when the time was right, when He was to be taken away from them, and then they would fast. They did not fast just because they wanted to be seen or to be praised for doing so, unlike the Pharisees who made a lot of fuss and brought plenty of attention to their activities and pious acts.

When they fasted, they did so mainly because they were swayed by their pride, ego, desire and ambition. They wanted the people to praise them and respect them because of the things that they did. God did not have place of honour in their hearts and minds, as He should have received. God should have been the focus and at the centre of our every actions and works. But without that genuine love and dedication that each and every one of us should have for Him, we will not be able to remain faithful to Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, during this time and season of Lent we are called to redirect our focus in life as well as our attention back towards the Lord, by means of fasting and abstinence. When we fast, we must have the right focus and attention at heart, which means that we fast because we want to restrain our inner desires, all the wicked temptations that are within our hearts and minds, that caused us to sin against God.

When we abstain, we also restrain our own predisposition to sin, our vulnerability to the disobedience against God. Thus instead of following the examples of the Pharisees who used their practice of fasting and abstinence in the entirely wrong direction and intention, using those as excuse to indulge in their own ego, desires and pride, we should reject those prideful thoughts and temptations inside our hearts and minds.

Satan is ever busy and ready to strike at us through these temptations, the desires and greed within us, and by turning our ego, ambition and pride against us. Unless we make the conscious effort to resist the pull of desire, pride, ego and ambition, and dedicate ourselves to reject the pull of sin, we will likely end up falling deeper and deeper into the trap of sin. And this is where, during this time and season of Lent, we should make use of these opportunities given to us to repent from our sinful ways.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. John of God, a holy and devout servant of God, whose life and examples should become inspiration for ourselves, in how we ought to live our lives faithfully before God. St. John of God was remembered well for his service to the people of God, especially for the sick, the poor and those who have suffered physically and in unfortunate conditions. St. John of God dedicated his life, his time, his efforts and works to care for all of them.

Are we able to follow in the footsteps of this holy saint, brothers and sisters in Christ? God has given us the time, opportunity and ability to give our talents and abilities to be of benefit to one another, especially those who are weak, poor, oppressed and unloved. We are called to love God in ways that St. John of God and many others of our holy predecessors had done. Are we able to do this, brothers and sisters in Christ?

Let us progress through this season of Lent, with a new commitment to love God, as well as to love one another. Let us all get rid from ourselves all the pride, the ego and ambition, the greed and worldly desired that can prevent us from truly attaining the fullness of salvation and grace in God. Let us all make good use of this time of Lent to rediscover our faith in God. May God bless us all and may He guide us in this journey of faith. Amen.

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Thursday, 7 March 2019 : Thursday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. Perpetua and St. Felicity, Martyrs (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day each and every one of us are reminded of the need for us to dedicate ourselves to the Lord wholeheartedly, and be ready to commit ourselves to His path. On this day, the day after Ash Wednesday, we continue to uphold our resolve to live through this blessed season of Lent, spending our time to be closer to God, carrying our crosses with Him.

In the first reading today from the Book of Deuteronomy, God through His servant Moses communicated clearly to the people the choice that they had before them, as they went through their forty years of journey in the desert while waiting to enter into the land promised to them by God. Many of them had disobeyed the Lord and refused to follow His ways and His commandments, preferring to follow their own, sinful ways, and hardening their hearts and minds against Him.

And thus, through this we are reminded that we too have been given a choice, that is either for us to live in God’s way and obey His laws and commandments, or for us to abandon Him and turn instead to the ways of the world that is full of temptations and are seemingly easier and less challenging for us. We are presented with the choice between the seemingly tougher and less appealing way that God showed us, and the seemingly more enjoyable path of this world.

We are no strangers to the alternative path shown to us by the world, for indeed, we are surrounded by many of the temptations. At the time of the Israelites in the days of the Exodus, the people of Israel constantly grumbled before God and before Moses, complaining that they were hungry without good food, or thirsty without water and good drinks to enjoy. They refused to budge even after they have seen many of the miraculous deeds God performed before them through Moses.

