Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded of the need for us to actively live the part of the Covenant which God has lovingly made with each and every one of us, His beloved children and people, and we have to be courageous in standing up for our faith, in resisting the temptations of the evil one who has always been ever active in trying to lead us all into our downfall and destruction by tempting us with all sorts of falsehoods and lies, all sorts of worldly pleasures, desires and glory, all the things which had prevented so many of us and our predecessors from coming close towards the Lord, towards His love and the eternal life that He has promised to all of us.

In our first reading passage today, taken from the continuation of the Book of Genesis on the account of the Great Flood during the time of Noah and its aftermath, we heard of the moment when the Lord made a Covenant with Noah and his descendants, that is all of us living today in this world. This is because the Great Flood had wiped out all of mankind in the whole world and many other living things save those that took refuge in Noah’s Ark, the great ship that God had commanded Noah to build. Noah and his family were in that ship, as well as two each of the different kinds of animals, and all of them were spared the destruction of the Great Flood by God’s grace and mercy. God therefore made a new Covenant with the people whom He loved and had created, establishing with them that firm link and connection through that same Covenant.

A Covenant is a solemn pact between two parties and in such a pact, both of those who are involved are expected to fulfil their obligations and duties to the Covenant that had been established between them. And since God had made this Covenant between Himself and all of us mankind, we heard in that passage from the Book of Genesis today of exactly what these obligations, details and other things about this Covenant are. The Lord entrusted this world and all of the things He had created to us, and He will also continue to bless us all and guide us all, giving us all the means to carry out our lives and to enjoy the wonderful graces and blessings that He had granted us, which He has always intended for all of us. After all, God created us all not to suffer hardships or trials in this world but to enjoy the bounty and the fruits of His labours.

However, as a Covenant is a two-way process and commitment, we are required to commit ourselves to follow the Law and commandments which God had provided to us, and which God mentioned to Noah as a precursor to this Law that He would later reveal to his descendants. He reminded from Noah and his family, and all of their descendants the respect for the rules and laws He had set, and to obey the manners which He had provided and taught them, respecting the lives of one’s fellow mankind, and how to keep themselves free from corruption, sin and evil. This is important as it was the sins of mankind that had led to the destruction by the Great Flood in the first place, and it was God’s love and mercy that had made Him to spare the righteous ones amongst them.

Unfortunately, due to our refusal to obey the words of the Lord, our stubbornness and obstinate behaviour in rejecting God’s most generous love and kindness, His compassion and mercy, love and all the things He has provided us with freely, we have often fallen away from the path of righteousness and ended up in the path of sin again and again. We have not done what is right and proper according to what the Lord had commanded us to do. We frequently kept allowing the temptations of this world, the temptations of worldly pleasures and desires to lead us all astray, embracing our greed and desires, and all the attachments that we may have to the pleasures and comforts of life around us. And that may prevent us from fulfilling our part of the Covenant with God.

Now, in our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. Mark the Evangelist, we heard of the interactions between the Lord Jesus Christ and His disciples, as He asked them all about His identity and what they all believed about Him. We heard about all the manners of things which people at that time often believed about Him, that they considered the Lord as the Prophet or the Man of God, promised to bring salvation to the people, or that of Elijah or any other earlier prophets returning back. But St. Peter, the leader of the Apostles, spoke courageously and firmly that he and the others believed that the Lord was truly the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, the One Whom all the prophets and many others had spoken about.

This was then immediately followed by a curious exchange between the Lord and the same St. Peter, who protested when the Lord revealed to him and the other disciples that He would face lots of hardships and persecutions from the Jewish leaders and authorities, stating how He would face sufferings and eventually even to die because of the rejection by all those leaders. St. Peter likely gave in to fear and doubt, and hence, allowed Satan to make use of him to try to dissuade the Lord from doing what He had said He would be doing. But the Lord Jesus would not allow this to happen, and He rebuked Satan acting through St. Peter, and through this, He showed all of us an important reminder that we must always have strong faith in Him, not allowing the evil one to manipulate and mislead us down the wrong path. And it was by obeying His Father’s will, that our Lord had renewed the Covenant between us and God into one new and eternal Covenant.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore remind ourselves today that we should strive to live our lives in each and every moments with faith and trust in the Lord, and following His Law, obeying all His commandments and all the things that He had taught and shown us, fulfilling the part of the responsibilities and obligations required in the Covenant which God had made, established and renewed constantly with us. God has always been faithful to this Covenant that He made with us, and He has always loved us patiently despite our rebelliousness and disobedience. Let us all therefore not take this love and generosity for granted, and instead, appreciate all the opportunities which we have been given. May the Lord continue to help and strengthen us in our journey towards Him, and may He bless us all in our every good works, efforts and endeavours, now and always. Amen.