Weekdays of Lent

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Sunday, 6 March 2022 : First Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday we celebrate the first Sunday in the season of Lent, as we enter more deeply into this time of reconciliation and call to repentance that is characteristic of this season of Lent. On this Sunday, we are all reminded that God is our refuge, our salvation, our hope and the light amidst the darkness that surround us in this world. In Him alone lies our true happiness and freedom, and it is for this purpose that we observe this blessed season of Lent. All of our fasting, abstinence, almsgiving and other actions during this Lent are meant to lead us ever closer to God.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of Deuteronomy, we heard of the words of Moses, the leader of the Israelites, who at that time in the later part of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, exhorted all the people of God to remember everything that God had done to them and to their ancestors. He reminded them all how God had loved and taken good care of their forefathers from the time of Abraham, his descendants and all who went to Egypt and where they prospered greatly as a nation, and where they were later persecuted and oppressed, enslaved and maltreated.

Yet the Lord showed His continued love for them, rescuing them all from their predicament and leading them out from the land of Egypt, as He led them by the might of His hands, crushing the Egyptians with ten great plagues and many other deeds, opening the sea itself to allow the people to walk through them without harm. These were all that the Lord had done for the sake of His people, and Moses was therefore reminding the people that they have to remain faithful to the Lord and renew their commitments to Him, rejecting the path of sin and evil.

The Psalm today echoed this sentiment as we heard its opening part, that those who come to rest in the shelter of the Lord, who entrusted themselves to Him shall always be provided for and will not be disappointed. For God has indeed shown us again and again His boundless love and compassion, and He has reassured us that no one who trusted in Him and placed their faith in Him would be lost to Him in the end. Sufferings and trials may come for the people of God, but they will triumph in the end with God.

Then in our second reading we heard the words of St. Paul the Apostle to the Church and the faithful in Rome, through his Epistle to the Romans. In that passage we heard the affirmation of the salvation that has been given to us freely through Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. As long as we believe in Him, trust in Him, and focus our attention on Him, our true and living faith will bring us towards God, regardless of our background, our history and our differences. We are all God’s one flock and people, all called to return to Him and be reconciled with Him.

In our Gospel passage then we heard the famous encounter between the Lord Jesus and Satan, His great enemy, as the latter tried to prevent the Lord from doing His mission in this world. At that time, just right after the Lord was baptised by St. John the Baptist at the River Jordan, He fasted for forty days in the wilderness, and Satan came to Him in order to tempt Him. Satan had dominion over the world through sin, because sin has held onto the hearts and souls of the children of man, enslaving them and keeping them chained just as how the Israelites was once enslaved by the Egyptians.

We may be wondering if Satan actually knew what the Lord was about to do and what His mission was. As the evil spirits in the occasions when the Lord performed exorcisms on the possessed testified, that they recognised Him as the Holy One of God, it was unlikely that Satan did not know Who the Lord Jesus truly was. Although He was in the form of Man, the flesh of the descendants of Adam and Eve that he once tempted and corrupted, but the devil must have recognised the Lord’s true Divine nature that was concealed within His person.

But the devil clearly knew that whatever the Lord had intended to do for mankind, it would not be a good one for him, for the Lord loved all mankind, all of His children and people, and He would surely not let the devil and all of his fellow demons, the fallen angels and wicked spirits from having their way and dominion over His beloved ones any longer. Thus, Satan must have attempted to tempt the Lord through His human nature and flesh, to manipulate the usual human weaknesses and desires in the manner that he had done towards Eve and countless other sons and daughters of man.

In the first temptation, we heard the devil tempting the Lord with food to eat, as He has been fasting for forty days without food or any sustenance. He must have been really hungry, for He is truly Man just as He is Divine. Hunger is a part of our human existence, one of the things that we can feel whenever we have not consumed any food. The devil told the Lord that He could just turn the stones there into bread and food for Him to eat, testing Him by saying that if He was indeed the Son of God, He could have done so easily. However, the Lord refused to listen to the devil and pointed out that one’s true sustenance came from the Lord and His words, and obedience to those words.

