Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the words of the Scriptures in which we are all told of the story of the Passover in Egypt, the very first time it was celebrated in that land, where the Israelites, the people of God were being liberated from their slavery. We then also heard of how the Lord instructed His people to eat the Feast of the Passover, by preparing the unblemished lamb for the sacrifice and for the meal, and related to the words of the Lord in our Gospel passage today, in which He chastised the Pharisees who were criticising Him and His disciples for having picked the grains of wheat on the Sabbath day, a day that was considered sacrosanct and holy for the people of God. Through all of these we are reminded that we have to appreciate and understand what it truly means for us to follow and obey the Lord, that with our hearts and not only with our intellect.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of Exodus we heard of the moment when the Israelites were instructed by God to prepare for their very first Passover in the land of Egypt, after God had sent nine great Plagues upon Egypt and its people because of the stubbornness and refusal of the Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go free and continue to enslave them. The Lord was about to send His tenth and greatest Plague, which would see the death and destruction of all the firstborn sons of the Egyptians, while those of the Israelites were spared from the same death and destruction, just as the Lord had protected them all from the devastations of the earlier nine Plagues that affected only the Egyptians who had refused to listen to God and rejected the will of God Who demanded that they should free His beloved people.

The Lord therefore prepared His people for the final Plague, by which He would lead them all out of the land of Egypt, in which they were to prepare and slaughter an unblemished lamb, which they would eat on the night of the Passover, during the very night when God’s final Plague would visit Egypt. That night, God sent His Angels to rend the whole land of Egypt with death, destroying the firstborn sons of the Egyptians, but God’s people were spared because they have marked their houses with the blood of the unblemished Passover lamb. That is exactly the meaning of the word Passover, that is the people of God had been ‘passed over’ from death, and brought out free from their state of slavery into freedom and new life, as God brought them into the land which He has promised to them and their ancestors.

And in case we do not realise or fully appreciate it, this is a prefigurement of what the Lord will do with all of us and also what He had done, as He sent us all His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, just as He has sent Moses to the Israelites, so that through His Son, He might proclaim His saving grace and the desire to see all of us freed and liberated from our enslavement to sin and evil. God has gathered all of us to Himself, and called on us to follow Him, and by sending to us His Son, He has also given us the perfect means to our salvation, that as the Paschal Lamb, the Lamb of God, Christ has obediently embraced His role, in being the Mediator of the New Covenant, together with being our Eternal High Priest, in offering Himself as the perfect and worthy offering for the atonement of our many sins and wickedness.

Just as the Israelites had been delivered from the Egyptians by the hand of God, and marked by the blood of the unblemished lamb, to be spared from the death and destruction, and as mark of the Covenant that God would establish with them, thus, all of us in a similar way, had been marked by the Most Precious Blood of the Lord, freely outpoured and given for us. Christ Himself has willingly offered Himself to be slaughtered and slain, on the Altar of His Cross, and through Him, all of us who believe in Him and partake in the Most Holy Eucharist, receiving His own Most Precious Body and Blood, has become part of the New and Eternal Covenant which God has established with each and every one of us, by which all of us have been assured salvation and grace. Just like in the past, God having rescued His people Israel, thus He has now endeavoured to save all of us from eternal death because of our sins.

This is what the Lord has always intended with us, out of His ever present and most generous love, overflowing from Him and unto each and every one of us. All of His Law and commandments have always been intended with the purpose of guiding us all to Him and to show us the way to righteousness and how we can love Him better through our way of life and actions. Each and every one of us are blessed to have been so beloved by God, and today’s Gospel passage reminds us yet again of this fact. The reason why the Lord criticised the Pharisees for their uncharitable comment and criticism was because they failed to understand the true meaning and purpose of the Law of the Sabbath. The Sabbath day was meant by the Lord to be a day dedicated to the Lord, so that amidst their busy lives and schedules, God’s people may find some time to reconnect with Him and keep themselves focused on Him. But this does not mean that it must be taken so literally like what was done by the Pharisees, who forbid any kind of activities or actions on the Sabbath, even when it is for the common good and benefit of man.

Today, that is why we are reminded again that we should be truly faithful to God and be filled with love for Him as always. We should do our best so that in all things, we will continue to grow ever stronger in faith and love for the Lord, in our commitment and dedication to Him, as His beloved people. That is why today we all should also model ourselves upon the good and inspiring examples set by St. Lawrence of Brindisi, a great servant of God whose life and commitment to Him can inspire us in how we all also should live our own lives, with faith. St. Lawrence of Brindisi was a priest and member of the Capuchin religious order, remembered for his piety and fluency in many languages, who had also fought in part of a conflict and war against the forces of the oppressors of the Church, according to tradition, being armed with only a crucifix. He committed his whole life to serve the Lord, in ministering his fellow Capuchin brothers and sisters as its vicar general and highest office holder, among other works among the people of God, right up to his last days.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, can we follow the great examples of St. Lawrence of Brindisi and discern carefully how we can carry out our lives ever more worthily for the sake of the Lord? Can we listen to the Lord, obey His Law and commandments more and more, growing in our love and faith in Him, remembering ever always just how great His love is for us, that He did so much for us, on our behalf, in order to deliver us from destruction due to sin and death. May the Lord, our most loving God, be with us all His Church, that we may always be faithful to Him at all times. Amen.