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32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, 6 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: Green.
Mass Readings from ETWN, USCCB, Universalis. See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-322. 8-) First Reading: 2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14, Responsorial: Psalms 17:1, 5-6, 8, 15, 2nd Reading: 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5 & Gospel: Luke 20:27-38, CCTNtv, Gospel Video.
Others: Luke 20 - New International Version (NIV) Dramatized Audio Bible
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-322. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-323. 8-)
1. Today Italy is celebrating the traditional Day of Thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth and human labour. At the moment of the Offertory at Mass, the Christian community gives thanks to the Lord, God of the universe, from whose goodness we receive the bread and wine destined to become the Body and Blood of Christ. Today's celebration focuses on this dimension of offering, inviting us to remember that divine Providence is the first source of life and well-being.
This year the Italian Bishops have taken the words of the "Our Father" as the theme of the Day: "Give us this day our daily bread ". When teaching this prayer to the disciples, Christ asked them to trust in the goodness of God the Father, who rejoices to give all creatures, especially human beings, what is necessary for life. At the same time, having us say "today" and "daily" reminds us that this gift must not be taken for granted, but must always be asked for and received in a spirit of thanksgiving.
Moreover, it is important that Christ taught us to ask for "our" bread, and not that each one ask for "his" own. This means that children of the same Father are co-responsible for the "bread" of all, so that everyone may live in dignity and together with the others thank the Lord.
2. As we thank God for all that the fields produced this year, we must not forget those brothers and sisters in different parts of the world who are deprived of essential goods, such as food, water, a home and health care. At this time of great international concern, I am thinking especially of the peoples of Afghanistan, who must urgently receive necessary aid. This is a world emergency, which, however, does not allow us to forget that in other parts of the world there continue to be conditions of great and compelling need.
3. In the face of these situations, it is not enough to think of extraordinary initiatives. The commitment to justice calls for a real change in lifestyle, especially in affluent societies, as well as a more equitable management of resources, in both rich and poor countries. Indeed, the present enormous imbalances spark conflicts and irreversibly threaten the earth, air and water that God has entrusted to human stewardship.
May Our Lady help the whole human family to understand that the earth's resources are a gift of the Lord to be used for the good of all. Pope Saint John Paul II (Angelus, 11 November 2001)
1. Popular piety has dedicated the month of November to the faithful departed. We confidently pray for them knowing that, as Jesus affirms in today's Gospel reading, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. All are alive for him" (Luke 20: 38). He remains faithful to his covenant with mankind, a covenant that death itself cannot destroy. 2. This alliance, sealed in Christ's Passover, is continually renewed in the sacrament of the Eucharist. It is here, therefore, that prayer for the deceased reaches its summit. By offering Holy Mass for them, believers are sustaining their final purification. Bonds of spiritual love with the deceased are strengthened when Holy Communion is received with faith. 3. May Mary Most Holy intercede from Paradise for all of our beloved deceased. As pilgrims on the earth, may she strengthen our faith in the final resurrection, whose promise is offered to us in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Pope Saint John Paul II (Angelus, 7 November 2004)
Today, 11 November, the Church remembers St Martin, Bishop of Tours, one of the most celebrated and venerated Saints of Europe. Born of pagan parents in Pannonia, in what is today Hungary, he was directed by his father to a military career around the year 316. Still an adolescent, Martin came into contact with Christianity and, overcoming many difficulties, he enrolled as a catechumen in order to prepare for Baptism. He would receive the Sacrament in his 20s, but he would still stay for a long time in the army, where he would give testimony of his new lifestyle: respectful and inclusive of all, he treated his attendant as a brother and avoided vulgar entertainment. Leaving military service, he went to Poitiers in France near the holy Bishop Hilary. He was ordained a deacon and priest by him, chose the monastic life and with some disciples established the oldest monastery known in Europe at Ligugé. About 10 years later, the Christians of Tours, who were without a Pastor, acclaimed him their Bishop. From that time, Martin dedicated himself with ardent zeal to the evangelization of the countryside and the formation of the clergy. While many miracles are attributed to him, St Martin is known most of all for an act of fraternal charity. While still a young soldier, he met a poor man on the street numb and trembling from the cold. He then took his own cloak and, cutting it in two with his sword, gave half to that man. Jesus appeared to him that night in a dream smiling, dressed in the same cloak.
Dear brothers and sisters, St Martin's charitable gesture flows from the same logic that drove Jesus to multiply the loaves for the hungry crowd, but most of all to leave himself to humanity as food in the Eucharist, supreme Sign of God's love, Sacramentum caritatis. It is the logic of sharing which he used to authentically explain love of neighbour. May St Martin help us to understand that only by means of a common commitment to sharing is it possible to respond to the great challenge of our times: to build a world of peace and justice where each person can live with dignity. This can be achieved if a world model of authentic solidarity prevails which assures to all inhabitants of the planet food, water, necessary medical treatment, and also work and energy resources as well as cultural benefits, scientific and technological knowledge.