In the second temptation, we heard how the devil brought the Lord to a very high mountain and showed Him all the glory and wonders of the world, and told Him that He could have everything if only He bowed down in worship, worshipping Satan, for all the glory and wealth of the world. This was immediately rebuked by the Lord, Who told Satan off and clearly spoke that the Lord alone is worthy of worship, nothing and no one else is worthy of that, clearly not Satan or any other beings. This was the temptation of desire and greed, for worldly wealth and material goods.

Then finally, the last temptation is often the most dangerous of all, as the devil brought the Lord to the peak of the Temple of God in Jerusalem, telling Him that if He were to fall down from that height, according to the Scriptures, the Lord would not let Him to be hurt, and He would send His Angels to save and protect His Son. But in doing so, one would then test the Lord, testing Him whether He would really say what He had said He would do, and also, most crucially, in doing so, that would have revealed His great wonders and majesty before the many people gathered there, and would have therefore suited someone’s ego and pride in doing so. He rebuked Satan, and the latter, knowing that he had been defeated, went away.

Essentially, the devil was trying to tempt the Lord to be selfish, to be filled with greed and ultimately to succumb to pride, all of which would lead anyone to sin against God, disobeying His will, His Law and commandments for one’s own personal ambitions, desires and ego. Satan knew it all too well, for he himself had fallen into that state because of his pride and ambition, as Lucifer, the most brilliant and mighty among God’s Angels, who fell into the sin of pride, in desiring to rule over the Angels of God and in desiring the Throne of God for himself. He was defeated and cast out from Heaven, and then he tried to bring down man, God’s most beloved creation.

Satan himself fell, the many other fallen angels followed Satan to his rebellion, and he also tempted Eve and through her, Adam, and many other people, all the sons and daughters of man, who had fallen into sin. But the Lord showed us all, that we must not let sin to have any more hold on us. Unfortunately, as long as we allow ourselves to be swayed by pride, by our desire and greed, by our attachments to the world, we will fall again and again into sin. And the Lord then showed us that we do not have to remain bound by those things, as He resisted and rejected Satan’s temptations one by one.

What is important, as the Lord had said and mentioned, is that we must put the Lord at the centre and as the clear focus of our lives. He must exist at the centre of our lives and be the reason and emphasis of our every actions, words and deeds. We have to put our trust in Him and strive to walk in the path that He has shown to us all. And in doing so, we have to be more humble, rejecting pride, and to temper our desires and ambitions, rejecting the temptations of greed and desires, and to train ourselves to resist those temptations, and this season of Lent, we are given the perfect opportunity to do so if we have not yet done that.

That is why, during this season of Lent, all of us are called to practice our Lenten observances and actions with great and genuine faith, with clear understanding of whatever it is that we are doing, so that in all the things we do, we will always do it for the sake of the Lord, and not for our own selfish ambitions, our pride, ego and desires. Through fasting and abstinence, done right and focused on the Lord, let us restrain our human and worldly desires, for glory, power, fame and other material wealth and goods, resisting the excesses of worldly attachments and pleasures, and instead, learn to grow more in our faith and trust, in our love for God.

Then, we are also called to be more generous in loving one another, as Lent is the time for us to show God’s love even more to others around us. We are encouraged to be more generous in almsgiving and in caring for the less fortunate, not necessarily just in material terms only, but also in caring for those who are unloved and uncared for, those who have been ostracised and rejected by others. Let us extend our caring hands and hearts to them, and let us show each other what God’s love for us truly means, through our own genuine Christian love.

Let us all make the best use of this time that we have been given in this season of Lent, so that each and every one of us can draw ever closer to the Lord, and that we may grow ever more in our faith and dedication to God. May He continue to watch over us and strengthen us all in faith, and may He empower each and every one of us so that we may remain ever more deeply attuned to Him, and be ever more courageous to say no to Satan and all of his temptations and all the falsehoods he presented to us. Let us help one another to walk ever more faithfully in God’s presence, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 6 March 2022 : First Sunday of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 4 : 1-13

At that time, Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit. As He returned from the Jordan, the Spirit led Him into the desert, where He was tempted by the devil for forty days. He did not eat anything during that time, and at the end He was hungry. The devil then said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to turn into bread.” But Jesus answered, “Scripture says : People cannot live on bread alone.”

Then the devil took Him up to a high place, and showed Him, in a flash, all the nations of the world. And he said to Jesus, “I can give You power over all the nations; and their wealth will be Yours; for power and wealth have been delivered to me; and I give them to whom I wish. All this will be Yours, provided You worship me.” But Jesus replied, “Scripture says : You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone.”

