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1st Sunday of Advent, Year A, 27 November 2022 Note: Homilies & Angelus / Regina Caeli of Pope Saint John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI & Pope Francis I had been compiled for you after the Mass Readings below. Happy Reading! Liturgical Colour: Violet.
Mass Readings from ETWN, USCCB, Universalis (Christian Art). See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-330. 8-) First Reading: Isaiah 2:1-5, Responsorial: Psalm 122:1-2,4-5,6-9, 2nd Reading: Romans 13:11-14 & Gospel: Matthew 24:37-44, CCTNtv.
Others: The REAL Noah's Ark FOUND by Archaeologist Ron Wyatt! - Short Documentary Noah and the Ark (cartoon) "Second deck" of Noah's Ark Mt. Ararat part 2 - 40+ features and structures
Please refer to https://twitter.com/Michael65413248 for some latest record. Take care, put on your facemask and stay healthy, because we love you! 8-) COVID-19 Protection in Singapore.
1. Criminal Investigation Department, Singapore Police Force harassed Law-abiding Citizen. Latest! https://twitter.com/Michael65413248/status/1510086218851270658 (2 April 2022) #Singapore Police Force harassing the same law abiding business owner again from 92298844, 97397514, 83487591, 96645914, 63914706, 82825465, 97378102, 90360045, 92981234! They can’t perform to contain COVID, so they bully to appear busy? Shameless? You decide! 2. See another Police case to frame against the Innocent! Please spread the News to help them who commit no crime. Many Thanks. Till this day, the harassment continues and there is no apology from the Rulers and no compensation paid for damages inflicted. 3. See the Bloggers went MISSING before / after the Singapore General Election on 10 July 2020. Please pray for their safety as we search for them actively. Many Thanks. 5. Do you want this kind of “pastoral care”?
Homilies, Angelus / Regina Caeli
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-330. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-331. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-331. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-331. 8-)
With this first Sunday of Advent a new liturgical year begins: the People of God begin again on the way to living the mystery of Christ in history. Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever (cf. Hebrews 13: 8); history, instead, changes and requires constant evangelization; it needs to be renewed from within and the only true novelty is Christ: he is its fulfilment, the luminous future of humanity and of the world. Risen from the dead, Jesus is the Lord to whom God subjects all enemies, including death itself (cf. I Corinthians 15: 25-28). Advent is therefore the propitious time to awaken in our hearts the expectation of he "who is and who was and who is to come" (Revelation 1: 8). The Son of God has already come to Bethlehem about 20 centuries ago, he comes in each moment in the soul and in the community disposed to receive him, he will come again at the end of time "to judge the living and the dead". The believer is therefore always vigilant, inspired by the intimate hope of encountering the Lord, as the Psalm says: "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning" (Psalm 130[129]: 5-6).
This Sunday is therefore a day specially suited to offering the entire Church and to all men and women of good will my second Encyclical, which I wanted to dedicate precisely to the theme of Christian hope. It is entitled Spe Salvi, because it opens with the expression "Spe salvi facti sumus - in hope we were saved" (Romans 8: 24). In this, as in other passages of the New Testament, the word "hope" is strictly connected with the word "faith". It is a gift that changes the life of the one who receives it, as the experience of so many men and women saints demonstrates. In what does this hope consist, so great and so "trustworthy", to make us say that in it we have "salvation"? In essence it consists in the knowledge of God, in the discovery of the heart of the good and merciful Father. Jesus, with his death on the Cross and his Resurrection, has revealed his Face to us, the face of a God so great in love as to communicate to us an uncrushable hope that not even death can break, because the life of the one who entrusts himself to this Father opens itself to the prospect of eternal beatitude.
The development of modern science has always confined faith and hope to the private and individual sphere, so that today it appears in a clear and sometimes dramatic way that man and the world need God - the true God! - otherwise, they remain deprived of hope. Science contributes much to the good of humanity, but it is not able to redeem it. Man is redeemed by love, which makes one's personal and social life good and beautiful. This is why the great hope, the full and definitive one, is guaranteed by God who is love, by God who has visited us and has given us life in Jesus, and who will return at the end of time. We hope in Christ, we await him! With Mary, his Mother, the Church goes to meet her Spouse: she does so with works of charity, because hope, like faith, is demonstrated in love. Pope Benedict XVI (Angelus, 2 December 2007) See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-332. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-333. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-334. 8-)
Today in the Church a new liturgical year begins, which is a new journey of faith for the People of God. And as always, we begin with Advent. The passage of the Gospel (cf. (Matthew 24:37-44) introduces us to one of the most evocative themes of Advent: the visit of the Lord to humanity. The first visit — we all know — occurred with the Incarnation, Jesus’ birth in the cave of Bethlehem; the second takes place in the present: the Lord visits us constantly, each day, walking alongside us and being a consoling presence; in the end, there will be the third, the last visit, which we proclaim each time that we recite the Creed: “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”. Today, the Lord speaks to us about this final visit, which will take place at the end of time, and he tells us where we will arrive on our journey.
