Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are reminded that each and every one of us are called to live our lives faithfully in each and every moments, to walk in the path which the Lord has shown and taught us to walk through, to do what is right and just, in inspiring faith and confidence in everyone we encounter in our daily living, by our own actions, words and deeds. All of us should always do our best in the manner we live our faith genuinely as Christians so that everyone who witness us and our works will come to know that we truly belong to God. That is what our faith calls us to do, to be truly dedicated to the Lord in all things, in what we do and not merely just in what we say only.

In our first reading today, taken from the continuation of the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Church and the faithful people of God in Rome, we heard of the words of St. Paul the Apostle reminding the faithful there of the true nature of their salvation and redemption by Christ, their Lord and Saviour, Who has opened the gates of Heaven and shown the sure path to eternal life for all of them. St. Paul continued on with his discourse on the nature of sin and how our physical bodies and selves are naturally predisposed to sin and evil, due to the corruption that the evil ones had inflicted upon us and also our own disobedience against God. But St. Paul also then said that while sin and evil bound us all to death and destruction, our Spirit, that is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Life that God has placed in us, seek redemption and freedom.

And that was what the Lord had done for our sake in sending unto us His Beloved Son, with the assurance of salvation that He Himself had brought and presented to us through that same Son, Who has taken up our human existence and walked amongst us, showing us all the perfect manifestation of God’s Loveand grace in our midst. Through Him, we have been shown the perfect example of obedience, of what it truly means to follow the Lord our God with all of our heart and strength just as the Law of God had commanded us to do, and to love one another in the same manner that we have loved God and as we have loved ourselves. These two most important aspects of the Law were in fact what the Lord Jesus Himself shown and taught to His disciples and hence to all of us as Christians.

Therefore, each and every one of us who have become members and parts of God’s Church ought to realise that we have been called to a greater existence through Christ our Lord, to be the worthy examples of our Christian faith in our world today. In each and every moments of our lives, we are called to be exemplary, to be the worthy bearers of God’s truth and love in our society today, towards everyone whom we encounter each day, in even the smallest of our actions, works and deeds, in our every words and interactions with one another. However, the sad reality is such that, many among us who call ourselves as Christians, we do not truly practice our faith genuinely, and many among us even brought scandal to the Lord and sully His Holy Name by our actions and deeds, that showed our hypocrisy and lack of true and genuine faith in Him.

Then, from our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel of St. Luke the Evangelist, we heard of the Lord Jesus telling His disciples and all those people who were gathered to listen to Him, speaking to them regarding the matter of the recent tragedies that happened to some Galileans that were massacred by Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea, as well as the collapse of the Tower in Siloah. At that time, the people believed that if a person encountered misfortune or trouble, that was because the person must have done something wrong or committed sin against God. Hence, a person who encountered tragic events like what the Lord Himself described must have been great sinners, and therefore they became prejudiced against those.

However, what the Lord pointed out was that this was not the right mindset that the people ought to have, and each and every one of us in fact all sinners deserving death and destruction. And yet, just as we have discussed earlier from the passage by St. Paul the Apostle to the faithful in Rome, God has sent us all His deliverance through none other than Jesus Himself, Who spoke to His disciples and others who were listening to Him, of the very reassuring words that God has shown us all love, compassion and mercy, and He has given us chances and opportunities, one after another so that we may rectify our lives and our ways, that we may no longer be in discord against Him and will once again be reconciled fully with Him.

That is what the Lord Jesus meant when He shared the story of the parable of the fig tree, where the gardener told the master to give the fig tree a chance to grow when it was found to have yielded no fruits at all. The gardener told the master that the fig tree ought to be given a chance, given fertilisers and means to help it to yield the fruits expected of it, and only if it still failed to bear fruits after that period of a year had passed, then it could be uprooted and discarded. This is a reminder for all of us of the many opportunities that the Lord Himself has given to us all, to come back to Him and to turn away from the path of sinfulness and evil, and He has presented to us many means to help us to get back to the path towards Him and His salvation.

Let us all therefore strive to do our best at each and every moments in life, to be ever more courageous and dedicated in living our lives as Christians, in each and every actions, words and deeds we do in life. Let us all be great role models and examples for all, and be the shining beacons of God’s light and truth, and bear His love and compassion into our world today, touching the lives and hearts of many of those whom we encounter daily, by living our own lives in the best and most Christian way possible, now and always. Amen.