Liturgical Colour : Red
Ephesians 2 : 19-22
Now, you are no longer strangers or guests, but fellow citizens of the holy people : you are of the household of God. You are the house, whose foundations are the Apostles and prophets, and whose cornerstone is Christ Jesus. In Him, the whole structure is joined together, and rises, to be a holy Temple, in the Lord.
In Him, you, too, are being built, to become the spiritual Sanctuary of God.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us are reminded that each one of us as Christians are God’s beloved people, those whom He has called and chosen to be His own, and how we are also called to love Him just as He has loved us so dearly. All of us are reminded that whatever we have done for the love of God will never be forgotten, and will be known and remembered by God. For God knows everything and sees everything, and if we are ever always faithful to Him, and be committed in our part of the Covenant with Him, then we shall be blessed and guarded by God in all of our things in life. All those who have given themselves to the service of God will be in God’s grace and love, and they shall never be disappointed.
In our first reading today, we heard from the second Book of Kings of the story of the prophet Elisha and his servant Gehazi, with a wealthy woman who hosted and provided for them, and who convinced her husband to take good care of the servant of God, establishing a room and provisions for him, and all these showed not just her faith in God, but also her kind and compassionate nature, and the Lord remembered everything that the woman had done. The prophet Elisha therefore as we heard from the passage, proclaimed God’s blessings and guidance upon the wealthy woman and her husband. Both of them had no child at all although they were both already old, and God blessed them for their loving and compassionate ways, with the promise of a child.
Then, in our second reading today, we heard from the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Church and the faithful in Rome, in which the Apostle spoke of how all of us mankind, all beloved and cared for by God, have received the greatest gift of love from God Himself, by His gift upon us of His own most beloved Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, Whom God had sent into this world, to dwell in our midst in the flesh, so that by His coming and by His actions, everything that He had done for us, in His suffering and all the pain and trials He had to endure, the Lord has shown us the path of freedom and the way to deliverance and eternal life, by reconciling us to Himself, opening the gates of Heaven itself to all of us.
And the Lord did all these things by coming into our midst, and bearing the heavy burdens of our sins and wickedness, our punishments and all the consequences due to our every faults. He has willingly walked the path of His Passion, His suffering, embracing all of us with His ever gracious and enduring love. He has been persecuted, wounded and hurt for us and our well-being, and He has died on His Cross to show us the path out of the darkness of sin, that by dying to our own sins, through His grace and love, His most loving sacrifice, suffering and death, all of us may be united to Him in love, and by the baptism which we have received, all of us will leave behind our mortal and wicked past lives, and enter into new lives blessed by God.
The Lord has done so much for each one of us, as we have heard from those Scripture passages, and the Gospel today reminded us all that we should continue to commit ourselves to God and to His path. The Lord Himself reminded His disciples and thus all of us that whatever each and every one of us have done for His sake, will always be remembered and known by God, and we shall be blessed and rewarded for everything that we have done, even in the smallest things. The Lord will always be by our side, providing for us, caring for us and giving us the guidance that we need, no matter what. And for our faith in the Lord, we shall always be blessed and protected, and we will not have to worry about anything.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is why this Sunday, as we reflect upon these words from the Sacred Scriptures, all of us are reminded that the Lord has always been with us, guiding us and protecting us. Each one of us have been called by the Lord to be His disciples and missionaries, and to us, each one of us, have been entrusted with the many gifts and blessings of God, the various talents and abilities, the opportunities and the avenues for us to do our part and to follow the way that the Lord has revealed and taught to us. Each one of us have been called and entrusted with the missions, the actions and the works that the Lord has entrusted to His Church, from the very beginning. What He has told and sent out His disciples to do, we have to continue to do and carry out in our world today.
Now we should discern and ask ourselves, if we have lived our lives in the manner that the Lord has told us to do. Have we obeyed the Law and the commandments of God, in the rules and guidance that the Church has taught and shown us? All of us should always be active and committed in the living of our faith, dedicating our every moments, our time, efforts and our every actions and deeds, to the service of God and to do His will. We should be great examples and inspiration for one another, in our faith and way of life, in our commitment and dedication to God, and in everything we say and do, our every interactions and our way of life. All of us should be filled with the love of God, the light of His truth and love. Through this, all of us will become the examples for each other and the beacons of light guiding many others towards God and His salvation.
Let us all therefore do our part, in doing God’s will and in fulfilling our part of the Covenant which God has made with us. All of us should dedicate our every time and abilities, our every actions and works, to glorify the Lord at all times and to support one another in our works and actions. All of us should be full of faith and zeal, in living our daily actions, so that many will be inspired to live a truly worthy life for the Lord. May the Lord, our most loving, compassionate, and all-knowing God, He Who knows all of our thoughts, hearts and deeds, continue to bless us all and empower each one of us to be great and committed servants of His cause, now and always. May He lead us all to the right path and help us to do His will, in our every efforts and endeavours, so that we will always be His worthy and true disciples, and be worthy of His everlasting glory and joy. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Matthew 10 : 37-42
At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Whoever loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me. And whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me, is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life, for My sake, will find it.”