They desired to return to Egypt, saying that it was better for them to go back to Egypt and suffer again under slavery, as they would at least be able to eat decently and not having to worry about dying in the desert without food or drink. They complained and refused to comply to the Lord’s will, just because they had little faith in God. If only they know just how much God loved each and every one of them, as He gave them everything they needed, and yet even those were not enough for those stubborn people.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we can see the parallel between their examples and our own lives in this present world today. The path of the world seems to be easier to us, and it seems to be less arduous, less challenging and more promising to us, as this is the effort by the devil and all of his forces, trying to tempt us into sin, into disobedience against God, by presenting all sorts of wicked temptations that go straight into our pride and ego, our desires and our hearts’ greed.

Some of us may even think that just because we are Christians, then we should expect to have good lives full of graces and blessings, that we do not have to suffer but instead, with greater faith comes greater blessings in life, in physical and material terms. But this is the false ‘gospel of prosperity’ that is unfortunately adopted by some of our separated brethren in faith. We must not fall into that same trap of the devil, who tries to tempt us with worldly temptations.

The Lord made it clear, in our Gospel passage today, that He Himself was to suffer grievously at the hands of His enemies. This was fulfilled when He went through His Passion, suffering persecution and rejection, brutal pain and sufferings, as He was beaten and spat on, ridiculed and made to bear a heavy cross, stripped and nailed to that cross, and made to suffer and die for the sake of all of us mankind.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is the suffering that our Lord had to endure, and all of that is caused by His love for us, which is so great that He was willing to even endure those painful torture and experience just so that by His selfless and loving sacrifice, we may be saved from certain destruction. And He Himself said that if we are to be His disciples, then we must follow Him and have a share in the cross that He bore out of love for us.

It does not mean that we will suffer forever. Instead, our suffering now on earth is just a temporary prelude of the greater glory and joy that is to come. God has promised that all those who are faithful to Him will not be disappointed, for in the end of the journey it is nothing less than an eternity of glory and true happiness being in the presence of God forever, where we will not suffer any longer, and all that we need are no longer there, for God alone is enough for everything.

The devil knows this, and he does not want us to be saved. And that is why he is so hard at work, trying to prevent us from finding our way towards Him. He is always at work, trying to lure us away from the right path, and turn us away from righteousness and faith. In fact, we will realise that frequently, we will have to go up even against our friends and those who are dear to us, and we have to make often difficult choices, to choose between obeying God and suffer, or to obey the devil instead and receive satisfaction from him.

Today, we celebrate the feast of two famous martyrs of the Church, two courageous women who defended their faith in God to the very end with great dedication and courage. St. Perpetua was a noblewoman while St. Felicity was a slavewoman, both of whom shared the Christian faith. At that time, during the height of the Roman Empire, Christians have been harassed and persecuted again and again by the authorities, and many had to practice their faith in secret.

But eventually some were found out to be Christians, and put in prison and made to suffer with the hope that they would abandon their faith in God and sought safety and good assurance in life for themselves. Some did fall to the temptations or yielded to the strong pressures and abandoned their faith, but many remained firm in their faith in God, such as St. Perpetua and St. Felicity. These two women were firm in their conviction to remain faithful to God.

Having endured much suffering and pain, opposition and challenges, even from those who were close to them, St. Perpetua, who encountered great challenges from her family, who wanted her to recant her faith, as well as St. Felicity, who suffered in prison while being pregnant with a baby, both of them chose to remain true to their faith, and died as courageous martyrs and examples of true faith and dedication to God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us are called to look upon the examples set before us by the holy saints and martyrs of God, particularly that of St. Perpetua and St. Felicity whose feast day we commemorate today. Are we able to make the same commitment and decision as they have done? They carried together the cross of Christ and endured the grievous sufferings just as the Lord had suffered, with the hope of eternal glory and salvation in the end of their earthly journey.

Let us all make good use of this season of Lent to reorientate ourselves and reorder our lives, so that from this moment onwards, we do not live any longer for ourselves, but rather, to serve the greater purpose of God, and to obey Him in all things, standing up to Him and remaining faithful to Him despite the challenges we may encounter in our daily lives. Let us all remain true to Him, and love Him ever more as we pass through this blessed Lent. May God be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Wednesday, 6 March 2019 : Ash Wednesday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we mark the beginning of this penitential season of Lent, the forty days period of preparation before the coming of the Holy Week and Easter. On this day, that is Ash Wednesday, we mark this dramatic change from the Ordinary Time into Lent by the imposition of blessed ashes on our foreheads, and also the first time in the entire Lent and Holy Week until the coming of Easter that the Alleluia is not sung, and also that of Gloria until the Holy Thursday.