The Word of God emphasizes the contrast between the normal unfolding of events, the everyday routine, and the unexpected coming of the Lord. Jesus says: “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away” (vv. 38-39): so says Jesus. It always strikes a cord when we think about the hours which precede a great disaster: everyone is calm, and they go about their usual business without realizing that their lives are about to be turned upside down. Of course, the Gospel does not want to scare us, but to open our horizons to another, greater dimension, one which, on the one hand puts into perspective everyday things, while at the same time making them precious, crucial. The relationship with the God-who-comes-to-visit-us gives every gesture, every thing a different light, a substance, a symbolic value.
From this perspective there also comes an invitation to sobriety, to not be controlled by the things of this world, by material reality, but rather to govern them. If, by contrast, we allow ourselves to be influenced and overpowered by these things, we cannot perceive that there is something very important: our final encounter with the Lord: this is important. That encounter. And everyday matters must have this horizon, and must be directed to that horizon. This encounter with the Lord who comes for us. In that moment, as the Gospel says, “Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left” (v. 40). It is an invitation to be vigilant, because in not knowing when he will come, we need to be ever ready to leave.
In this season of Advent, we are called to expand the horizons of our hearts, to be amazed by the life which presents itself each day with newness. In order to do this, we must learn to not depend on our own certainties, on our own established strategies, because the Lord comes at a time that we do not imagine. He comes to bring us into a more beautiful and grand dimension.
May Our Lady, the Virgin of Advent, help us not to consider ourselves proprietors of our life, not to resist when the Lord comes to change it, but to be ready to let ourselves be visited by him, the awaited and welcome guest, even if it disturbs our plans. Pope Francis I (Angelus, 27 November 2016)
HOLY MASS FOR THE CONGOLESE COMMUNITY, 1 December 2019 Holy Mass Video. Homily Text. Extracts: The Lord comes: this is the root of our hope, the certainty that God’s comfort reaches us in the midst of the tribulations of the world, a comfort that does not consist of words but rather of presence, of his presence that comes among us. .. The Lord comes; today, the first day of the Liturgical Year, this proclamation marks our starting point: we know that over and above every favourable or adverse event, the Lord does not leave us on our own. he came 2,000 years ago and he will come again at the end of time, but he also comes today into my life and into yours.
Today the verb to come is not only conjugated for God but also for us. Indeed, in the First Reading Isaiah prophesies: “Many peoples shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord’” (2:3). While the evil on earth stems from the fact that each person follows his or her own path without the others, the Prophet offers a marvellous vision: everyone comes together on the mountain of the Lord. The temple, the house of God, stood on the mountain. Isaiah thus passes on to us an invitation to his house from God. We are God’s guests, and those who are invited are expected, they are welcome. “Come”, God says, “because there is room for everyone in my house. Come, because in my heart there is not only one people but every people”.
But we may prefer the darkness of the world to the light of the Lord and we might answer, “no, I am not coming” to the Lord who invites us to go with him. It is often not a direct “no”, brazen, but deceitful. It is the “no” which Jesus warns us against in the Gospel, exhorting us not to do as in “the days of Noah” (Matthew 24:37). What happened in Noah’s days? What occurred was that while something new and overwhelming was about to happen, no one paid any attention to it because they were all just thinking of eating and drinking (cf. v. 38). In other words they were all reducing life to their own needs, they were content with a flat, horizontal life with no enthusiasm. There was no expectation for someone, only the demand for something for themselves, something to consume. Expectation of the Lord who comes, and not the demand for something for us to consume. This is consumerism.
Consumerism is a virus that tarnishes faith at its root, because it makes you believe that life depends solely on what you have, and so you forget God who approaches you and who is beside you. The Lord comes, but you prefer to follow the longing you feel; your brother knocks at your door, but he is a nuisance to you because he upsets your plans — and this is the attitude of consumerism. In the Gospel, when Jesus points out the dangers of faith, he is not thinking of powerful enemies, hostility and persecution. All these things have been and will be, but they do not weaken faith. The true danger instead is what anaesthetizes the heart: it is dependence on consumption, it is letting things burden and dissipate the heart (cf. Luke 21:34)… And when we live for things, things are never enough, greed increases and others get in the way and people end up feeling threatened and, as they are ever dissatisfied and angry, the level of hatred rises, “I want more, I want more, I want more…”. We see this today wherever consumerism holds sway: how much violence there is, even if it is only verbal, what anger and what a desire to seek an enemy at all costs! Thus while the world is full of lethal weapons we do not realize that we are continuing to arm our hearts with rage.