Then the devil took Him up to Jerusalem, and set Him on the highest wall of the Temple; and he said, “If You are God’s Son, throw Yourself down from here; for it is written : God will order His Angels to take care of you; and again : They will hold you in their hands, lest you hurt your foot on the stones.” But Jesus replied, “It is written : You shall not challenge the Lord your God.”

When the devil had exhausted every way of tempting Jesus, he left Him, to return another time.

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Sunday, 6 March 2022 : First Sunday of Lent (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Romans 10 : 8-13

You are saved, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and, in your heart, you believe that God raised Him from the dead. By believing from the heart, you obtain true righteousness; by confessing the faith with your lips, you are saved.

For Scripture says : No one who believes in Him will be ashamed. Here, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; all have the same Lord, Who is very generous with whoever calls on Him. Truly, all who call upon the Name of the Lord will be saved.

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Sunday, 6 March 2022 : First Sunday of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 90 : 1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15

You, who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who rest in the shadow of the Almighty, say to YHVH, “My Stronghold, my Refuge, my God in Whom I trust!”

No harm will come upon you; no disaster will draw near your home. For He will command His Angels to guard you in all your ways.

They will lift you up with their hands, so that your foot will not hit a stone. You will tread on wildcats and snakes, and trample the lion and the dragon.

“Because they cling to Me, I will rescue them,” says YHVH. “I will protect those who know My Name. When they call to Me, I will answer; in time of trouble, I will be with them; I will deliver and honour them.”

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Sunday, 6 March 2022 : First Sunday of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Deuteronomy 26 : 4-10

Then the priest shall take the large basket from your hands and place it before the altar of YHVH, your God, and you shall say these words before YHVH, “My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt to find refuge there, while still few in number; but in that country, he became a great and powerful nation.”

“The Egyptians maltreated us, oppressed us and subjected us to harsh slavery. So we called to YHVH, the God of our ancestors, and YHVH listened to us. He saw our humiliation, our hard labour and the oppression to which we were subjected. He brought us out of Egypt with a firm hand, manifesting His power with signs and awesome wonders. And He brought us here to give us this land flowing with milk and honey.”

“So now I bring and offer the first fruits of the land which You, YHVH, have given me.”

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Saturday, 5 March 2022 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures we are all called to continue this journey of purification of our whole entire beings, as we are called to do in this season of Lent. We are reminded to get rid from ourselves the excesses of worldly temptations and corruptions, seeking the Lord for His forgiveness and mercy, and to grow ever further in our love for Him, dedicating and spending our time and effort to walk in His presence always.

In our first reading today taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard the words of the prophet reminding the people of Judah to whom he had been sent to, calling on them to follow the Lord wholeheartedly and reject the sins and the wicked ways that they and their ancestors had done. The prophet relayed the words of the Lord to the people, calling on them to reject sin and evil, to follow once again the path that the Lord has shown them. The Lord wanted all of them to turn back towards Him and to find healing and consolation in Him.

The people of Judah and Israel at that time as well as during the time of their ancestors had fallen far away from the path that God has shown them, as they followed the pagan gods and idols, persecuted the prophets and the many messengers that God had sent to them in order to remind them and help them. They had torn down the altars of God and built altars for the pagan gods and idols in their place. And despite all of these, God still loved His people above all else, and despite having been betrayed and abandoned by those same people, God was still willing to welcome them all back to His embrace, provided that they all repented from their sins.

This is what the Lord Himself had shown us in our Gospel passage today, as He called upon Levi, the tax collector to be His follower. Levi listened to the Lord, abandoning everything behind and followed the Lord henceforth, becoming one of His disciples and eventually as one of the Twelve Apostles, St. Matthew, he became a very important and fundamental part of the development of the Church of God. St. Matthew and many other followers of the Lord such as St. Mary Magdalene, among others, were considered as sinners and unworthy by the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.