There are many significance to these practices that we do during the season of Lent, and in particular today on Ash Wednesday, besides the imposition of ashes, we are also required by the Church to practice fasting as well as abstinence. Fasting is compulsory for all Christian adults of ages between eighteen and sixty, excusing only the very young and the very old. Meanwhile, abstinence is compulsory for Christians above the age of fourteen.

Fasting refers to the practice of not eating more than a full meal and two small collations or snacks each day, limiting our food intake to what is essential to maintain our lives and not indulging in the desires of our body. And abstinence usually involves refraining from eating meat, as well as from committing acts and deeds that are both wicked and sinful in nature, resisting the temptations to do our bad habits and actions that often led us to sin.

But the Lord is reminding each and every one of us, that we should not lose our focus on the intention and purpose why we observe the season of Lent, as a special time of preparation meant to reorientate ourselves and redirect our focus in life, so that we can be spiritually, physically and mentally ready for the celebration of the great mystery of Easter, the pinnacle of our faith and the story of our redemption from sin.

Why is it that the Church place this season of Lent before Holy Week and Easter? That is because throughout the Scriptures, whenever a person was about to go forth on an important mission or spiritual journey, that person usually would go through a certain period of preparation, just as what Moses did when he went up the mountain of God in Sinai, staying up there for forty days and forty nights prior to receiving the Law.

The same happened to the prophet Elijah, when he went to the desert seeking for the Lord after he was exiled from the land of Israel. He walked for forty days and forty nights without rest, with strength from the food provided by the Lord, until he reached the mountain of God in Sinai to meet the Lord and heard His will. Then, the people of Israel themselves travelled through the desert for forty years, going through a long period of self-rediscovery and atonement, after they have rebelled against God and refused to put their faith in Him, that they could not go immediately into the land promised to them, until they have completed that period of purification and waiting.

And it was told that Mary, the Mother of God spent a period of purification after her childbirth, as all women had to go through, when she was unable to enter into the Temple, due to the impurities then associated with the bleeding caused by childbirth. After a traditional period of forty days of preparation, she entered the Temple, which is still celebrated in the Traditional Calendar of the Roman Rite as the Feast of the Purification of Mary, forty days after Christmas on the second day of February each year.

And finally, the Lord Jesus Himself went to the desert right after His baptism at the Jordan River, spending forty days and forty nights fasting as a period of preparation before He officially began His earthly ministry, and which symbolically linked Him to the forty years of journey that the Israelites endured in the desert, as the atonement for their sins and disobedience against God.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, fasting has long been associated with sorrow, mourning and regret. Those who fast often did so with dishevelled appearance and wearing sackcloth, a type of very coarse cloth used as sacks to contain rice and other matter, which is constantly itching on the skin and uncomfortable to wear, as a reminder of one’s physical shortcomings. Fasting is practiced as a means to reorientate one’s life to God.

However, in today’s Gospel passage, the Lord Jesus went through with the people of the dangers of misunderstanding the intention of these pious practices. This has to be understood in the context of the time, when the Lord was faced with the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, many of whom showed off their actions before the people to show just how pious and good they were, that they might be praised by the people for their actions.

Today we heard how the Lord pointed out the flaws in their actions and how they have not done their fasting with the right intention. They fasted and made themselves to look in a very obvious manner that they have been fasting, so that the people would be in awe towards them. In reality, much of their intention and the driving factor behind their effort to fast and to do all the things that they deemed to be in accordance with the laws and traditions of the Jewish people, was because of their pride and desire to be famous.

This is why the Lord rebuked them because of their lack of real faith in Him. The Lord told the people to listen to them and their teachings, but not in what they are doing, because the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law did not practice many of the things that they themselves had preached before the people. They professed to be faithful to God, and yet, their hearts were not filled with love for God, but instead with love for themselves, and desire for worldly acclamations and glory.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is very important that each and every one of us Christians today reflect on how we are going to observe this most holy and blessed season of Lent, the time and wonderful opportunity that God has granted to us, as a way for us to rediscover our faith and our love for Him. This is the perfect time for us to take stock of our actions in life thus far, looking into how we have lived our lives in the past year, all the good things we have done, and even more importantly, our shortcomings and sinfulness.

