This weekend, the Church celebrates the Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 22:34-40. A scholar of the law questioned Jesus which commandment was the most important and Jesus responded: first, to love God with all your heart, strength, and will; and secondly, to love your neighbour as yourself. At that time, Jewish scholars constantly debated the precedence of the hundreds of commandments, so Jesus had just resolved the age-old debate: love. Jesus had taken the commandment to love God from Deuteronomy 6, which all Jews had memorized and yet which the Pharisees failed to live out. In fact, we can sometimes be like the Pharisees and think that we must completely understand God through our intellect, but God wants us to love whole-heartedly even more. For lower things like eating and drinking, we should choose with our intellect. But for higher things like religion, we should choose with our will. In recent years, numerous mystics have constantly reminded us that without love, the amount of money or time we give is worth nothing. There was once a priest who passed by a tombstone that read: this person died at age 90, but only lived three years. On asking what this meant, he was told that the deceased person began loving God at age 87 and wanted others to know after their death that only their final three years could be considered as truly living.

Our Lady of Akita urges prayers for clergy and reparation for sins. In 1973 Our Lady gave three messages to Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa through a statue. From Jan. 4, 1975, to Sept. 15, 1981, the statue shed tears 101 times. The statue also shed blood and perspired with sweet perfume.

This weekend, the Church celebrates the Twenty Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 22:15-22. The Pharisees, Herodians, and other religious leaders were trying to ensnare Jesus with questions and they asked Him whether it was lawful to pay tax to Caesar. If Jesus responded yes, the Jews would see Him as a traitor to the Romans; if He responded no, then He could be accused of sedition before the Romans. Jesus instead accused His questioners of hypocrisy for asking Him questions out of a desire to test Him instead of a desire to discover the truth - they were doing the work of the devil. He told them to bring out a Roman coin - it had the image of a pagan god or king and was seen as idolatrous by the Jews. The religious leaders immediately brought such a coin, showing how they were just as worldly as the tax collectors they so despised. Jesus asked them whose image was on the coin and they responded, "Caesar's." He then said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's." In those days, there were two taxes: a national tax to support the administration and a temple tax to support the liturgy and charitable works. Coins bearing pagan gods or kings had to be exchanged before paying the temple tax, so at the most basic level, Jesus was simply pointing out which coin could be used to pay tax. But at a deeper level, He was saying that we have a duty to the state. In the end, however, countries will end and what they can give us is limited, while we all have the image of God and belong to the everlasting Kingdom of God. History is filled with Caesars who sought to appropriate God's majesty, such as the state worship demanded by Communism. Christians ought to strongly resist such tendencies.

In this episode, we will share a song sung by Jay Fung - the Countdown. If you know when is the end of times, what would you be doing? What are the most important things in life?

This weekend, the Church celebrates the Twenty Eighty Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 22:1-14. Jesus tells the Parable of the Wedding Feast: a king was holding a wedding feast for his son and sent his servants to invite his guests. But the guests not only made excuses and rejected the invitations, they also insulted and killed the servants. The king then sent his servants to invite people from the street and one of the new guests entered without a wedding garment, so the king drove him out. In this parable, the wedding feast of course represents the Heaven that God has already prepared for us and the wedding garment is sanctifying grace. In those days, wedding hosts would provide the wedding garments for his guests, so that travelling guests would not have them dirtied by the dust from the road. Thus, a guest who did not wear a wedding garment could only be insulting the host. Our souls are the life of our bodies and only with grace can we attain eternal life. Once we have received grace, we can only lose it through mortal sin, and fortunately we have the Sacraments of Baptism and Confession to restore us to grace. God has already prepared the eternal wedding banquet for us and paid the greatest price: the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, which is the source of all seven Sacraments. We ought to beseech God to open our hearts and make us worthy to enter into the eternal Heavenly banquet.

This episode of Sound Colour Pilgrimage will take you to two places of Our Lady in Spain: Covadonga and Prado Nuevo. We will also summarize our experience from the past 10 episodes of pilgrimage in Spain.

This weekend, the Church celebrates the Twenty Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 21:33-46. Jesus tells two parables to accuse the religious authorities of injustice: the first tells of ungrateful vineyard tenants who refuse to give their produce to their master and kill the servants and son who are sent; and the second tells of the stone that the builders rejected that became the cornerstone. In the first parable, the master is clearly God, the vineyard is Israel, the fence is the Law, the tenants are the religious leaders, the servants are the prophets, and the son is Jesus. Jesus knew that the religious leaders planned to kill Him, so He prophesied what would happen to the vineyard once He was killed: the tenants would be evicted and the vineyard given over to new tenants. This predicted the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Romans, which rendered the priestly profession obselete and left only the perfect sacrifice of Christ. The tenants did not recognize the master as their master, just as we often do not see God as our Lord, because we twist His Commandments and set ourselves as our own masters. Frequently, misfortune befalls us before we sin and we question where God was when in fact this was an opportunity given by God to repent. We ought to take full advantage of these opportunities and recognize God as our true master, offering up all the fruits of our life's work to Him.

