Nov 21 Monday: (The Presentation of Blessed Virgin Mary)
This feast commemorates the presentation of the Blessed
Virgin as a young girl in the Temple. (Mary’s house was in Nazareth, 95 miles
away from Jerusalem which meant 4-5 days walking distance). Tradition holds
that all young Jewish girls were left in the care of the Temple for a period,
during which they were educated in reading Scriptures, singing liturgical songs
and helping in the Temple. As with Mary’s birth, we read of Mary’s presentation
in the Temple only in apocryphal literature. The Protoevangelium of
James (recognized as an unhistorical account), tells us that Anna and
Joachim offered Mary to God in the Temple when she was very young. Later
versions of the story (such as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and
the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary), tell us that Mary was taken to
the Temple at around the age of three in fulfillment of a vow made by her
parents. Tradition held that she was to remain there to be educated in
preparation for her role as Theotokos- Mother of God. This was to carry out her
mother’s promise made to God when Anna was still childless. The feast
originated as a result of the dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary the New,
built in AD 543 by the Byzantines under Emperor Justinian I near the site of
the ruined Temple in Jerusalem. The feast originated in the Orient probably
about the 7th century. The Eastern Orthodox church celebrates it on November 21
as one of its twelve “Great Feasts.” The feast which continued to be celebrated
throughout the East, was being celebrated in the monasteries of Southern Italy
by the ninth century. It was introduced into the Western Church in the 14th
century. In the 1974 encyclical Marialis Cultus, Pope St. Paul
VI (canonized by Pope Francis, October 14, 2018) wrote, “despite its apocryphal
content, it presents lofty and exemplary values and carries on the venerable
traditions having their origins in the Eastern Churches.” Though it cannot be
proven historically, Mary’s presentation has an important theological purpose.
It continues the impact of the feasts of the Immaculate Conception and of the
birth of Mary. It emphasizes that the holiness conferred on Mary from the
beginning of her life on earth continued through her early childhood and
beyond.
Life message: 1) Every Holy Mass in which we
participate is our presentation. Although we were officially presented to God
on the day of our Baptism, we present ourselves and our dear ones on the altar
before God our Father through our Savior Jesus Christ at every Holy Mass.
Hence, we need to live our daily lives with the awareness both that we are
dedicated people consecrated to God and, therefore, that we are obliged to lead
holy lives. We offer ourselves to God, asking to be made holy under the
patronage of Mary and assisted by her powerful intercession and the union of
her merits. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Nov 22 Tuesday: (St. Cecilia, Virgin, Martyr):
The context: Today’s Gospel begins with Jesus’
reaction to the comments the disciples had been making about the splendor of
the Temple in Jerusalem. The forty-foot-tall pillars supporting the beams of
the front porch were made of solid marble. Most of the decorations and the
large vine on the front porch with six-foot long grape clusters were made of
solid gold plates, while the dome was gold-plated. But Jesus prophesied this
Temple’s total destruction. In AD 70, the Roman army invaded the city,
plundered everything valuable, set fire to the Temple, pulled down the City’s
walls, killed one million Jews, and took 97,000 healthy Jews as captives. Jesus
also gave the disciples warnings about false military messiahs and their
deceptive doctrines about overthrowing the Romans. Then Jesus listed some signs
of the end of the world, like wars between nations, earthquakes, famines,
plagues, and unnatural movements of the heavenly bodies.
Life message: We need to learn from the signs of
the times, like crises in morality, a culture of death, an increase in violence
and terrorism, the “normalization” of sexual deviations, the breaking down of
families, and the moral degradation of society, and to prepare ourselves for
the end times by living ideal Christian lives, helping others, sharing our
blessings with others, getting and staying reconciled with God and our
neighbors, and trusting in the living presence of Jesus in the Church . (Fr.
Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Nov 23 Wednesday: (St. Clement I, Pope), Martyr; St.
