Weekdays of Ordinary Time

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Saturday, 8 June 2024 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 Samuel 2 : 1, 4-5, 6-7, 8abcd

My heart exults in YHVH, I feel strong in my God. I rejoice and laugh at my enemies for You came with power to save me.

The bow of the mighty is broken, but the weak are girded with strength. The well-fed must labour for bread, but the hungry need work no more. The childless wife has borne seven children, but the proud mother is left alone.

YHVH is Lord of life and death. He brings down to the grave and raises up. YHVH makes poor and makes rich, He brings low and He exalts.

He lifts up the lowly from the dust, and raises the poor from the ash heap; they will be called to the company of princes, and inherit a seat of honour.

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Saturday, 8 June 2024 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Isaiah 61 : 9-11

Their descendants shall be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a race YHVH has blessed.

I rejoice greatly in YHVH, my soul exults for joy in my God, for He has clothed me in the garments of His salvation, He has covered me with the robe of His righteousness, like a bridegroom wearing a garland, like a bride adorned with jewels.

For as the earth brings forth its growth, and as a garden makes seeds spring up, so will the Lord YHVH make justice and praise spring up in the sight of all nations.

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Friday, 7 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Church celebrates the great Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, celebrating the great love of God which has been manifested by the coming of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. And this day, all of us commemorate this love manifested not just in the Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but also in His Most Sacred Heart, His bleeding and wounded Heart, pierced for our salvation, from which poured out the most wonderful, selfless and perfect love, and He truly wants to share with us this ever patient and enduring love that He had for us from the very beginning, for He had indeed created us all out of His most generous love.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Hosea in which the Lord spoke to His people, the Israelites through the prophet Hosea telling all of them that He truly loved all of them, and even though He had chastised and punished them for their many sins, rebellions and wickedness because of their unfaithfulness, but God continued to love all of His beloved people nonetheless, and He also mentioned to them everything that He had done for them throughout history, how He led them all the way, and brought His salvation upon them, patiently guiding them all so that they might find their way towards Him and follow Him faithfully and worthily.

At that time, the prophet Hosea was sent by the Lord to the people of the kingdom of Israel, the northern half of the once united Kingdom of Israel, consisting of the ten northern tribes that broke away from the rule of the House of David. For much if not most of its history and existence, this kingdom and its people had been rebellious against God, refusing to obey His Law and commandments, worshipping pagan idols and gods despite the many messengers, prophets and guides whom the Lord had sent to them in order to help them to find their way back to Him. Instead, they shut their ears and hearts against those servants of God, persecuted and silenced them, killing many of them in refusing to believe in God and in stubbornly refusing to repent from their many sins.

Yet, God still loved them and all of us nonetheless. He is patient and full of love, and He still wants us all to come back to Him, repenting from all of our sins. God is always ever generous with His mercy, and His Most Sacred Heart has been manifested to us with the fullness of His love personified and made approachable to us, the love that is truly warm and wonderful, the love that conquered even sin and death. Yes, that is what we heard from our Gospel passage today, in which we heard of the account of the Passion of the Lord, at the very moment when He died after having suffered most greatly and painfully for our sake and salvation. We heard how the Son of God Himself had truly died, emptying Himself of all glory and embracing all of us with His most perfect and selfless love.

We heard how the soldiers were told to break the legs of those who were crucified with the Lord that they might not continue to hang on the Cross through to the Passover day, but the Lord had already passed away, and one of them was told to prove and check that the Lord had indeed died. We heard how this soldier, which tradition stated to be one St. Longinus, pierced the side of the Lord with his spear, just as the Scriptures had predicted, and immediately Blood and water rushed out. This was the moment when the Lord’s love has been fully given to us through His loving sacrifice on the Cross, the moment when all of us were united to His death, to die to our past sins and wickedness, and to open for us all the path to everlasting life and salvation, by the means of His Church.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, this was the moment when the Church of God was born, when the Blood and water pouring forth from the Lord’s Body, from His own Most Sacred Heart, came down upon us all in this world. His perfect and most worthy offering had been completed and accepted by the Lord, His heavenly Father, as the most worthy offering for the atonement of all of our sins. Through this act of supreme love and kindness, compassion and forgiveness, God has united us all to Himself, our humanity and human nature to His own human nature and self, truly suffering and truly died on the Cross, the Lamb of God, persecuted and slain for the sake of our salvation.

St. Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians in our second reading today summarised all these in emphasising yet again the role which Christ, Our Lord and Saviour had played in the fulfilment of everything which God had planned for our salvation, to liberate each and every one of us from the power and dominion of sin and death. Through His perfect obedience and loving sacrifice, He has undone the disobedience and the corruption of sin and evil, which had separated us all from the fullness of God’s grace and love. Through Christ, we all have received a new hope and a new life, a new reality and existence that is filled with God’s grace and love, as we become part of His one Body, the Church, sanctified and made one by the outpouring of His Blood, which overflowed from His wounded and broken, Most Sacred Heart.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this Devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the most popular and oldest devotions in the Church, and it is understandable because it is through gazing upon the most loving and most holy, most worthy and most wonderful Sacred Heart of Our Lord Himself, that we are constantly being reminded yet again of His immeasurable love and compassion towards us. Through His Most Sacred Heart, pierced and wounded for us, we are reminded of every single wounds that we ourselves have caused upon the Lord, Who has loved us all so selflessly and tenderly, so patiently and generously from the very beginning of time, from the moment when He first created this world and all of us.