Let us turn now to the Virgin Mary so that all Christians may be like St Martin, generous witnesses of the Gospel of love and tireless builders of jointly responsible sharing. Pope Benedict XVI (Angelus, 11 November 2007)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-323. 8-)
See our compilation with Pictures in Encouragements-324. 8-)
(EXTRAORDINARY JUBILEE OF MERCY, JUBILEE FOR PRISONERS) The message that God’s word wants to bring us today is surely that of hope, the hope that does not disappoint.
One of the seven brothers condemned to death by King Antiochus Epiphanes speaks of “the hope God gives of being raised again by him” (2 Maccabees 7:14). These words demonstrate the faith of those martyrs who, despite suffering and torture, were steadfast in looking to the future. Theirs was a faith that, in acknowledging God as the source of their hope, reflected the desire to attain a new life.
In the Gospel, we have heard how Jesus, with a simple yet complete answer, demolishes the banal casuistry that the Sadducees had set before him. His response – “He is not God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to him” (Luke 20:38) – reveals the true face of God, who desires only life for all his children. The hope of being born to a new life, then, is what we must make our own, if we are to be faithful to the teaching of Jesus.
Hope is a gift of God. We must ask for it. It is placed deep within each human heart in order to shed light on this life, so often troubled and clouded by so many situations that bring sadness and pain. We need to nourish the roots of our hope so that they can bear fruit; primarily, the certainty of God’s closeness and compassion, despite whatever evil we have done. There is no corner of our heart that cannot be touched by God’s love. Whenever someone makes a mistake, the Father’s mercy is all the more present, awakening repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace.
Today we celebrate the Jubilee of Mercy for you and with you, our brothers and sisters who are imprisoned. Mercy, as the expression of God’s love, is something we need to think about more deeply. Certainly, breaking the law involves paying the price, and losing one’s freedom is the worst part of serving time, because it affects us so deeply. All the same, hope must not falter. Paying for the wrong we have done is one thing, but another thing entirely is the “breath” of hope, which cannot be stifled by anyone or anything. Our heart always yearns for goodness. We are in debt to the mercy that God constantly shows us, for he never abandons us (cf. Augustine, Sermo 254:1).
In his Letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul speaks of God as “the God of hope” (15:13). It is as if Paul wants to say also to us: “God hopes”. While this may seem paradoxical, it is true: God hopes! His mercy gives him no rest. He is like that Father in the parable, who keeps hoping for the return of his son who has fallen by the wayside (Luke 15:11-32). God does not rest until he finds the sheep that was lost (Luke 15:5). So if God hopes, then no one should lose hope. For hope is the strength to keep moving forward. It is the power to press on towards the future and a changed life. It is the incentive to look to tomorrow, so that the love we have known, for all our failings, can show us a new path. In a word, hope is the proof, lying deep in our hearts, of the power of God’s mercy. That mercy invites us to keep looking ahead and to overcome our attachment to evil and sin through faith and abandonment in him.
Dear friends, today is your Jubilee! Today, in God’s sight, may your hope be kindled anew. A Jubilee, by its very nature, always brings with it a proclamation of freedom (Leviticus 25:39-46). It does not depend on me to grant this, but the Church’s duty, one she cannot renounce, is to awaken within you the desire for true freedom. Sometimes, a certain hypocrisy leads to people considering you only as wrongdoers, for whom prison is the sole answer. I want to tell you, every time I visit a prison I ask myself: “Why them and not me?”. We can all make mistakes: all of us. And in one way or another we have made mistakes. Hypocrisy leads us to overlook the possibility that people can change their lives; we put little trust in rehabilitation, rehabilitation into society. But in this way we forget that we are all sinners and often, without being aware of it, we too are prisoners. At times we are locked up within our own prejudices or enslaved to the idols of a false sense of wellbeing. At times we get stuck in our own ideologies or absolutize the laws of the market even as they crush other people. At such times, we imprison ourselves behind the walls of individualism and self-sufficiency, deprived of the truth that sets us free. Pointing the finger against someone who has made mistakes cannot become an alibi for concealing our own contradictions.