Columban, Abbot
The context: Today’s Gospel gives Jesus’
prophetic warning to the apostles and disciples about the sufferings they will
have to bear for their Faith in Him until Jesus’ Second Coming. Jesus
advises them to bear witness to Him in spite of persecutions, for those
persecutions would also encourage the disciples to flee to remote places and to
preach the Gospel among the Jews and the Gentiles. Believers, Jesus warns, will
be locked up in prisons and brought for trial before kings and governors. Jesus
assures them that the Holy Spirit will give them words of defense and
witness-bearing. (In the Acts of the Apostles, we read how Stephen
was given the wisdom to bear witness to Jesus in Jerusalem). Since there will
be divisions in families between believers and non-believers, Jesus declares,
close relatives will betray their Christian family members to the pagan authorities
and cause their martyrdom. But Jesus assures the disciples in today’s Gospel
passage that their suffering for Him will be amply rewarded.
Life messages: 1) Although we may not get a
chance to die for the Faith, we are invited to face “dry martyrdom,” a “living
death” as outcasts in our contemporary materialistic, secular, liberal,
agnostic, and atheistic society. 2) We are called to bear witness to Christ by
loving those who hate us, by showing mercy and compassion to those who hurt and
ill-treat us, by forgiving those who continue to offend us, by accepting our
sufferings without complaint, and by continuing to keep Jesus’ word in our
lives. . (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Nov 24 Thursday: (St. Andrew Dung-Lac, Priest and
Companions, Martyrs)
Using biblical and apocalyptic images, Jesus foretells the
brutal attack of the Roman army on the city of Jerusalem which will occur forty
years later, killing most of its revolting residents and demolishing the
Temple. Jesus combines the destruction of Jerusalem with events preceding the
end of the world because most of the Jews believed that if the Temple were
destroyed their world would end. In his prophecy, Jesus attributes the
faithlessness of the chosen people and their moral corruption as the main
causes of the destruction. That is why Jesus calls it as the “time of
punishment” and “days of retribution.” Jewish prophets Isaiah (63:4), Jeremiah
(5:29), Hosea (9:7) and Daniel (9:27) gave their prophetic warnings about the
future destruction of Jerusalem and its residents. The temple was desecrated by
the Greek Antiochus IV Epiphanes from 167 to 165 BC. The “horrible abomination”
perhaps refers to an inscription placed on the portal of the temple, dedicating
it to the Roman god Olympian Zeus. Jesus warns that these desecrations will be
repeated by the Romans. Many will be murdered and other healthy residents will
be led away into captivity to Rome and other pagan territories. The holy city
itself, its Temple in ruins, will be trampled on by the Gentiles. Then Jesus
speaks of various cataclysmic and apocalyptic signs to signal the end of the
world using the Hebrew Biblical images. They conclude with Daniel’s vision of
the “Son of Man” riding on a cloud coming with great power and glory. But Jesus
gives assurance to his loyal followers that this is the time for them to “stand
up straight and raise your heads, for your redeeming is near at hand”.
Life messages: 1) Sufferings and tribulations are part and
parcel of Christian life. They should help us to reflect on the end of our
lives and the final end of our world and to live by the vision and values of
the Gospel, sharing agape love with others rendering them humble and
sacrificial service.
Life messages: 1) Sufferings and tribulations are part and
parcel of Christian life. They should help us reflect on the end of our lives
and the final end of our world and to live by the vision and values of the
Gospel, sharing agape love with others rendering them humble and sacrificial
service.
Nov 24 Thursday: (Thanksgiving Day in the U. S):
Lk 17:11-19: Introduction: Today is a day of
national thanksgiving 1) for the blessings and protection God has given us; 2)
for our democratic government and the prosperity, we enjoy; 3) for our freedom
of speech and religion; and 4) for the generosity and good will of our people.
History: The winter of 1610 at Jamestown,
Virginia, had reduced a group of 409 settlers to 60. The survivors prayed for
help, without knowing when or how it might come. When help arrived in the form
of a ship filled with food and supplies from England, a thanksgiving prayer
meeting was held to give thanks to God. President George Washington issued the
first national Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789. President Abraham Lincoln, in
the midst of the Civil War, established Thanksgiving Day as a formal holiday to
express our thanks to God. In 1941 Congress passed the official proclamation
declaring that Thanksgiving should be observed as a legal holiday the fourth
Thursday of each November.
