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

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we heard clearly the words of the Scriptures which spoke to us about the virtue of being righteous and obedient to the will of God, and to walk in His path in obedience to the Laws and the Commandments which He had given us all, as the righteous and the just shall enjoy forever the grace of the Lord and be blessed forever.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what I have mentioned is the fact that in the first reading taken from the Book of the prophet Joel spoke about God who will bless and grant much goodness to all His faithful ones, giving them eternal inheritance and true happiness that can only be truly found in Him, and not in the world. The world gave us just temporary and illusory pleasures and happiness, that focus on satisfying our hearts’ selfish wants and wishes.

For the pleasures and the joys of this world are truly temporary and not lasting, and in a moment of time, everything we have in this world can be wiped out, but not that of the true happiness that one can find in the Lord. The treasure and happiness that God will give us surpass everything and anything that the world can heap upon us, and these will last forever and cannot be destroyed by fire, or by any forces of nature.

Yet, there are so many of us who have lost our path, and instead, we walk the path of worldliness, of selfishness and of sin. This is because, the temptations of the world can truly be very great indeed, and we know how much the world is trying to tempt us with many good things, and unfortunately, in our world today, it is growing ever more and more obsessed with commercial and materialistic attitudes.

What the Lord wanted to let us know is that, the world and all of its ways are the path of Satan and his fallen angels, who tried to bring us all down together with him into condemnation and eternal suffering, and they are trying to paint this path as one that is a more pleasurable, better, less hazardous, easier and has less obstacles as compared to the path that our Lord had shown us.

Indeed, by our human nature, it is natural for all of us to seek an easier path, and a path which seems to be better and filled with good things. It is in our nature to be lazy and slothful, and to desire things that satisfy us and make us happy, even though if that happiness is not the kind of joy that will last. But we have to realise that it is truly not worth giving up an everlasting and true inheritance and eternal and true joy in exchange for something that is illusory and temporal.

The devil is always trying to persuade us and tempt us to give in to our mortal and bodily desires, peddling before us all the goods and wonders of the earth to corrupt our minds, our hearts and upset our priorities, that we should truly not be mastered by our desires and greed, but instead cast them aside and destroy our own ego and selfishness.

The path that the Lord has shown us indeed is littered with challenges and obstacles, and if we commit ourselves to walk in this path, certainly it will not be easy for us. But we can rest assured knowing that because of our faith and by our dedication in following the Lord and His ways, we will be deemed worthy of the eternal life, the true joy and happiness, the blessings and graces God had promised us all.

Let us all therefore not give in easily to the temptations of the world, the temptations of the devil and his fellow fallen angels. Let us instead strengthen ourselves and our defences through prayer and devoted life filled with zeal and love for the Lord, as well as for our fellow men. May Almighty God bless us all in all these endeavours. God be with us all. Amen.