Each and every one of us are sinners, because of our disobedience against God’s will. As long as we allow ourselves to be tempted, and fall into those temptations, succumbing to our ego and pride, to our greed and the wicked desires of our hearts and of our flesh, we will continue to sin against God. And unless we turn away from those sins, there will be no way forward to us, as sin has become a great obstacle in our way towards the Lord and His promise of eternal life.

We are reminded that first of all, the Lord’s love and mercy is always readily available for all of us. He is always ever compassionate, loving and merciful towards us, and even though we have often been disobedient and wayward, but He is always ever faithful to the Covenant that He has established with us. That is why this season of Lent is meant as a time for us to truly stop and think, and discern carefully how we want to carry on living our lives from now on.

And we fast as well as abstaining from wicked deeds, not because we want to be praised and acclaimed by other people, as what many of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done, but because we truly recognise how sinful each and every one of us are, and how weak we are in our flesh, easily tempted and easily falling into sin. Because of this, we want to restrain ourselves and learn to control our many avenues of temptation, by which we have fallen again and again, into disobedience against God.

Today, as the blessed ashes is imposed on our foreheads, let the blessed ashes be a reminder to each and every one of us, that we truly are mortals and sinners, and by our sins we have deserved to perish and die, and all of us will indeed one day have to face death, as a certainty that no one can avoid at all. But at the same time, let us remember that through the liturgy of Ash Wednesday God through His Church is also calling us to turn away from our sins and repent with sincerity.

As the blessed ashes came from the burning of the blessed palms used at Palm Sunday last year, they remind us of our own mortality, and of the urgency by which each and every one of us must act, to get rid from ourselves the sins that have tainted us. We will perish for sure unless we put our trust in God and turn towards His merciful love. And the blessed ashes is also placed on our foreheads in the shape of the cross, as a reminder that our fasting and abstinence in this season of Lent, is to prepare us to enter into the great mystery of the Holy Week and then Easter, when the Lord saves us by His ultimate sacrifice on the cross.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all begin this blessed season of Lent, by making use of every opportunities given to us, that we will not waste this chance that God has given us, for us to change and repent from our wicked ways. God wants us all to receive His salvation, and that is why, through His Church, He is preparing us in our hearts and minds, that we may rediscover our true love for Him, and distance ourselves from whatever is wicked and unworthy of Him in our every actions and deeds.

May God guide us always through our journey of faith in this season of Lent, and may our fast and abstinence help us to reorientate ourselves in life, and find for ourselves a new meaning in life, that is to love God and to serve Him every living moments of our life. Amen.

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Tuesday, 5 March 2019 : 8th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we listened to the words of God reminding us that to be faithful to God, we must give everything to the Lord, not in terms of offering money or certain forms of offerings or gifts, as what some of us would think wrongly, but instead, the total gift of ourselves, our whole hearts and minds, our whole beings, loving God with everything we have, with all of our strength and might.

That is what the prophet Sirach told us in his Book, as we listened to him speaking about the matter of offering and giving of oneself before God. We are told to come before the Lord with offerings and gifts to Him, and not to come before Him empty-handed. But to God, the offering He desires from us is not the fattiest and the best animal offerings, as how it was understood at the time of the prophet Sirach, but rather, the offering of ourselves, God’s beloved children.

And this is in conjunction with what we have heard in today’s Gospel passage, when we heard the disciples of the Lord, led by St. Peter, who told Him how they had given up everything in order to follow Jesus. The context of this statement is that, just prior to the disciples speaking up about their commitments, the Lord encountered a young and rich man who said that he wanted to follow Jesus, but only to leave in sorrow when the Lord asked him to leave everything behind to follow Him.

Given this context, the disciples wanted to contrast the rich and young man’s inability to separate himself from his great wealth and his greater love for his worldly possessions than his love for the Lord, with their own commitment, and how many of them have left behind families, wealth, status and every worldly goodness in order to follow Jesus. And the Lord affirmed them in their dedication, by saying that no one who has devoted himself or herself to the Lord will be disappointed, for God Himself will take care of them.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are all reminded that we have been called by God to serve Him with all of our hearts, and to give of ourselves, from the depths of our whole being. The disciples of the Lord have left behind everything to serve the Lord, because God has called them to be missionaries to preach the truth and the Good News, to call more people to accept the faith. They have dedicated themselves to the service of God, offering the best they could offer to the Lord.