This weekend, the Church celebrates the Twenty Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 21:28-32. The religious leaders question Jesus' authority, He asks them about the origin of John the Baptist's baptism: God or man. The leaders were afraid of the crowd and did not care to seek the truth. They refused to say John's baptism came from man, because they knew the crowd saw him as a prophet. They also refused to say his baptism came from God, because Jesus would ask them why they did not follow John. In the end, Jesus criticized them through a parable. Once, there was a father who told his two sons to do some work: the first agreed but ended up not doing the work, while the second refused but ended up doing it. Jesus asked which son did the will of the father and the leaders answered the second son. Jesus then said that the tax collectors and prostitutes would enter heaven before them because they refused to believe John the Baptist even after seeing him. From this, we can see that actions are greater than words and even a lay person who keeps the commandments is greater than a hypocritical consecrated person. Religious leaders must always be mindful of their station and must not praise God with their lips while doing the opposite in their actions. They are vulnerable to pride because they often delude themselves into thinking they cannot sin, whereas public sinners tend to realize their faults and repent. Perhaps we, because of lack of discipline, waste much time on the Internet and forsake our duties like the first son. We should practice discipline and serve God instead of ourselves.

In this episode, we will share a song sung by Keung To. How can we still find strength from adversity to care and protect the people around us?

This weekend, the Church celebrates the Twenty Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 20:1-16. Here, Jesus uses the analogy of a vineyard to describe the Kingdom of Heaven. The master of the vineyard hired workers at different times of the day and gathered them to distribute wages at dusk. The workers who had arrived earliest and latest received the same wages alike. Those who arrived earliest were indignant and thought they should receive more wages for working longer. But the master reminded them that they had all agreed to work for a denarius and if he chose to award those who worked less the same wages, that was his personal decision. He even criticized them for being jealous of his generosity. This parable reminds us that the Jews were the people first called by God and the Gentiles afterwards, so Jesus was telling the Jews not to be jealous of the Gentile newcomers. It also reminds us that God can call us at different points in life, whether we were born into a Catholic family, converted in middle age or as a student, or during old age or on our death bed. God rewards us not based on how long we have been His followers, but on how much charity we possess at the moment of our death. We must act wisely and persevere to the end. The master in the parable also met some people standing idle in the marketplace who had not found work because no one had yet called them. In the world, many people have not entered the Church, not because they intentionally chose to be atheist but because no one has yet invited them to be Catholic. The website "Catholics Come Home" works to bring lapsed Catholics back to the Church and they found that many people leave after Confirmation. They are unwilling to call themselves atheists and Christians alike, so they settle on being "without religious belief". One youth left the Church and then befriended a Catholic who invited him to help at a senior's home, go to Mass, and Confession. He agreed each time because he felt he finally had a friend to do religious activities with. Maybe we have friends who have not yet entered the Church, not because they reject Jesus, but because no one has invited them yet. September is the month many parishes start RCIA classes. Do not be afraid to invite your friends to know our Lord Jesus.

This episode of Sound Colour Pilgrimage will take you to Monasterio de Sto. Toribio de Liébana, Spain, a monastery which claimed to possess the largest piece of the True Cross Relics in the world. Let us come under the cross to embrace the forsaken Jesus.

This weekend, the Church celebrates the Twenty Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 18:21-35. Previously, the chapter discussed how to deal with sinners in the Church. Now, Peter asks Jesus how many times to forgive and receives this reply, "Not seven times, but seventy seven times." Jesus spoke a parable of a servant who owed his master 60 million days of wages and was told to sell his family to repay his debt. The servant begged his master who was moved enough to forgive his entire debt. But the servant then saw another servant who owed him a hundred days of wages and proceeded to demand it repaid. The second servant begged him for forgiveness, but the first servant would not forgive him and threw him into prison until he could repay his debt. The other servants were angry and told the master who imprisoned the first servant. When we sin, our debt against God is enormous, because we have offended the infinite God, and only the Precious Blood of Jesus can eliminate the debt of sin. Our neighbours are like the second servant: if even God has already forgiven our massive debts, how can we refuse to forgive those who owe us much less? When we do not forgive others, the angels and saints in Heaven will accuse us before God. In the Lord's Prayer, we pray "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." This clearly reminds us that those who are unwilling to forgive others have closed themselves to the possibility of receiving forgiveness from God. Sometimes we are gravely hurt by others, but forgiveness consists not in feelings but in the will. If we are willing to wish the good of the sinner and pray for their repentance and conversion, then that is already the first step to forgiveness.

Today in our Music of the Heart segment, we will share with you a song by Ian Chan about whale fall. We can grasp the meaning of love and sacrifice from the nature.

This weekend, the Church celebrates the Twenty Third Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 18:15-20. This passage concerns how to deal with disciples who have sinned: first, they are to be reprimanded in private, then with one or two witnesses present, and then by the Church, and if they will not listen even to the Church they are to be treated like Gentiles. We cannot let our brothers and sisters continue to sin and by pointing out the areas they should fix under the authority of the Church, the sinner gets the opportunity to repent. When Jesus called Peter His "Rock", the Church He mentioned was the universal Church, but the Church He mentions here is the local Church. Sometimes, the local church must excommunicate its members to prevent the poison of sin from infecting its other members. It also gives the excommunicated member a chance to repent and begin anew. Jesus gave the power to forgive sins to His Apostles, who in turn passed this power to their successors: the bishops and the priests they ordain. During Confession, the priest must decide whether the believer is truly contrite and intends to not sin again and avoid occasions of sin. Jesus once said that where two or three people are gathered to pray, He is among them. The teachers in His time said that God was present among two people who discuss the Law together, so Jesus was revealing His divine nature here. Jesus is not only present in the person of the priest, but even more in the liturgical prayers of the Church, such as at Mass, during Baptism, in Confession, and in the communal prayers. The liturgy makes our prayers more efficacious.

 

Which organ is the most useful? What are those organs that could make us a better person?