“Whoever welcomes you, welcomes Me; and whoever welcomes Me, welcomes Him Who sent Me. The one who welcomes a prophet, as a prophet, will receive the reward of a prophet; the one who welcomes a just man, because he is a just man, will receive the reward of a just man. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, because he is My disciple, I assure you, he will not go unrewarded.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Romans 6 : 3-4, 8-11
Do you not know, that in baptism, which unites us to Christ, we are all baptised and plunged into His death? By this baptism in His death, we were buried with Christ and, as Christ was raised from among the dead by the glory of the Father, we begin walking in a new life.
But, if we have died with Christ, we believe we will also live with Him. We know, that Christ, once risen from the dead, will not die again, and death has no more dominion over Him. For, by dying, He is dead to sin, once and for all, and, now, the life that He lives, is life with God.
So you, too, must consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God, in Christ Jesus.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 88 : 2-3, 16-17, 18-19
I will sing forever, o YHVH, of Your love, and proclaim Your faithfulness from age to age. I will declare how steadfast is Your love, how firm Your faithfulness.
Blessed is the people who know Your praise. They walk in the light of Your face. They celebrate all day, Your Name and Your protection lifts them up.
You give us glory and power; and Your favour gives us victory. Our king is in the hands of YHVH; the God of Israel is our Shield.
Liturgical Colour : Green
2 Kings 4 : 8-11, 14-16a
One day Elisha went to Shunem, and a rich woman invited him to eat. Afterward, whenever he went to that town, he would go to her house to eat. The woman said to her husband, “See, this man who constantly passes by our house is a holy man of God. If you want, we can make a small upper room for him, and place a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp in it. So when he comes, he may stay and rest.”
One day when Elisha came, he went to the upper room and lay down. So Elisha said to Gehazi, “What can we do for her?” The young man answered, “She has no children and her husband is now old.” And so Elisha said to him, “Call her.” The young man called her; and as the woman stood by the door, Elisha said, “By this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms.”
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, all of us are reminded yet again that all of us should have faith in the Lord and we should truly have faith in Him, and believe in His words. We should not doubt Him and we should always uphold a strong faith and have trust in Him, because He has always been true to His words. He has fulfilled the promises He had made to His people, as the Scriptures and traditions have shown us, in how God had always been there for us, for all of our fellow brothers and sisters who have suffered and were in need. The Lord’s help came at the time of His choosing, and while it might not be what the people had wanted, or at the time they desired it to be, God’s help and will came true just as He has desired it to be.
In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis in which the story of Abraham and his wife, Sarah, and their encounter with God was highlighted to us. At that occasion, God, Who had made a Covenant with Abraham, promising that the latter would soon have a son through Sarah, came to visit Abraham and Sarah at their place in Hebron, and Abraham immediately recognised the Lord Who came disguised in the figure of three men visiting his abode. Abraham welcomed the Lord and listened to all that the Lord revealed to him through His appearance. God once again reiterated that all that He had promised would come true, and everything would indeed happen as He had promised it to Abraham and Sarah.
And as we heard, Sarah was laughing quietly to herself when she heard the words of the Lord. The Lord knew what Sarah had done, and told her that everything would indeed come true as He had said it, and reminding her that everything is possible for God, and nothing is truly impossible for the all-powerful, Almighty God. It is definitely within God’s power to grant a son to an elderly couple, and to a woman who was already way beyond her childbearing years. The Lord did not joke about when He promised all that to Abraham, and indeed, everything came true as He had said and revealed it to Abraham. Abraham was indeed a bit impatient, and if we read on more about what happened then, we could see ourselves how he also wavered sometimes in faith.
For Abraham, according to the Book of Genesis, took his wife’s slave, Hagar, and had a son with her, out of the custom that this was the common practice during that time, that the son of a woman’s slave would be considered as her own son, and therefore could legally become the heir and inheritor of the family’s fortunes and more. However, that was not what God had in plan for Abraham and his family. When He promised Abraham that he would have a son, He was clear in stating that the son would be born to Abraham and Sarah, and indeed, it was fulfilled when Isaac, the promised child, was born to Sarah. The name Isaac itself means ‘laughter’ which does not just represent the joy that Abraham and Sarah of finally having their own son, but also a reminder of Sarah’s folly of laughing at the Lord’s promise, and for her momentary doubt and lack of faith.