We must understand and realise that it is our sins and wickedness, our faults and evils, our disobedience against God that had made Him to bear the consequences and punishments for all those that were meant for us. We should have been destroyed and perished because of our many faults and sins, and yet, God willingly took it up upon Himself to bear the burden of those sufferings and pains, all the wounds we have inflicted on Him, so that by His wounds, and through His Most Sacred Heart, full of ever burning and passionate Love for each one of us, we may have the hope and assurance of everlasting life through reconciliation and reunification with God, our Lord and Master.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore renew our commitment to the Lord, by recalling His love for us and remembering everything that He had done for us, all the love that came forth outpouring from His Most Sacred Heart. Let us continue to put our trust in Him and the love that He has constantly shown us, and do our best so that in our own respective lives in this world, our lives will continue to be full of love, both for the Lord our God and for our fellow brothers and sisters around us, now and always. Amen.

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Friday, 7 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 19 : 31-37

At that time, as it was Preparation Day, the Jews did not want the bodies to remain on the cross during the Sabbath, for this Sabbath was a very solemn day. They asked Pilate to have the legs of the condemned men broken, so that the bodies might be taken away.

The soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man and of the other man, who had been crucified with Jesus. When they came to Jesus, they saw that He was already dead, so they did not break His legs. One of the soldiers, however, pierced His side with a lance, and immediately there came out blood and water.

The one who saw that, has testified to it, and his testimony is true; he knows he speaks the truth, so that you also might believe. All this happened to fulfil the words of Scripture : Not one of His bones shall be broken. Another text says : They shall look on Him Whom they have pierced.

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Friday, 7 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Ephesians 3 : 8-12, 14-19

This grace, was given to me, the least, among all the holy ones : to announce to the pagan nations, the immeasurable riches of Christ, and to make clear to all, how the mystery, hidden from the beginning, in God, the Creator of all things, is to be fulfilled.

Even the heavenly forces and powers will now discover, through the Church, the wisdom of God in its manifold expression, as the plan is being fulfilled, which God designed from the beginning, in Christ Jesus, Our Lord. In Him, we receive boldness and confidence to approach God.

And, now, I kneel in the presence of the Father, from Whom, every family in heaven and on earth has received its name. May He strengthen in you, the inner self, through His Spirit, according to the riches of His glory; may Christ dwell in your hearts, through faith; may you be rooted and founded in love.

All of this, so that you may understand, with all the holy ones, the width, the length, the height and the depth – in a word, that you may know the love of Christ, that surpasses all knowledge, that you may be filled, and reach the fullness of God.

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Friday, 7 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Isaiah 12 : 2-3, 4bcd, 5-6

He is the God of my salvation; in Him I trust and am not afraid, YHVH is my strength : Him I will praise, the One Who saved me.

You will draw water with joy from the very fountain of salvation. Then you will say : “Praise to the Lord, break into songs of joy for Him, proclaim His marvellous deeds among the nations and exalt His Name.”

“Sing to the Lord : wonders He has done, let these be known all over the earth. Sing for joy, o people of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”

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Friday, 7 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Hosea 11 : 1, 3-4, 8c-9

I loved Israel when he was a child; out of Egypt I called My Son. Yet, it was I Who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; yet, little did they realise that it was I Who cared for them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with leading strings of love, and I became for them as One Who eases the yoke upon their neck and stoops down to feed them.

My heart is troubled within Me and I am moved with compassion. I will not give vent to My great anger; I will not return to destroy Ephraim, for I am God and not human. I am the Holy One in your midst: and I do not want to come to you in anger.

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Thursday, 6 June 2024 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded of the love of God which He has given to all of us, as He grants us all the most wonderful graces and blessings, constantly reaching out to us and showing us His love throughout all of history. He has loved us all from the very beginning, and He has indeed created us all out of His ever enduring and patient love. He spared us from destruction and eternal damnation because of this same love, and gave us all the perfect gift of love, manifested in His only begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, we are reminded this day that we should not take God’s love for granted, and we are also reminded that we have to love Him and our fellow brothers and sisters in the same way.

In our first reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to St. Timothy, we heard of the words of the Apostle speaking about the salvation which the Lord has shown all of us, and which He has generously and constantly promised to us, and renewed that promise through all that He had done, through the coming of His Son, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, by Whom the whole world has been shown the sure path to God’s grace and eternal life. This is what St. Paul wanted to remind all of us, the faithful people of God, of just how wonderful God’s love has been, and how fortunate we truly are for having been beloved in such a manner.

