William Cardinal Goh The Shepherd's Voice

Many of our sufferings are due to ignorance and sin because of selfishness and fear. We cause suffering not just to ourselves but to our loved ones as well, and those who have been good to us. Yet in all these mistakes of ours, God is truly kind and merciful. He tries to salvage the situation and render justice to all parties. God is gracious and seeks to help us to adjust to life and use our mist...

Today's readings reveal that God wants us to share in His life and love forever. To find life and healing, we need to have faith in Jesus. We grow our faith by constantly curbing our pride and recognising our need for Him, as well as being courageous and patient.

There are many non-Catholics who believe that our God can heal and many of them when being prayed over, surrender themselves in faith. It is our Catholics that lack faith in miracles and in the power of healing. Many, instead of turning to Jesus, turn to other religions and faith healers or New Age healing. Even though they are supposed to have faith in Jesus, their lives contradict what they beli...

For us Christians, baptism is a gift from God. In our sinful situation, like the leper in today’s gospel, we can do nothing to redeem ourselves. Very few can claim to have absolute faith in God when they were baptized. Faith is a growing reality. It is not something we possess once and for all, or something that cannot grow further. Faith remains a free gift from God. He can work in us in ways bey...

Today, we live in a very secularized society where there are no values, no objectivity in truth, a society that lives only for itself and for today. Yet, today’s scripture readings on the Birthday of John the Baptist assure us that the divine plan of God would remain in place. Each of us in our own way are called to fulfill the place and role that God has assigned to us in His plan of salvation. W...

Many things in life are not as clear as we think they are. Life can be very complicated. Nevertheless, in all discernment, we must always look for the lasting fruits of the Spirit. The shield of love of the Holy Spirit will protect us from falling into the traps of the wolves around us. But the shield of love must be supplemented by the shield of faith. Without faith, we would not be able to perse...

Today's Gospel passage illustrates how we can lack faith - not in God's power and authority - but in His immense love for us. As that fear of being unloved by God increases, our faith will slacken. To overcome this fear, we need to be convicted of who He is to us, time and time again. We can do this in prayer, when we enjoy intimacy with the Lord.

God’s strength is always seen in our weakness. When people see us as great sinners or incompetent for our ministry but with God’s power at work in and with us, we teach and preach with courage and conviction, then they know it is truly the work of God and not just the work of man. In today’s gospel, He told His disciples not to rely on money and the things of this world to find security. Our secur...

We must take our Lord's admonition seriously: “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” What are the eternal values we seek in our life? What will continue even after our death? We are called to imitate St Paul who understood that what ultimately lasts are the sacrifices of love and service to God and to our fellowmen. How we have shown love and related to others will remain and be...

In the face of criticism and opposition to his ministry in Corinth, St Paul found himself having to defend his authority as an apostle. He did this by showing the sincerity of his love for the Christians. His intentions were pure, not so much to get the people’s support for him but to ensure that they remained faithful to Christ as His spouse. He preached with conviction from his personal encounte...

The scripture readings today speak of the reward that comes with giving of ourselves to others; the reward is a foretaste of heaven, as we share in His life of joy, peace, love and true freedom. How can we purify the intentions of our giving today?

A Christian therefore lives from the future, which is already given to us in Christ’s death and resurrection. It is this future life that determines how he lives today. As Paul said, “whether we are living in the body or exiled from it, we are intent on pleasing him.” When we love the Lord and when we desire to be in full union with Him, we seek to please Him here and now by living the kind of lif...

What do we mean when we say that Mary’s heart is immaculate? When we say someone is immaculate we mean that someone is pure and impeccable in virtues and in holiness. Hence, being a sinner is to live less than an authentic human life. Mary’s immaculate heart shows us what an authentic life should be. She is the model of holiness and how we must live our life to find true happiness and peace. She w...

If love is the heart of Christianity, it also means that our mission is essentially one of tender love, mercy and forgiveness as well. The work of evangelization is not about proselytism or getting new converts. Rather, it is to mediate the unconditional and unimaginable love of God for the world.  The message of the gospel is about love and mercy. It is also important that the proclamat...

We who are made in the image and likeness of God should be reflecting His glory in our life. Yet we know that we have lost His likeness because of sin. Today’s gospel text deals with the first common sin in humanity: anger. When sown in our heart, anger can be expressed in contemptuous words and sarcasm. Anger does not only hurt our enemies and destroy them, it ultimately destroys our own selves....

The Mosaic Law gave the principles of how each one was to conduct himself so that the community would live in peace, harmony and security. But whilst good, the law did not give one the power to fulfill them. Just because we know what is right and wrong, does not mean that we can do it. But the new covenant that Jesus came to bring is not based on the Law. It is a relationship of love between God a...

The common thread in today's scripture readings is the shedding of blood, as a sacrificial offering. The difference is that the sacrifice of Christ is a perfect one for our salvation. Why? Because Christ was not just the priest but an unblemished victim of the sacrifice. Furthermore, His sacrifice was voluntary and given for humanity purely out of love for us. So great and efficacious was His sacr...

In today’s gospel, Jesus gave us all a model, an exemplar of what it means to love God through the widow who gave form the little that she had. In giving whatever little she had, she showed her deep faith in God and her undivided and loyal love for Him. Her giving was not to replace faith. Indeed, good works cannot substitute faith. Rather, her giving of everything she had to the Temple treasury w...

Our perception of God is often limited by our world view, presuppositions and lack of faith in His wisdom. We tend to reduce God to our level and make Him think the way we do. Isaiah wrote, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa 55:...

In today's Gospel passage, Jesus ingeniously enlightened the scribe on what was most fundamental in the law.  If there was only one word, it is love. St Paul and St Augustine said similar things, that love is the fulfillment of the law. That said, the commandment to love God with our entire being must be expressed in our love for our neighbours. What implications does it have for us Christian...

The question of faith in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body is critical to how we live our life today. Indeed, if we do not have faith in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection, it has an impact on our ethical life. When we do not have faith in an after-life, it is more difficult to tell someone to make sacrifices, deny himself, and suffer for the greater good o...

If we are created in the image and likeness of God and share in Christ’s sonship, our relationships with God and our fellow men cannot be one of isolation and alienation. We are called to relate to God in a personal way. It also means that if we were to find fulfillment and meaning in life, we must be like the Holy Trinity, to live for each other, with each other, in each other and by each other....

In the final analysis, the authority that comes from God is not just by appointment to an office or through study and research in the world of academia, but a personal authority, which could encompass both legitimate appointment and intellectual competency. But we cannot restrict authority to a mere exercise of an office or claim to intellectual reliability. It must be seen in our life, in our way...

Not all of us leave a legacy behind when we leave this world. Indeed, this is tragic because it means that we have not lived a fruitful life. We have not made this world a better place when we leave. More tragic still if we have caused the world to be in a worse shape than before we were born. Truly we are all called to be fruitful. People will not remember us for our achievements and our successe...

Many of us claim to know Jesus and have seen Him, and yet in truth we have not. We are, as the gospel says, blind disciples of Christ. We cannot see Jesus because we do not seek Jesus. We are not clear why we want to follow Jesus. Jesus asked Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” This is the question we need to ask ourselves sincerely. For the blind man, that question of our Lord seems...