But each and every one of us have also been given unique gifts in all of their varieties. As St. Paul said in his Epistle to the Corinthians, not everyone is called to be an Apostle, and neither is everyone called to be a miracle worker or a healer, or a preacher or a missionary. Instead, each and every one of us have been given unique gifts, that we may offer them and commit ourselves to the Lord in our own unique calling in life.

The problem is such that many of us are unwilling to dedicate ourselves, that we do not make use of our talents and gifts for the sake of the Lord’s glory. And the main reasons for this is that, we are either too focused on our own desires and our own self-gratification, that we end up not using our talents and gifts for the right purpose. And then, many of us are also like the young and rich man, whose attachments to worldliness prevented him from devoting himself to God.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, are we able and are we willing to dedicate ourselves to the Lord, offering the best that we can give from ourselves, be it our time, our effort, our support and our devotion? Are we able to respond to God’s call in our lives with a resounding commitment from now on? Let us all respond to God’s call with a positive attitude, and with a desire to love Him and to serve Him and His people, our fellow men, with sincerity and genuine faith, from now on and always.

May God bless each and every one of us in our efforts, and may He continue to strengthen us that we may always be faithful to Him in all the things we do in our daily lives. Amen.

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Monday, 4 March 2019 : 8th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Casimir (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us about the fact of how difficult it is for us to enter into the kingdom of God, and how we cannot be idle in our lives as Christians as we have plenty of expectations for us in living as true and devout Christians. At the heart of it all is the love that we must have for the Lord, our commitment and dedication towards Him.

In the Gospel passage today, we heard about the encounter between the Lord Jesus and a young, rich man who professed his intention of wanting to follow the Lord Jesus. When the Lord asked the rich young man whether he had done everything that the laws of Moses had specified for him to do, the young man responded that he had been faithful in everything that the law prescribed. Yet, when the Lord asked him to leave everything behind and follow Him completely, the young man left in sorrow.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what actually happened in that encounter between the Lord and the rich, young man? The Lord did not intend to condemn or treat the rich with contempt, but instead, He wanted to make a point before His disciples and the people who followed Him, that in order for us to be true disciples of the Lord, we must have that love and commitment in us, to be ready and to be able to do everything for the Lord.

We must be careful here not to understand the Lord’s words and actions literally at the surface level, or else, we will misunderstand His intentions, thinking that He is asking all of us Christians must sell everything that we have and give everything we have to the poor. This is not what He intends for us to do, for then, if everyone is accounted under the same rule, then who should we give all the proceeds to in the end? For those who are poor and receive the possessions will become richer in turn, and then they too have to sell theirs and it will end up in endless cycles of passing on of possessions and wealth from one to another person.

And neither did Jesus condemn the rich or those with possessions and power. Instead, what He warned us all is the dangerous attachments we can develop to these worldly things, that can prevent us from being true disciples of His, for our hearts and minds are not centred and focused on Him, but rather on those wealth, power, fame, glory and other forms of worldly temptations and attachments we have.

As in the case of the young and rich man, who left in sorrow after the Lord has asked him to sell everything that he had possessed and follow Him, we can see that his love, his concern and attachment to his possessions is much greater than his love and commitment to the Lord. That was why he immediately left in sorrow, and not even giving a reply to the Lord’s request for him. He could not bear to part with all the riches and glory he had.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, God has blessed us all with these riches, blessings and all the goodness of the world. Some of us have more while some others have less. God has given all these to us, for us to make good use of them, to share them with those who are less fortunate and suffering, that we do not ignore their pleas for help. We should not be selfish or be overly attached to those possessions, for it is not that God does not want us to possess anything, but instead, He does not want us to idolise and be overly attached to them.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, are we able to overcome our often unhealthy attachments to worldly materials and goods? Are we able to look beyond worldly matters, and refocus our attentions in life to the Lord, that we can overcome our greed and pride, ego and desires within us, and therefore, be able to redirect our efforts to serve the Lord in various ways, and be generous in giving and in sharing our love and blessings with each other?

