Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures speaking to us about the Lord Who has been revealed to the world at the Temple through the servants of God, Simeon and Anna the prophetess. These two faithful servants proclaimed the Messiah in the sight and presence of many, and perhaps many heard their words and believe.

And all of us brothers and sisters in the same faith in God, all are gathered here because we all believe in Him, believe in His saving help, the rescue that He had given us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, His own Son, Whom He sent into the world, taking up our own humble flesh, that through that act, and by offering Himself as the perfect offering for our sake, He had redeemed us from our sins and brought us into a new hope for eternal life.

Brothers and sisters, as we continue to go on through this Christmas season or Christmastide, all of us should indeed reflect on this joyous fact, the very fact that our Lord and God had decided to become our Saviour, and He had done that by emptying Himself and becoming a Man like us, that by uniting all of us through Himself, and by giving all of us His own Body and Blood, we who share in His Body and Blood may receive eternal life.

This is the testimony of God’s great and eternal love for us, and His love always endures, despite all of the rejections and the wickedness we have shown for Him, all the rebukes, the refusal to change and the lack of willingness to commit ourselves to His ways. God is always faithful, even if we are unfaithful. He always extends His mercy to cover us and to be with us, until the moment when it is too late for us because we continue to reject Him and refuse to follow Him.

Let this fate not be ours, lest we fall into eternal damnation. If we wait until that had happened, then there is no hope for us, and we will suffer for eternity in hell and in the pain of the total and complete separation from God, and forevermore we shall suffer in ultimate agony and anguish. This is what our Lord did not want to happen to us, and therefore, He sent us a new hope, a Deliverer and a Saviour to bring us into the opportunity to be reunited with Him and thus enjoy forever instead, an eternity of bliss, joy and happiness with Him in heaven.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we all have known God and all that He has done for us. We recognise His love, and all the blessings that He had graced us with. He loves all of us tenderly, and in all things He had granted us He has brought us free from our afflictions. But we all have to realise that there are still many out there who have not known yet about the Lord or heard about Him.

Yes, there are still many who are either ignorant or unable to know the truth about God, and there are still also those who have left the Lord and abandoned Him for the goodness and the pleasures of this world. And it is in our responsibility and duty as one of those who are faithful to God, to be the bearers of His Good News and truth to those who have not heard or known these yet.

This is another meaning of Christmas, that is because Christmas cannot be commemorated or celebrated without understanding the whole big picture in the history of salvation. Without what we celebrate during the Holy Week and Easter, what we celebrate in Christmas will be meaningless. On the other hand, what we celebrate in the Holy Week and Easter would not have been possible without the occurrence of Christmas.

For our Lord came into this world as a Man, and yet a great and almighty King, because of the love which He had for us all. He came so that by His life and by His works, culminating in His own self-sacrifice on the cross, He might become the bridge and intermediary between us and the Lord, that through Him He had redeemed us, absolved us from the taints of original sins, and therefore, bring us into salvation in Him.

Therefore, on this day, let us all commit ourselves anew to the Lord and to the evangelisation of His people with the truth which He Himself had shown us. Let us all spread the Word of God to the many peoples of the nations. May God’s salvation extend to the nations, and may His love for us mankind will be ever more and more enduring and great. God bless us all. Amen.