Yet, those were the same ones who willingly devoted their lives to God, rejecting their past, sinful way of life, embracing God’s forgiveness and mercy at its fullest, and walking down the path of God henceforth. The Lord called all sinners to come to Him, all of us the sons and daughters of man, without exception, as He wants us to be healed from the sickness and corruptions caused by our sins, and free us from the tyranny and bondage of those sins and evils. In God alone we can find healing and liberation, and He has generously extended to us this offer of love and compassionate mercy.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, having heard all these words from the Scriptures, we are all reminded that we are so fortunate to have the Lord and His kindness by our side, and yet, many of us are still unaware of this and remained away from the Lord, separated from Him and remaining in the state of sin. This time of Lent we are all reminded that God’s mercy and love for us persists, and what we all need to do is to embrace that mercy and love. It is unfortunate that many of us have not taken up the opportunities presented to us to embrace God’s love and still ignored His generous offer of mercy and forgiveness.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to make use of the opportunities given to us in this season of Lent to be more attuned to God and to be more aware of our mortality, our weaknesses and our sins, remembering just how we should have suffered the terrible consequences for those sins, and yet, God gave us the opportunity to be redeemed and to find our way to His salvation and grace. He has opened for us the path to eternal life with sure guarantee, only if we are willing to follow Him. We have to strive to resist the many temptations of the world present all around us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be like St. Matthew, and all the other sinners and rebels who have responded to the Lord’s call and committed themselves to a new life that is free from sin and full of Christian virtues and righteousness. St. Matthew and the others have shown us that there is a great future for us sinners, as long as we have that desire to seek the Lord for His forgiveness and commit ourselves to follow Him wholeheartedly from now on.

Let this season of Lent be a time of renewal and a rediscovery and rejuvenation of our faith, as we come closer to God and His throne of mercy and love. Let us all spend more time with the Lord and deepen our relationships with Him, through prayer and more genuine efforts to communicate with Him, spending quality time together and doing more to walk faithfully in His path. Let us be more humble and be more committed to the Lord as we go through this season of Lent, and practice our Lenten observances with genuine faith and desire to love the Lord more and purifying ourselves from the many corruptions of sin.

May the Lord be with us all and help us as we journey with faith through this time of preparation and purification, and may He inspire in us the courage and strength to continue living our lives with dedication and commitment at each and every moments of our lives. May God be with us all, now and always, through this season of Lent and beyond. Amen.

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Saturday, 5 March 2022 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 5 : 27-32

At that time, after Jesus healed a paralytic man, He went out, and noticing a tax collector named Levi, sitting in the tax office, He said to him, “Follow Me!” So Levi, leaving everything, got up and followed Jesus.

Levi gave a great feast for Jesus, and many tax collectors came to his house, and took their places at the table with the other people. Then the Pharisees and their followers complained to Jesus’ disciples, “How is it, that you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

But Jesus spoke up, “Healthy people do not need a doctor, but sick people do. I have not come to call the just, but sinners, to a change of heart.”

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Saturday, 5 March 2022 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 85 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6

Listen, o YHVH, and answer me, for I am afflicted and needy. Preserve my life, for I am God-fearing; save Your servant who trusts in You.

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

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

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Saturday, 5 March 2022 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 58 : 9b-14

If you remove from your midst the yoke, the clenched fist and the wicked word. If you share your food with the hungry and give relief to the oppressed, then your light will rise in the dark, your night will be like noon.

YHVH will guide you always and give you relief in desert places. He will strengthen your bones; He will make you as a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fall. Your ancient ruins will be rebuilt, the age-old foundations will be raised. You will be called the Breach-mender, and the Restorer of ruined houses.

If you stop profaning the Sabbath and doing as you please on the holy day, if you call the Sabbath a day of delight and keep sacred YHVH’s holy day, if you honour it by not going your own way, not doing as you please and not speaking with malice, then you will find happiness in YHVH, over the heights you will ride triumphantly, and feast joyfully on the inheritance of your father Jacob. The mouth of YHVH has spoken.

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Friday, 4 March 2022 : Friday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. Casimir (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures and as we embark on this journey of the Lenten season, all of us are called to remember why we observe this season of Lent, with plenty of fasting, abstinence and almsgiving. We are reminded that all that we have done, we did them not for ourselves or for our own satisfaction and convenience. All of these we have done because we desire to seek the Lord and to be forgiven from our many sins and faults, to be reconciled fully with our most loving and compassionate God.