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Casimir, a royal prince of Poland and Lithuania, who despite of his wealthy and noble upbringing and birth, did not hesitate to show his love and compassion for the needy, the sick and the poor, being known for his generous dedication of money as well as effort and time to care for the poor in the kingdom. St. Casimir was also renowned for his great piety and love for God. When he died at a young age of twenty-five, everyone remembered him for his love both for God and for his fellow men.

Let us all dedicate ourselves anew to the Lord just as St. Casimir has shown us, that from now on we will no longer live our lives for the purpose of self-gratification and self-glorification, but instead, strive for the greater good of all, and for the greater glory of God, through our every words, actions and deeds in life. May God be with us always, and may He bless all of our good works. Amen.

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Sunday, 3 March 2019 : Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we listened to the words of the Lord speaking to us with regards to the matter of our expression of faith, and how our lives ought to be bearing good fruits, the good fruits of our faith in God. Throughout the readings from the Scriptures we have heard today, surely we can recognise the intention of the Lord when He spoke of how good fruits come from good trees, and conversely, bad fruits from bad trees.

First of all, we ought to examine what the Lord Jesus told the people about His parable highlighting the example of a person who wanted to remove the speck or splinter in another person’s eye, and yet, that person failed to realise that there was a log in his eye all along. This is likely mentioned as a rebuke to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who were in attendance among the people listening to the teachings of Jesus.

That is because the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law often acted in ways where they were quick to judge on actions by others which they deemed to be not on par with the standard which they demanded, in the matters of observance of the laws of the people of Israel. But they themselves did not realise that their limited understanding and in fact, misunderstanding the true purpose and intention of the Law, was a great shortcoming and flaw in their way of life.

Yet, when the Lord pointed all these things before them, they were quick to go to the defensive mode, and resisted the Lord’s efforts to deliver the truth to them. And in fact, they became even more stubborn in refusing to listen to the Lord despite His repeated attempts to do so. That is because of the pride and ego in their hearts, as well as their many attachments to worldly desires, for affluence, for power, for glory and wealth.

That is exactly what we have just discussed earlier, how bad fruits come from bad trees just as good fruits come from good trees. What this means is that, as long as the heart and the mind, that is our internal selves are not in the right condition and status, and are not attuned to the will of God, then most likely our actions, and the words that come out from our mouth will not be in accordance with what we are expected to do as Christians, that is as God’s followers.

This is something that the farmers and most people of the time of Jesus would have understood, and that was why He used such a parable to deliver His idea to them. The farmers would have known that bad trees ultimately does not just come from nowhere. There can be many reasons why bad trees come about. It can be from the bad seeds, or more commonly, even if the seeds were good, but they were not grown with the right conditions, the good seeds would become bad trees too.

And inevitably, bad trees will produce bad quality fruits, and in the end, the whole existence of the tree becomes meaningless. In agricultural terms, trees that do not produce good fruits are good for nothing, and instead of taking up the precious nutrients, they are uprooted and destroyed, replaced with another tree that is healthier, better and produce good fruits. Thus, it will be the same with us, if the Lord comes and asks for reckoning of our lives.

What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? It means that our lives are just like that of the trees mentioned, and our lives produce its ‘fruits’ that is our actions and our words, in how we deal with one another. And how we act depends on how we have been internally disposed and oriented in our spiritual and mental outlook. Thus, we will find that a person who is good and kind in heart is unlikely to do things that are wicked or evil, and vice versa.

How do we then produce good fruits in our lives? First then we must be properly aligned with the ways of the Lord, that we truly become like the good trees. But even good trees can turn bad when they are not properly maintained and managed, and that is what happens when we continue to expose ourselves to wicked practices and habits, which are like poisons that seeped into the plants that make even good trees into bad ones.

I am referring to every moments that we gossip negatively about others, every moments when we are jealous about each others’ achievements and possessions, every time we cause hurt when we say nasty things to each other, every moment we are overcome by our ego and pride, in not wanting to share our fortunes and blessings with those who are needy, poor and weak in our midst, every time we fail to stand up for the sake of the oppressed and the marginalised in our society.

As we are all frail human beings, prone to sin and easily tempted by these wicked things, it is inevitable that we will stumble at times, and do all those wicked manners mentioned. However, unless we make the conscious effort to resist those temptations and not to give in to the demands and pressures of our pride, ego, greed, ambition and desires, we will likely end up committing more and more of such sinfulness.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are all reminded that bad trees that produce bad fruits are meaningless and useless, and will be destroyed. And hence, the same will happen to us, if we continue to live our lives in sin, and that was what St. Paul wrote in the Epistle to the Church in Corinth, our second reading passage today, that the sting of sin is death. And this is eternal death, total and complete separation from God’s grace and love.