Biblical examples of thanksgiving: (1) Today’s
Gospel describes how one of the ten lepers Jesus healed, a Samaritan, returned
to Jesus to express his gratitude, while the nine Jewish lepers did not think
to thank God and the One He had used to heal. Jesus asks the pained question: ”Where
are the other nine?” The episode tells us that God, too, expects gratitude
from us.
(2) In 2 Kgs 5:1-9 Naaman the leper, the chief
of the army of the Syrian King, returned to the prophet Elisha to thank him for
the complete disappearance of his leprosy, and he offered Elisha a gift of 10
talents of silver, 6000 pieces of gold and six Egyptian raiments. When Elisha
refused the gift, Naaman asked for permission take home two sacks of the soil
of Israel to remember the Lord Who healed him, and he promised to offer
personal sacrifices only to the God of Israel.
3) Jesus’ example of thanksgiving at the tomb of
Lazarus: “Thank you Father for hearing my prayer” (Jn
11:42-42). (4) St. Paul’s advice, “Give thanks to God the Father
for everything” (Eph 5:20).
The Eucharistic celebration is the most
important form of thanksgiving prayer for Catholics. In fact, Eucharist is the
Greek word for thanksgiving. In the Holy Mass we offer the sacrifice of Jesus
to our Heavenly Father as an act of thanksgiving, and we surrender our lives on
the altar with repentant hearts, presenting our needs and asking for God’s
blessings.
Life messages: 1) Let us be thankful and let us learn to
express our thanks daily: a) To God for His innumerable blessings,
providential care and protection, and for the unconditional pardon given to us
for our daily sins and failures. b) To our parents – living and dead – for the
gift of life and Christian training and the good examples they gave us. c) To
our relatives and friends for their loving support and timely help and
encouragement. d) To our pastors, teachers, doctors, soldiers, police and
government officers for the sincere service they render us. (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Nov 25 Friday: (St. Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin,
Martyr):
The context: Foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem
in AD 70, and the end of the world at an unspecified future time, Jesus warns
the disciples in today’s Gospel that tribulations are inevitable before the
Last Judgment and the coming of Jesus’ Kingdom. Jesus uses the small parable of
the fig tree to explain the point that we must be prepared for the time of
tribulation, Jesus’ Second Coming, and the Last Judgment. Fig trees
in Israel produce fruits twice a year, at Passover time and in autumn. The sign
of the ripening of their fruits is the appearance of fresh leaves on the tree.
The Jews believed that the Messiah would appear during the Passover period,
which coincides with the appearance of fresh leaves on fig trees. The
destruction of Jerusalem would be the end of their world for the Jews. So, the
generation in AD 70 saw the end of the world symbolically. Jesus wants us to
understand that the Kingdom of God will be near when wars, natural calamities,
pestilences, and unnatural movements of heavenly bodies occur. Except for the
last-named, these seem to occur in every age. Hence, we must be ever vigilant
and prepared.
Life messages: 1) We must be able to read the
signs of the times and stay in the kingdom of God by faithfully doing God’s
will every day of our lives. 2) We need to continue serving others in humility
and love and bearing witness to Jesus through the integrity and transparency of
our Christian lives. (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Nov 26 Saturday:
The context: In St. Luke’s version of Jesus’
advice to the disciples before His passion and death, as given in today’s Gospel,
Jesus emphasizes that every Christian needs to be vigilant and prepared because
we cannot be sure of the time of our own death when we will be asked to give an
account of our lives. Vigilance consists in obtaining strength from God through
prayer, so that we may be freed from evil addictions and unnecessary attachment
to worldly pleasures. Jesus also instructs us to be vigilant because we do not
know the time either of our own death or of the end of the world and
Jesus’ Second Coming. St. Paul repeats this advice: “You are
not in darkness, brethren, for that day to surprise you like a thief” (I Thes
5: 4).
Life messages: 1) We need to avoid spiritual laziness and indifference. 2) We need to be freed from excessive and crippling anxiety, needless worries and evil habits. 3) We need to get our strength from God by prayer, which means listening to God and talking to Him. (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/
