Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about God who leads us on the way out of sin and darkness, and into the light, who have awakened us from the sleep of sin that we experienced, and brought us back into soberness after the drunkenness of our stupor in sin. This is certainly what St. Paul could relate to, as in the first reading today he exhorted Timothy his disciple and fellow worker in Christ to do and to tell the people of God.

This is because St. Paul himself was a sinner, a great one at that, as he was once a great enemy of the Lord and His faithful, as the merciless and fierce persecutor of many of the faithful in the early days of the Church before his repentance and redemption by the merciful act of God, who called him out of the darkness and into the light, as the events unfolded in the city of Damascus, where Saul the persecutor of the faithful became Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ and defender of the Faith.

When he was younger, St. Paul as Saul was naive and blind to the realities and truth of the Lord, and he blindly followed the faith of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, whom Jesus rebuked frequently and as we heard in the Gospel today, the criticism levelled at them for being blinded to their own sin and faults, and as a result, becoming the blind leading the blind in faith.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were proponents of tough enforcement of the Law of God, the laws of Moses as practiced by the people of Israel throughout the ages, and they enforced on the people the rigid rigour of the numerous laws, rules, prohibitions and commandments that they thought as the way to be rightful and just disciples of the Lord.

Yet, in their fulfilment of the Law and in their way of following the rules, regulations, prohibitions, rites and commandments, they lost their way and instead of understanding what the Lord had given them in the Law, its purpose and the true reason why God had revealed to them such things, they ended up following them blindly, for the sake of following the laws, and even worse, as they thought of themselves as just and righteous because they had done what they had done, and they thought that they were right in condemning others because they had not followed the laws as they had done.

In the same manner therefore, St. Paul as Saul in his youth had been led to believe in such falsehoods, in leading such a false and wicked life as taught to him by the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law because of his lack of understanding in what God truly wanted for us all mankind, for all of us His beloved people. And they failed to look upon their own faults and sins, thinking themselves as righteous and condemning others for their faults instead.

In the end, God called Saul out of darkness and into the light, and after having revealed His truth to him, St. Paul became awakened and realised the truth of it all, and he regretted all the things he had done, and from then on, he became a tireless and courageous servant of the Lord God, telling and preaching the truth to all others without fear and without reservations, knowing that he wanted to help them to get out of their ignorance and blindness as well.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, let us all also come to the realisation of our sins and faults, of the imperfections and the wrong things which we have committed in life. Let us not be blinded to the truth, and let us not be prideful in refusing to admit that we are all sinners, and that we have been wrong at times. Let us be humble and admit our mistakes, and seek the forgiveness for our sins, and find the mercy of God, which our Lord generously offers us.

Let us therefore also help one another in finding our way to the Lord, and be inspired by St. Paul and all that he had done in revealing the truth about the Lord to all the people whom he had visited and worked with. Let us walk in his footsteps, and let us all dedicate ourselves all the more, to be true and faithful disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, in all that we say and do in our lives. God bless us all. Amen.