Yet, in the same passage, St. Paul wrote that sin and death no longer have any power or dominion over us, if we put our faith in Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. The Lord has triumphed over sin and death, and He gave us the assurance of eternal life and glory, if we have faith in His love and providence, and if we can put our trust in Him. He has shown us the way, how we can nurture our lives in a good way, and bearing good fruits of life.

To each and every one of us, God has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit. And we are taught that there are fruits of the Holy Spirit that we can bear forth, if we make use of the gifts that God has given us, obeying His commandments and listening to His will. And each and every one of us must realise this calling that we have received, to be bearers of the good fruits of faith in our daily lives.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all from now on change our perspective and way of life, that if once we have not borne good fruits in our lives, and have borne wicked and evil fruits of sin by our actions, then from now on let us cease producing those wicked fruits and turn instead to produce good fruits by a profound change in our attitudes in life, from sin into faithfulness, from hatred and jealousy into love, from selfishness into selflessness.

Are we willing to make that profound change in life? It will not be easy for us to commit to the ways of the Lord, but with effort and commitment, with dedication and hard work, we will be able to overcome that stubborn attachment we have to sin, and enter into a new life filled with God’s grace and love. All that we need is the desire and the willingness to persevere through the challenges we may encounter if we keep our faith in God, and remain in God’s love always.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, just as it is not easy for a farmer to grow a tree and maintain it in good health, until it can produce its good fruits, it is therefore not easy for us as well to produce good fruits in life. We are called to persevere through the challenges and the sufferings we may have to encounter for God’s sake, as in the end, our rewards will be rich and wonderful, nothing less than an eternity of true joy and happiness with God.

May the Lord continue to guide us through our lives, that we may keep to our faith in Him, and remain devoted to Him at every single moments of our life. May the Lord be with us all, and may He bless all of our good works, that we may always bear good fruits, at each and every moments of our life. Amen.

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Saturday, 2 March 2019 : 7th 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 Lord through the Scriptures reminding each and every one of us of the importance of remembering the fact that we are God’s beloved children. And God our Father is calling upon us to follow His examples, much as children are expected to take after their parents and follow the examples of their fathers. We are all special, having been created, as mentioned in our first reading passage today, in the very image of God Himself.

It is indeed so special that we are called God’s children, among all the creatures of the Lord’s creation. Not even the Angels, the mightiest among them, are called the children of God. For we are the crowning glory of God’s works of creation and we are the pinnacle of His wonders and power. Yet, we are also great sorrows that the Lord had experienced, because instead of obeying Him and listening to Him, we chose to wander off into the path of sin, and became lost to Him.

God has placed everything He created under our care, as that is what He intended to do with us, as He originally conceived it, for God created us out of love and He wants us to enjoy the fruits of His creation and be happy throughout our existence. We were never intended to suffer or to be sorrowful with grief and pain. But it was because of our disobedience, and the misuse of the free will that God has given us, we chose to sin and therefore, fall into the trap of Satan.

Satan planted in us the seeds of rebelliousness and disobedience, and by tugging at the temptations of our pride, ego and greed, we fell to the trap of sin, and as a result, we have become wayward children of the Lord, as lost sheep that have fallen away and become stranded far from their shepherd. That is why man have been sundered from the fullness of God’s grace, and suffered in this world, all because of the sins we ourselves have committed.

But God did not abandon us to perish, and neither did He remain indifferent to our sufferings and to our predicaments. On the contrary, He always actively sought to rescue us and to liberate us from our sinful state, and He has provided us with the path through which we may be saved from this predicament. He provided us with nothing less than His own most Beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has become one like us, assuming the flesh of our humanity, and therefore, the meaning of our existence as children of God has been renewed and made even more significant.

What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? It means that because God’s own beloved Son has been born into this world, in our midst, as one of our own brothers, we have become adopted sons and daughters of God by virtue of our relationship with Christ, our Saviour, Lord and Redeemer. God has given us this wonderful grace, because He loves each and every one of us, that it is His will and desire, that He would have to suffer for our sake, to bear the mighty burden of our sins.