… In order to watch it is necessary to have a sure hope: that the night will not last for ever, that dawn will soon break. And so it is for us: God comes and his light will brighten even the thickest darkness. But today it is our task to watch, to keep watch: to overcome the temptation of thinking that life means accumulating — this is a temptation, the meaning of life is not to accumulate, it is up to us to unmask the deception that we are happy when we have many things, to resist the dazzling lights of consumerism, which shine everywhere this month, and to believe that prayer and charity are not time wasted but rather the greatest of treasures.
When we open our hearts to the Lord and to our brothers and sisters we usher in the precious good which things will never be able to give us and which Isaiah proclaims in the First Reading, peace: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4). These are words that also make us think of your homeland. Today let us pray for peace, seriously threatened in the East of the country, especially in the territories of Beni and Minembwe, where conflicts flare up, stoked from outside too, by the complicit silence of so many. Conflicts fuelled by those who get rich by selling arms. Pope Francis I (Homily, 1 December 2019)
Profile of Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite Nengapeta
Angelus 1 December 2019 Angelus Video, Angelus Text. Extracts: In today’s First Reading, Isaiah prophesies that “it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it” (Isaiah 2:2). The temple of the Lord in Jerusalem is presented as the point of convergence and meeting of all peoples. After the Incarnation of the Son of God, Jesus revealed himself as the true temple. Therefore, the marvellous vision of Isaiah is a divine promise and impels us to assume an attitude of pilgrimage, of a journey towards Christ, the meaning and end of all history. Those who hunger and thirst for justice can only find it by following the ways of the Lord, while evil and sin come from the fact that individuals and social groups prefer to follow paths dictated by selfish interests, which cause conflict and war. Advent is the time to welcome the coming of Jesus, who comes as a messenger of peace to show us the ways of God.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus exhorts us to be ready for His coming: “Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42). Keeping watch does not mean to have one’s eyes physically open, but to have one’s heart free and facing the right direction, ready to give and to serve. This is keeping watch! The slumber from which we must awaken is constituted of indifference, of vanity, of the inability to establish genuine human relationships, of the inability to take charge of our brother and sister who is alone, abandoned or ill. The expectation of Jesus who is coming must therefore translate into a commitment to vigilance. It is above all a question of wonder before God’s action, at his surprises, and of according him primacy. Vigilance also means, in a concrete sense, being attentive to our neighbour in difficulty, allowing oneself to be called upon by his needs, without waiting for him or her to ask us for help, but learning to foresee, to anticipate, as God always does with us. Pope Francis I (Angelus, 1 December 2019)
Angelus, 27 November 2022 Angelus Video, Video (American Sign Language), Text. Extracts: In the Gospel of today’s Liturgy we hear a beautiful promise that introduces us to the Time of Advent: “Your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42). This is the foundation of our hope, it is what supports us even in the most difficult and painful moments of our life: God is coming, God is near and is coming. Let us never forget this! The Lord always comes, the Lord visits us, the Lord makes himself close, and will return at the end of time to welcome us in his embrace. Before this word, we ask ourselves: How will the Lord come? And how will we recognize him and welcome him? Let us dwell briefly on these two questions.
The first question: how will the Lord come? …Let us bear this in mind: God is hidden in our life, he is always there – he is concealed in the commonest and most ordinary situations in our life. He does not come in extraordinary events, but in everyday things; he manifests himself in everyday things. He is there, in our daily work, in a chance encounter, in the face of someone in need, even when we face days that seem grey and monotonous, it is right there that we find the Lord, who calls to us, speaks to us and inspires our actions.
However, there is a second question: how can we recognize and welcome the Lord? We must be awake, alert, vigilant. Jesus warns us: there is the danger of not realizing his coming and being unprepared for his visit. I have recalled on other occasions what Saint Augustine said: “I fear the Lord who passes by” (Sermons, 88, 14.13), that is, I fear that he will pass by and I will not recognize him! Indeed, Jesus says that those people in the time of Noah ate and drank “and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away” (v. 39). Pay attention to this: they did not realize anything! They were absorbed in their own things and did not realize that the flood was about to come. Indeed, Jesus says that, when he will come, “two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left” (v. 40). In what sense? What is the difference? Simply that one was vigilant, he was waiting, capable of discerning God’s presence in daily life, whereas the other was distracted, “pulled along”, and did not notice anything. Pope Francis I (Angelus, 27 November 2022)
Daily Blessings to You from Emmanuel Goh & Friends
Note: This webpage has many hyperlinks to the Vatican Webpage. The above extracts were compiled for your easy reading. This Publication is aimed to encourage all of Goodwill around the World. It is not for business or profit purposes but it is our way to thank our Creator for His continuous blessings!
Compiled on 23 November 2019, 20:00 SGT Last updated: 27 November 2022, 22:00 SGT
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