In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the Lord Jesus and His interaction with an army captain or centurion, a rather high-ranking military man who had a sick servant. We all remember the phrase that the army centurion had mentioned, because at every celebration of the Holy Mass, all of us always mention the words that the army centurioned uttered, ‘Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed’, which was almost exactly similar as what the captain had mentioned to the Lord. In that occasion, the captain exhibited publicly deep faith that he had in the Lord, in that he did not even need to see the Lord physically doing the miracle and healing to believe that He could heal his ailing servant, and he trusted in the Lord so much that he knew that by His words alone, his servant would be made well again.
We have to contrast this to the attitude of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who have seen and witnessed many of the Lord’s signs and miracles, actions and works, and yet still refused to believe in Him, and even asked and demanded Him to show them more signs and wonders, before they would believe in Him. The army captain, a person of high rank, that could even be one of the Romans, given the gravity of his position, could have been proud and haughty as well, and demanding the Lord to come and attend to his servant. Instead, he was full of humility and consideration, likely knowing that in the Jewish customs and practices, it was taboo for a Jew like the Lord Jesus to come and enter into the household of a pagan like the captain himself, for that would have made them unclean. Thus, the army captain publicly professed his faith and trust in the Lord by doing what he had done.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we can clearly see how all of us are called and reminded to have faith in the Lord, to trust in Him, in His words, providence and in all the things that He had done for us. The Lord has never abandoned us or refused us, and He has always patiently reached out to us, and waiting for us all to return to Him, for all of us are truly and dearly beloved by Him. Each and every one of us who have received this most wonderful love and grace, and received the revelation of His truth through the Church, all of us as Christians should therefore embody our faith in God through our lives, our every actions and deeds, in our every interactions, even to the smallest and seemingly least significant of the things we say and do in our daily moments. We should be inspired by the examples of Abraham, our father in faith and also the faith of the army captain in today’s Gospel.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore reach out to the Lord with renewed faith and commitment, doing whatever we can to glorify Him by our lives, by our every actions, words and deeds. Let us all be the shining beacons of God’s truth and love, and may our lives ever be inspiration for many others, in how we embody our faith in the Lord and in our unfailing dedication to Him, at all times. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Matthew 8 : 5-17
At that time, when Jesus entered Capernaum, an army captain approached Him, to ask His help, “Sir, my servant lies sick at home. He is paralysed and suffers terribly.” Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”
The captain answered, “I am not worthy to have You under my roof. Just give an order and my boy will be healed. For I myself, a junior officer, give orders to my soldiers. And if I say to one, ‘Go!’ he goes; and if I say to another, ‘Come!’ he comes; and if I say to my servant, ‘Do this!’ he does it.”
When Jesus heard this, He was astonished; and said to those who were following Him, “I tell you, I have not found such faith in Israel. I say to you, many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of heaven; but the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown out into extreme darkness; there, they will wail and grind their teeth.”
Then Jesus said to the captain, “Go home now. As you believed, so let it be.” At that moment, his servant was healed. Jesus went to Peter’s house and found Peter’s mother-in-law in bed with fever. He took her by the hand and the fever left her; she got up and began to wait on Him.
Toward evening, they brought to Jesus many people possessed by evil spirits; and with a word, He drove out the spirits. He also healed all who were sick. In this way, what was said by the prophet Isaiah was fulfilled : He bore our infirmities and took on Himself our diseases.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Luke 1 : 46-47, 48-49, 50 and 53, 54-55
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit exults in God, my Saviour!
He has looked upon His servant, in her lowliness, and people, forever, will call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, Holy is His Name!
From age to age, His mercy extends to those who live in His presence. He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.
He held out His hand to Israel, His servant, for He remembered His mercy, even as He promised to our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants forever.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Genesis 18 : 1-15
YHVH appeared to Abraham near the oaks of Mamre. Abraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent, in the heat of the day, when he looked up and saw three Men standing nearby. When he saw Them he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet Them. He bowed to the ground and said, “My Lord, if I have found favour in Your sight, do not pass Your servant by. Let a little water be brought. Wash Your feet and then rest under the trees. I shall fetch some bread so that You can be refreshed and continue on Your way, since You have come to Your servant.”
They then said, “Do as you say.” Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said to her, “Quick, take three measures of flour, knead it and make cakes.” Abraham then ran to the herd, took a fine, tender calf, gave it to the servant who hurried to prepare it. He took butter and milk and together with the calf he had prepared laid it all before Them. And while he remained standing, They ate.
They then asked, “Where is Sarah, your wife?” Abraham answered, “She is in the tent.” And the visitor said, “At this same time next year I will return and Sarah by then will have a son.” Now Sarah was behind him, listening at the entrance to the tent. Abraham and Sarah were old, well on in years, and Sarah no longer had her monthly periods.
Sarah laughed to herself saying, “Now that I am old and worn and my husband is an old man, am I to have this pleasure?” YHVH said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Am I really going to have a child now that I am old?’ Is there anything that is impossible for God? At this same time next year I will return and Sarah by then will have a son.”
Sarah denied saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. But He said, “You did laugh.”
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 