This is why all of us are reminded of this great love of God, and what we all as Christians ought to be doing henceforth, in loving God, our Lord and Master, and in loving one another, our fellow brothers and sisters, at all times. We have truly been very blessed to be in God’s love and favour, and we must never squander the opportunities and the great generosity that God has shown us all these while. Otherwise we may lose sight on what truly matters for us in life, especially if we allow ourselves to be swayed by the many temptations and pleasures of the world around us. This is why we must remind ourselves always to be ever committed to the Lord, to His love and kindness.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard another similar reminder through the interaction between the Lord Jesus and a teacher of the Law who was asking Him about the commandments of the Law and which among them were the most important of all. Contextually, there are about six hundred and thirteen commandments and rule throughout the Law of God that was revealed through Moses to the people of Israel, and the teachers of the Law were those who were particularly strict in following and enforcing the Law and commandments of God, and the teacher of the Law who was asking Jesus might have indeed genuinely be curious on which of all those laws were truly most important one among them.

This is where we must also understand that the teachers of the Law were among those who were so particular and strict in their enforcement of the Law of God, that they were at times very inflexible and rigid in their application, and some among them even took pride and becoming haughty at their supposed better understanding and knowledge of the Law of God and all of its precepts and rules. But in doing so, they actually forgot the true significance, meaning and purpose of the Law of God, which is to bring the people of God closer to Him, and to show them all how to love Him and how they ought to love one another in the same way, which was exactly what the Lord Jesus told to the teacher of the Law.

It is a reminder for all of us that for us to be truly faithful to God, we must be filled first and foremost with love for Him. We must put the Lord at the very heart and centre of our lives, and dedicate ourselves wholly to Him. We cannot be truly faithful to Him unless we can do this, and we have to strive to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts and might, by observing His laws and commandments, obeying Him and glorifying His Name. And we cannot fully do so if we do not also love our fellow brothers and sisters, whom the Lord Himself has loved in the same manner that He has loved each one of us. How can we love God wholeheartedly if we have not also loved all those whom He loves as well?

Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Norbert, a great bishop and servant of God whose life and service to the Lord can truly inspire us on how we ourselves can be truly faithful to Him. St. Norbert, also known as St. Norbert of Xanten, was a servant and missionary of the Lord, who was very committed to his ministry of preaching among the people of God throughout various parts of Western and Central Europe, where he proclaimed the Lord and many people followed the Lord through his efforts. He was particularly also concerned about the declining morale and discipline among the clergy throughout the many places that he visited and ministered in.

St. Norbert dedicated himself to help reform the Church and its clergy, in his many attempts to help uproot all the corrupt practices and way of living which many Christians and the clergy at his time had done, in efforts to stem the declining moral and virtues among the people of God and the Church. As part of these efforts, he founded the Canons Regular of Premontre, also known as Norbertians after their founder. He gathered those who were called by the Lord to seek a holy and virtuous life, dedicating themselves to a life of prayer and service. More and more people were inspired by St. Norbert and joined his congregation, and many great fruits were produced of his works in reforming the Church and opposing various heresies in the Church then. And later on as Archbishop of Magdeburg as appointed by the Pope, St. Norbert would continue to carry out his mission and reform works among the people entrusted to him, to the end of his life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through the great examples showed by St. Norbert and his life, let us all be inspired to follow the Lord ever more faithfully and to commit ourselves thoroughly to His cause. Let us all remind ourselves and one another not to be swayed easily worldly temptations and desires, but as we recall the ever enduring and generous love which God has always had for us, let us all continue to love Him first and foremost and do our very best so that we may truly be committed to God at all times and be the good and worthy role models for our fellow Christians, our fellow brothers and sisters around us, whom we also ought to love and care for, as much as we can. May God be with us always and may He bless us all in our every endeavours and good works. Amen.

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Thursday, 6 June 2024 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Mark 12 : 28b-34

At that time, a teacher of the Law came up and asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?”

Jesus answered, “The first is : Hear, Israel! The Lord, our God is One Lord; and you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. And after this comes a second commandment : You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these two.”

The teacher of the Law said to Him, “Well spoken, Master; You are right when You say that He is one, and there is no other besides Him. To love Him with all our heart, with all our understanding and with all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves is more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice.”

Jesus approved of this answer and said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that, no one dared to ask Him any more questions.

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Thursday, 6 June 2024 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Psalm 24 : 4-5ab, 8-9, 10 and 14

Teach me Your ways, o Lord; make known to me Your paths. Guide me in Your truth and instruct me, for You are my God, my Saviour.

Good and upright, the Lord teaches sinners His way. He teaches the humble of heart and guides them in what is right.

The ways of the Lord are love and faithfulness for those who keep His covenant and precepts. The Lord gives advice to those who revere Him and makes His covenant known to them.