Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, all of us are reminded yet again that all of us should have faith in the Lord and we should truly have faith in Him, and believe in His words. We should not doubt Him and we should always uphold a strong faith and have trust in Him, because He has always been true to His words. He has fulfilled the promises He had made to His people, as the Scriptures and traditions have shown us, in how God had always been there for us, for all of our fellow brothers and sisters who have suffered and were in need. The Lord’s help came at the time of His choosing, and while it might not be what the people had wanted, or at the time they desired it to be, God’s help and will came true just as He has desired it to be.
In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis in which the story of Abraham and his wife, Sarah, and their encounter with God was highlighted to us. At that occasion, God, Who had made a Covenant with Abraham, promising that the latter would soon have a son through Sarah, came to visit Abraham and Sarah at their place in Hebron, and Abraham immediately recognised the Lord Who came disguised in the figure of three men visiting his abode. Abraham welcomed the Lord and listened to all that the Lord revealed to him through His appearance. God once again reiterated that all that He had promised would come true, and everything would indeed happen as He had promised it to Abraham and Sarah.
And as we heard, Sarah was laughing quietly to herself when she heard the words of the Lord. The Lord knew what Sarah had done, and told her that everything would indeed come true as He had said it, and reminding her that everything is possible for God, and nothing is truly impossible for the all-powerful, Almighty God. It is definitely within God’s power to grant a son to an elderly couple, and to a woman who was already way beyond her childbearing years. The Lord did not joke about when He promised all that to Abraham, and indeed, everything came true as He had said and revealed it to Abraham. Abraham was indeed a bit impatient, and if we read on more about what happened then, we could see ourselves how he also wavered sometimes in faith.
For Abraham, according to the Book of Genesis, took his wife’s slave, Hagar, and had a son with her, out of the custom that this was the common practice during that time, that the son of a woman’s slave would be considered as her own son, and therefore could legally become the heir and inheritor of the family’s fortunes and more. However, that was not what God had in plan for Abraham and his family. When He promised Abraham that he would have a son, He was clear in stating that the son would be born to Abraham and Sarah, and indeed, it was fulfilled when Isaac, the promised child, was born to Sarah. The name Isaac itself means ‘laughter’ which does not just represent the joy that Abraham and Sarah of finally having their own son, but also a reminder of Sarah’s folly of laughing at the Lord’s promise, and for her momentary doubt and lack of faith.
In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the Lord Jesus and His interaction with an army captain or centurion, a rather high-ranking military man who had a sick servant. We all remember the phrase that the army centurion had mentioned, because at every celebration of the Holy Mass, all of us always mention the words that the army centurioned uttered, ‘Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed’, which was almost exactly similar as what the captain had mentioned to the Lord. In that occasion, the captain exhibited publicly deep faith that he had in the Lord, in that he did not even need to see the Lord physically doing the miracle and healing to believe that He could heal his ailing servant, and he trusted in the Lord so much that he knew that by His words alone, his servant would be made well again.
We have to contrast this to the attitude of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who have seen and witnessed many of the Lord’s signs and miracles, actions and works, and yet still refused to believe in Him, and even asked and demanded Him to show them more signs and wonders, before they would believe in Him. The army captain, a person of high rank, that could even be one of the Romans, given the gravity of his position, could have been proud and haughty as well, and demanding the Lord to come and attend to his servant. Instead, he was full of humility and consideration, likely knowing that in the Jewish customs and practices, it was taboo for a Jew like the Lord Jesus to come and enter into the household of a pagan like the captain himself, for that would have made them unclean. Thus, the army captain publicly professed his faith and trust in the Lord by doing what he had done.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we can clearly see how all of us are called and reminded to have faith in the Lord, to trust in Him, in His words, providence and in all the things that He had done for us. The Lord has never abandoned us or refused us, and He has always patiently reached out to us, and waiting for us all to return to Him, for all of us are truly and dearly beloved by Him. Each and every one of us who have received this most wonderful love and grace, and received the revelation of His truth through the Church, all of us as Christians should therefore embody our faith in God through our lives, our every actions and deeds, in our every interactions, even to the smallest and seemingly least significant of the things we say and do in our daily moments. We should be inspired by the examples of Abraham, our father in faith and also the faith of the army captain in today’s Gospel.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore reach out to the Lord with renewed faith and commitment, doing whatever we can to glorify Him by our lives, by our every actions, words and deeds. Let us all be the shining beacons of God’s truth and love, and may our lives ever be inspiration for many others, in how we embody our faith in the Lord and in our unfailing dedication to Him, at all times. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 