In our first reading today, we heard from the prophet Isaiah, the words of the Lord chastising His people in the kingdom of Judah, where Isaiah was ministering in. The Lord chastised His people because they had not truly been faithful to Him, and those who professed to be faithful, did not truly follow Him in the way that they should have, as they merely paid lip service through their actions. It was mentioned how they fasted and yet at the same time, they oppressed the weak and the poor, bringing sorrow and hardships to others, all for their own personal benefits and glory.

This was what the Lord chastised His people for, which was their attitude that did not reflect true faith and commitment in the Lord and His path. He told them that they could not profess to believe in Him and yet, acted in ways contrary to what they have believed in. Otherwise, they would be hypocrites and lacking in true faith. They have to be truly faithful and not just doing things and obeying the rules and laws just for the sake of obeying them. If they fasted and yet, they bickered and oppressed others who were less fortunate, then whatever virtues and good things they have gained would have been nulled by the wickedness they committed.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the Lord speaking to the disciples of St. John the Baptist who came to Him asking why His disciples did not fast the same way that they and the Pharisees had fasted. Contextually, we have to understand that the disciples of St. John and especially the Pharisees had followed a very strict interpretation of the Jewish laws and customs, and which particularly for the Pharisees, they took great emphasis and care in enforcing that fast and how the fast were to be done, and criticised all others who did not fast the way that they had done it.

This was where the Pharisees had ended up losing sight on the true intention and meaning of fasting, of why fasting was done in the first place. For as the Lord Himself had said in our first reading today, if we fasted and then yet, we oppressed, persecuted and made others’ life difficult, through how the Pharisees had criticised and persecuted the Lord, His disciples and the other people, then what they had done were not in accordance with God, His teachings and truth. They did not fast as how the Lord wanted them to fast.

For their fasting ended up serving their own desires, in wanting to be recognised and praised for their own piety, in their faith and virtues. They sought that glory and worldly fame, attention, influence and other things, that they ended up forgetting why they ought to have fasted, which was in fact contrary to what they had done. Fasting was meant to curb all those desires instead of embracing them, and fasting was meant to bring one closer to God and help one to focus on God rather than to end up focusing more on oneself and their own’s selfish desires.

That is why, today as we remember these words from the Scriptures, all of us are yet again reminded that in our Lenten practices and observances, we must not do them blindly and without understanding their true significance and importance. It means that we should not just fasted and abstained from meat like for example on this day, being a Friday, on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and any other Fridays, but we have to have an interior conversion and change of heart and mind. For fasting and abstinence must not just be an end on themselves, but they must lead to a genuine conversion and change of heart.

It means that we have to grow ever more in our faith in the Lord, and be sincere in our desire to follow the Lord. We must not merely pay lip service in our faith, and this Lent should be a great opportunity for us to embrace the Lord and His mercy and love. This Lenten season should be a time for us to grow more in humility and in our relationship with God rather than for us to show off our faith with pride or worse still, for us to compare with one another who is being more worthy and holier in our ways before the Lord.

Today we should be inspired instead by the good examples set by our predecessors, especially that of St. Casimir, whose feast we are celebrating today. St. Casimir was a prince of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania in the late Middle Ages, the second son of the King of Poland-Lithuania. Even in his youth, he was renowned for his great piety and faith in God, in his many charitable and generous actions for the poor and the sick, as he dedicated himself to the care of the less privileged. He also dedicated himself to a life of virtue and holiness, not indulging in the excesses of worldly living as what many of the royalty and nobles at that time often enjoyed.

Through his faith, life and dedication, St. Casimir, faithful servant of God has shown us all how we can also be faithful to the Lord in our own actions. Are we then willing and able to commit ourselves to the Lord in the same way, brothers and sisters in Christ? Can we be more humble in life, recognising our sinfulness and our vulnerabilities and weaknesses, and at the same time also growing ever more generous in loving and giving to others, in the manner that St. Casimir and many others of our holy predecessors had done?

Let us all make great use of this blessed time of Lent for us to reorientate our lives back towards the Lord, to return to Him and to embrace Him with genuine love once again. Let us all turn towards Him with faith, and commit ourselves to a new life of virtue and faith, renewed with zeal and courage, to take up our crosses in life and following the Lord, walking in the path that He has shown us all. May the Lord continue to guide us and strengthen us, and may He empower us all to be able to serve Him at all times, through our lives and examples. Amen.