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I don’t know if I had said it before but I have always had a great fondness for Pope John Paul II. I had looked upon him as a saint while he was still alive. And teared whenever I saw him in the news where he was to be found bent over and unable to speak in his latter years. Even then you could see the towering strength of His faith and love for Jesus in that frail body of his. I sobbed bitterly when he passed on and rejoiced when he was canonized a Saint.

I took the first half of a day’s leave today only with the intention of sleeping in. But I woke up at 5am and decided to go the Eucharistic Celebration oblivious that today is the feast day of St John Paul II. As the celebration was about to begin someone motioned for me to animate the hymns. I quickly chose the hymns and we began with Holy God We praise Your name.

The parish priest gave a sermon about the life of Karol Jozef Wojtyla and how He had brought the light of Christ into the world. At the end of the celebration he gave us a rare opportunity and invited us to come a up after the recessional hymn to come up and place our hands on the altar to pray for Saint John Paul II’s intercession remembering his opening address as Pope when he began with, “Be not afraid…” The altar in our church is a third class relic of Saint John Paul II who had celebrated Mass on this altar when he first visited Singapore in 1986.

After the meeting with President Wee and Prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, the pope proceeded to the National Stadium, where a special welcoming ceremony began with the playing of the national anthems of Singapore and the Vatican. He was driven round the track of the stadium in a jeep. He approached 400 disabled, aged and sick people seated at the football pitch and said special prayers for them. Standing at an elaborate altar, he then conducted a two-hour mass, including a half-hour sermon in English, with simultaneous translations in Mandarin and Tamil. He also distributed communion to the sick, aged and disabled. With him in the stands were Archbishop Yong, some 40 cardinals, 200 priests and 100 lay ministers.11 Some 80,000 Catholics, including those from Malaysia and Thailand, attended the papal mass. In his sermon to Singapore’s 105,000 Catholics, the pope spoke of love and peace. He also reaffirmed the Church’s stand against artificial forms of birth control, saying it was up to Catholic couples themselves to decide how many children they wanted.12

That elaborate altar is now in our Parish the Church of St Anthony.

St John Paul II pray for us. Amen

The Christian faith is not practical! It is a whole lot of mumbo jumbo which fills the believers with empty hope and fantasy! You need to be prepared for a rainy day and there is no such thing as enough for you need to store up for your children’s children so that your legacy will be intact. These are the voices of many in the world. Who go on searching for happiness, love and peace because it is fleeting for them.

We who call ourselves Christians are so, because we have encountered the living God, our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. For while we were still sinners He came to us with His mercy and love. Freed us from the death grip of sin and made us clean and whole. To love and be loved, to live in His Peace, love and with joy in our hearts. We live then not for ourselves but to love and serve our Lord and one another. Everything we need is to be found in the Lord our God.

Our faith is not only practical but very real. For Jesus walks with us as we carry out cross to follow Him. By our faith and love we will change the world through Christ our Lord. Amen

First reading

Ephesians 2:1-10
Sinners are saved in Christ Jesus

You were dead through the crimes and the sins in which you used to live when you were following the way of this world, obeying the ruler who governs the air, the spirit who is at work in the rebellious. We all were among them too in the past, living sensual lives, ruled entirely by our own physical desires and our own ideas; so that by nature we were as much under God’s anger as the rest of the world. But God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ – it is through grace that you have been saved – and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus.
This was to show for all ages to come, through his goodness towards us in Christ Jesus, how infinitely rich he is in grace. Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything that you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit. We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it.

Gospel

Luke 12:13-21
Fool! This very night your soul will be demanded of you

A man in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.’ ‘My friend,’ he replied, ‘who appointed me your judge, or the arbitrator of your claims?’ Then he said to them, ‘Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs.’
Then he told them a parable: ‘There was once a rich man who, having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, “What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come; take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time.” But God said to him, “Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?” So it is when a man stores up treasure for himself in place of making himself rich in the sight of God.’