Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this last Sunday before Christmas, all of us are invited to reflect on the theme of Love, after we have gone through Peace, Hope and Joy in the previous Sundays. These aspects are the aspects of true Christmas celebration, and indeed, out of all of them, Love is the greatest of them all and the most important one as well.

Today’s Scripture readings are diverse from its origins and meanings, but all of them speak about the same thing, that is, our God is Love, and He loves us all, and through His Love made manifest and real, we received Christ our Lord, Jesus the Saviour, through Whom all of us see for ourselves, witness for ourselves and receive for ourselves, the eternal covenant of love which God had established once and for all with us, for all eternity.

God had given us His love unconditionally, perfect and pure, for He loves us all since the moment when He created us, only for us all to abandon Him and to reject His love, preferring to walk on our own paths towards doom and destruction, listening instead to the lies and surrendering ourselves to the temptations of the devil who desires not our good but our downfall together with him in eternal damnation.

We may think that God demands from us many things, to be perfect in all things and to be good in all things, but this is not what He wanted from us. At least not when this leads to an obsession with doing what is proper and right, instead of truly understanding what is God’s will for all of us. This has happened before among the people of God, namely with the Pharisees, the scribes and the teachers of the Law.

These people were entrusted the care of the sheep and the flock of the Lord, as the appointed shepherds who were given the authority to teach the faith and to lead the people of God to find their way to Him. But they misunderstood God’s intentions, and they thought of God as a demanding God Who wants absolute obedience to the letter of the Law.

To this end they ended up enforcing the Law on the people of God. Indeed, the Law of God is something that we mankind must obey, but obedience must also come with understanding of the intention of the Law. The Law was not given to us in order to punish us or to make our lives difficult, but instead God gave His Law because He loves all of us, and He knows how easily we could be swayed and tempted to follow the devil and his ways.

The Law was meant to bring discipline to the people of God, especially if we noticed in the Old Testament how unruly and rebellious the people of Israel were, as they from time to time again betrayed and abandoned their Lord Who had loved them, protected them and cared for them, for the pagan gods of their neighbours. Yet, they misunderstood the Law as something rigid and something unbending, as something to be done and to be feared.

And over time, the sacrifices of animals, sin offerings and the peace offerings and many other kind of sacrifices which details we can read in the Book of Leviticus, became the focal point of the faith of the Israelites, but after having done these for so long, many became so accustomed to them, that in truth, the reason, the understanding and the meaning behind them were already lost to them.

And the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law in the various parts of the New Testament, especially in the Gospels went against Jesus and His disciples many times, because they greatly disapproved what He had done, in seeming contravention and disobedience of the Law of God, such as healing people on the Sabbath, not washing ritually before having a meal, and various other points of contention they raised against Him.

But they totally missed the point and failed to see that all these laws, rules and regulations were made because of the sole intention of bringing mankind ever closer to God, that if they have erred, they have a guide which can lead them back to the Lord and to reawaken once again the love which they ought to have for the Lord. This is the meaning of the Law, which is love.

And in the Gospel today we heard about Mary, the mother of our Lord and God Jesus Christ, who was visiting her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, the Herald of Christ. Elizabeth uttered the words that would today be in our prayer, the Hail Mary, or Ave Maria, which started with these words, “Hail Mary, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you amongst women…”

This means that Mary who was truly great and honoured in our faith, blessed among all women and indeed among all mankind, not just because she had been prepared specifically to be the Mother of our Lord, conceived pure without sin, but even more importantly, because of her faith and because of her obedience to the will of God, and the fulfilment of the Law with true intention.

Mary’s faith is an example for all of us, as even though the announcement of the Archangel Gabriel to her must really be a shock to her as it was revealed to her the role she was to play in the history of salvation, as the bearer of the new Covenant of Love which God would establish with His beloved people. This was certainly not an easy task, and that required a commitment beyond belief, and yet, Mary entrusted herself to God and gave in herself to the will of God.

She kept faithful and carried on her role as the mother of our Saviour, and she followed her Son through times of good and difficulty, and as prophesied by Simeon, the faithful servant of God, her own heart would be pierced with a sword, the sword of pain and sorrow, when she saw her own Son dying and suffering terrible persecution, dying on the cross.

But she remained faithful to the end and beyond. And in this her faith is an example for us, as the love and devotion which she shows for the Lord, is what the Lord truly wanted from us. God wants from us not the offerings of sacrifices, pledges of money and material wealth, or anything similar to those. Just as He has loved us in everything, we too should love Him in the same way.

And love is not about the kind of love that we may be familiar with, for the love that this world knows, the kind of secular love is selfish, and it is often intertwined and linked with the desires of men’s hearts. The kind of love that God has, and which He had given us, is a perfect and selfless love, love that is unconditional, and which He has offered freely for us even though we have sinned against Him and rejected Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day let us all reflect on this love which God has shown us and which we need to give Him as well, the expression of love from our hearts, so that our Christmas celebration will be truly meaningful, for this Christmas will not just be about the gifts and all the glamours of the world, but rather, instead it is the celebration of God’s love which He had shown and made perfect through Christ.

May God bless us all and keep us all in His grace, and may He strengthen us all in our faith, so that we may draw ever closer to Him. God be with us all, now and forever. Amen.