Despite all the pain and sufferings that He had to suffer for all of that, God did not cease in His love and perseverance for us. We just have to look at the determination which He showed us all when He bore that cross up the long journey to Calvary. The cross of Christ is the ultimate proof of His love for us, and His determination to reconcile us to Himself. God wants us all to be gathered back to Himself, to become His children once again.

Indeed, as the Lord Jesus mentioned to His disciples in our Gospel passage today, we are called to be like small children, in our faith towards Him. And why is that so? That is because all of us who have seen small children, would have known how innocent and pure they are, and when they believe in something, they truly and genuinely believe in it without any reservations or any ulterior motives, like greed, pride or ego.

We are called to have a renewed love and commitment for God, to love God with all of our hearts and minds, with all of our strengths and abilities once again, as we had once done. Are we able to dedicate ourselves just as the Lord has dedicated Himself to us? He wants us to enjoy once again the glorious inheritance and endowment that He has promised us all from the beginning of creation.

May the Lord, our loving Father and our Saviour, continue to love each and every one of us, and may He continue to guide us on our journey of life, reminding and rebuking us as necessary to make sure that we are on the right path and not fall into the temptation to sin. May God always bless us in our good works, and help us in everything we do. Amen.

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Friday, 1 March 2019 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us about the matter of believing in God and having a true and genuine love for Him. Unless we have that love and devotion in us, it is unlikely that we will be able to live our lives with faith. And for us, we also have to discern well how we should make our relationships with one another, imitating the love which we have for God.

In the first reading today, taken from the book of the prophet Sirach, we heard how different types of friends are present, and we may not realise this reality even from among those whom we call as friends. Some of those who become our friends, they did so because they are seeking for some benefits and gains for themselves, and when things go sour and our fortunes dwindle, they will be quick to draw a line between them and us, and distance themselves from us.

The friendship of this type cannot be called true friendship, as it means that the friendship is only valid and is maintained only conditionally, when things are good and favourable. The moment that things turn upside down and become unfavourable, the friendship also end up becoming lost. Then this kind of relationship cannot be called as true friendship, as true friendship and in fact relationship requires one to be committed and faithful in times both good and bad.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s Gospel passage, we go to an even higher level of relationship, and that is the relationship between a man and a woman joined together in the holy and blessed union of matrimony, or marriage. This is a relationship in which a man is joined to a woman, and are united together in a new life blessed by God, and this union is blessed and sanctified by God such that, as the Lord Himself put it, no man should ever divide.

And yet, the Pharisees and some of the teachers of the Law tried to test the Lord by arguing that since Moses had allowed for the practice of divorce, provided that the person desiring the divorce must prepare a documentation and certification for the divorce, then a husband can divorce his wife and vice versa. But in doing so, they disregarded and misunderstood the sanctity of marriage and what the Lord had intended for His people, and instead, succumbing to the pressures of worldly desires and greed.

Again, the main reason for divorces to happen, both then as it is now, is the lack of true love and genuine commitment between the parties involved in the holy matrimony, where each of the individuals were involved in the marriage for their own ulterior motives and for their individual selfish desired and wishes. As a result, when the marriage is happy and filled with good things for both parties, there may be no issue, but the moment the marriage begins to encounter problems, more problems and troubles are quick to accumulate.

And this is where the devil is very quick to make use of the perfect opportunity to strike at us, to cause divisions and bitterness among us, hatred and lack of love and commitment to one another, causing the breaking of our families and matrimonial relationships, and even our other forms of friendships. The devil has many tools within his disposal, to strike at us relentlessly, by making use of the pride, ego, desire and the wickedness within our hearts and minds against us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are reminded of the need for us to have love within us and in our relationships, for us to be filled with genuine love instead of lust, dedication instead of selfishness and pride, compassion and true passion instead of greed and worldly desires. Today, we are called to love with tenderness, to do our very best to follow His examples, in how He has loved us all so greatly despite all of our sins and wickedness.

God remains in love with us despite our unfaithfulness, because He is ultimately faithful, dedicated and genuine in His love for each and every one of us. Are we able to show the same kind of love in our own lives? And are we able to show the same love in our relationship with God as well as with our fellow men? May the Lord strengthen us, and may He guide us all to love Him and serve Him with greater commitment, now and always. Amen.