We know that in God’s eyes no one can consider himself just (cf. Romans 2:1-11). But no one can live without the certainty of finding forgiveness! The repentant thief, crucified at Jesus’ side, accompanied him into paradise (cf. Luke 23:43). So may none of you allow yourselves to be held captive by the past! True enough, even if we wanted to, we can never rewrite the past. But the history that starts today, and looks to the future, has yet to be written, by the grace of God and your personal responsibility. By learning from past mistakes, you can open a new chapter of your lives. Let us never yield to the temptation of thinking that we cannot be forgiven. Whatever our hearts may accuse us of, small or great, “God is greater than our hearts” (1 John 3:20). We need but entrust ourselves to his mercy.
Faith, even when it is as tiny as a grain of mustard seed, can move mountains (cf. Matthew 17:20). How many times has the power of faith enabled us to utter the word pardon in humanly impossible situations. People who have suffered violence and abuse, either themselves, or in the person of their loved ones, or their property… there are some wounds that only God’s power, his mercy, can heal. But when violence is met with forgiveness, even the hearts of those who have done wrong can be conquered by the love that triumphs over every form of evil. In this way, among the victims and among those who wronged them, God raises up true witnesses and workers of mercy.
Today we venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary in this statue, which represents her as a Mother who holds Jesus in her arms, together with a broken chain; it is the chain of slavery and imprisonment. May Our Lady look upon each of you with a Mother’s love. May she intercede for you, so that your hearts can experience the power of hope for a new life, one worthy of being lived in complete freedom and in service to your neighbour. Pope Francis I (Homily, 6 November 2016)
Within just days of the Solemnity of All Saints and of the Commemoration of the faithful departed, this Sunday’s Liturgy invites us once again to reflect upon the mystery of the resurrection of the dead. The Gospel (cf. Luke 20:27-38) presents Jesus confronted by several Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection and considered the relationship with God only in the dimension of earthly life. Therefore, in order to place the resurrection under ridicule and to create difficulty for Jesus, they submit a paradoxical and absurd case: that of a woman who’d had seven husbands, all brothers, who died one after the other. Thus came the malicious question posed to Jesus: in the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be (v. 33)?
Jesus does not fall into the snare and emphasizes the truth of the resurrection, explaining that life after death will be different from that on earth. He makes his interlocutors understand that it is not possible to apply the categories of this world to the realities that transcend and surpass what we see in this life. He says, in fact: “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage” (vv. 34-35). With these words, Jesus means to explain that in this world we live a provisional reality, which ends; conversely, in the afterlife, after the resurrection, we will no longer have death as the horizon and will experience all things, even human bonds, in the dimension of God, in a transfigured way. Even marriage, a sign and instrument of God in this world, will shine brightly, transformed in the full light of the glorious communion of saints in Paradise.
The “sons of heaven and of the resurrection” are not a few privileged ones, but are all men and all women, because the salvation that Jesus brings is for each one of us. And the life of the risen shall be equal to that of angels (cf. v. 36), meaning wholly immersed in the light of God, completely devoted to his praise, in an eternity filled with joy and peace. But pay heed! Resurrection is not only the fact of rising after death, but is a new genre of life which we already experience now; it is the victory over nothing that we can already anticipate. Resurrection is the foundation of the faith and of Christian hope. Were there no reference to Paradise and to eternal life, Christianity would be reduced to ethics, to a philosophy of life. Instead, the message of Christian faith comes from heaven, it is revealed by God and goes beyond this world. Belief in resurrection is essential in order that our every act of Christian love not be ephemeral and an end in itself, but may become a seed destined to blossom in the garden of God, and to produce the fruit of eternal life.
May the Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth, confirm us in the hope of resurrection and help us to make fruitful in good works her Son’s word sown in our hearts. Pope Francis I (Angelus, 6 November 2016)
Angelus, 10 November 2019 Extracts: Jesus’ clear certainty about resurrection is based entirely on the fidelity of God, Who is the God of life. In fact, behind the question of the Sadducees is hidden a more profound question: not only whose wife will be the widow of the seven husbands, but to whom will her life belong. This is a doubt that touches mankind of every age and also us: after this earthly pilgrimage, what will become of our life? Will it belong to nothing, to death?
Jesus responds that life belongs to God, who loves us and cares very deeply about us, to the point of linking His name to ours: He is “the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him” (vv. 37-38). Life exists where there is [a] bond, communion, brotherhood; and it is a life stronger than death when it is built on true relationships and bonds of fidelity. On the contrary, there is no life where one has the presumption of belonging only to oneself and of living as an island: death prevails in these attitudes. It is selfishness. If I live for myself, I am sowing death in my heart.
May the Virgin Mary help us to live every day from the perspective of what we affirm in the final part of the Creed: “ We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come”. Awaiting the hereafter. Pope Francis I (Angelus, 10 November 2019)
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 3 November 2019 Last updated: 5 November 2022, 19:38 SGT
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