Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we hear the message of the Sacred Scriptures, telling us about the Good News of salvation that He Himself has proclaimed many times through the prophets, through His many other servants, and finally through Himself in Jesus Christ, the Lord our Saviour Who came into the world in our form, taking up our flesh in order to save all of us.

God did not forget about His people and all those whom had been lost from Him, for He had endeavoured to gather all of His beloved ones to Himself, and called upon all those who were lost, so that they would hear the voice of their Shepherd, and therefore follow Him into the path towards eternal life and salvation in Him. He wants us all to be saved and to receive eternal life and to never again be lost.

And that is why all of us should be grateful, for God had stretched out His hands, and by His might He had gathered people from many nations, through the Church, the Apostles, bishops and the servants of God through whom many peoples of many nations are called ever closer to the holy presence of God. Through the hard works of the missionaries who prepared the path for the Lord, many souls have been saved and made ready for the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us today are called to be faithful servants of our Lord, just as St. John the Baptist had been. St. John the Baptist was the one who heralded and announced the coming of the Lord and Messiah, and he taught them about what to do in order to attain the salvation which our Lord and Saviour has brought us, that is through genuine and sincere repentance and through the baptism that cleanses from the taints of sin.

In the same way, the Church also sent out many missionaries, preachers and workers of the faith, who worked hard just like St. John the Baptist, to preach the Word of God and to proclaim the Good News of His salvation to the entire world, the four corners of the earth. And just like John, they also encountered sceptics, dissidents and all those who refused to listen to the word of God, and who even made it difficult for the servants of God to spread the Good News.

Indeed, God is loving, merciful and forgiving, and it is His desire that as many people as possible come to listen and understand His will, and through the words of the Gospel, hopefully many would repent their sins and their wicked ways, and return to the path of the light. But if there is no one to bring the word of truth to the souls that are now dwelling in the darkness of this world, who will then allow them to come to the light? Some may come to the light eventually, but many will not.

Therefore, all of us, the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, and as the members of God’s Holy Church, we all have to understand that the mission which our Lord Jesus had entrusted to His Apostles, and thus to His whole Church, and thus to all of us living today, is far from done, and there are indeed still so many things that we can do, in order to bring the salvation of God to our brethren.

Remember that Jesus had commissioned His Apostles to baptise the peoples of the whole world in the Name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and to proclaim His truth to all of them? The same task is now ours, and we too should walk in the footsteps of the faithful servants of God. And it does not mean that we should go to faraway places to preach and to make sermons about the faith, but instead, we should always begin from somewhere close, from our own homes.

Have our families been examples and role models of faith for others? Have we practiced what we believe in our own daily life actions and works? Or have our faith been merely on paper only and on the surface only? We should not think that we can convince others to follow whatever we tell them, if we do not practice the faith that we believe in, on our own.

Let us in this season of Advent, as we continue to prepare to celebrate the commemoration of our Lord’s entry into the world in Christmas, let us all prepare ourselves body, heart and mind, so that in all things, we may become ever more faithful and be ever more devoted to our God. Let us all give more effort to accomplish what the Lord had entrusted us, that is to preach the Word of God and the Good News to those who still have not heard of these yet, and therefore bring our brethren into salvation as well. May God bless us, now and forever. Amen.