Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, all of us are reminded that in following God, we have to be truly sincere in doing so, and that we may have to encounter a lot of challenges, hardships and difficulties amidst our journey towards the Lord, and we may have to make sacrifices and persevere through whatever it is that we may have to endure in our journey towards God’s grace and salvation. The Lord has always been kind towards us and He has always shown His great patience, in continuing to love us all despite the stubborn attitudes that we had shown Him all these while. God has loved us from the beginning, and He has always helped us throughout the way, showing us the means through which we may find the surest path to His salvation, by entrusting to us His Law and commandments.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel in which the Lord told His prophet to speak to the community of the Israelite exiles in Babylon and elsewhere, telling them how each and every one of them should always put their faith and trust in the Lord, and sin against Him no more, for all the sins which they and their ancestors had committed would lead them all to ruin and destruction, because of the many temptations that this world has offered them, and which kept them away from the path towards God and His grace. At that time, the remnants of Israel in the kingdom of Judah where Ezekiel hailed from was in the last days of its existence, as the Babylonians were about to conquer them and eradicate them from existence, destroying their city of Jerusalem and its Temple.

Through what we have heard, we are reminded that if we choose to walk the path of sin and evil, through our disobedience against God and by embracing the temptations of worldly desires and greed, we are likely to end up in ultimate defeat, regret and destruction, just as the Israelites themselves had suffered, and just as how the Lord showed it through the examples of the misfortunes faced by His prophet Ezekiel. We must not allow the temptations and wickedness of this world from swaying us down the wrong path, and as Christians, we should remind ourselves that we have to follow what the Lord Himself has revealed and taught to us, His Law and commandments, through His Church, and because we are His people, it is important that we should live in accordance to God’s ways, at all times.

Then, in our Gospel passage today, we heard a related passage about the Lord Who was speaking to a young man who asked Him about how he could attain eternal life, and the young man also mentioned how he had been obeying and following the Law, the commandments of the Lord, in all of its many precepts and rules. However, when the Lord then asked the young man to sell everything that he possessed, leaving behind all worldly matters and glory, the young man left in sadness. This showed how despite everything that the young man had done in obeying the Law and commandments of God, he has not yet put the Lord at the very centre and as the first priority of his life. His love and attachment for those wealth and possessions was preventing him from truly being able to commit himself thoroughly as a disciple of the Lord.

Brothers and sisters, this does not mean that the Lord is asking us to leave behind all of our properties, wealth and earthly treasures. Rather, this is an important reminder for us that we do not end up getting so caught up and obsessed by those things that we end up getting too attached and preoccupied by them which may end up distracting our true focus and path in life, in serving the Lord wholeheartedly all of our whole lives. Those blessings, possessions and things which we have received should serve as means for us to make them for good use in empowering those around us and also helping all those who may be less fortunate and not as blessed as we all are. We should not use them for our own selfish benefits and gains, and we should also not be obsessed in trying to get more of them.

Today, the Church celebrates the memory of a great saint, whose feast day we commemorate today, namely that of St. John Eudes, a holy priest and servant of God. St. John Eudes was born in France about four centuries ago and he devoted himself to the Lord since a rather early age, committing himself to a chaste life before embarking on formation first under the Jesuits and then the Oratorians through which he grew stronger in his devotion and commitment to the Lord through a strong personal and spiritual relationship with Him. And as a priest, St. John Eudes was well known for his dedication to his work as a priest, ministering to the people of God and administering the sacraments to them, caring for the sick, the poor and the dying among other things.

St. John Eudes was a renowned preacher who has went on many missions to reach out to more and more of God’s people, calling on them all to return to Him, and he was also involved in establishing seminaries and institutions meant to help in the upbringing and formation of priests like seminaries and other related establishments to help improve the formation and spiritual quality of priests that he found quite lacking at the time. St. John Eudes also founded several religious congregations, one of which is the Order of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge dedicated to help those prostitutes and former prostitutes who sought to live a new life of grace and penance in atonement for their past sins and way of life. He also established the Eudists, a congregation dedicated to education of priests and parish missions, something that he had done all his life. St. John Eudes truly committed himself wholeheartedly to the Lord, and we should follow in his footsteps.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore reflect upon what we have just discussed from the readings of the Scriptures and from the life and missions of St. John Eudes, the holy man of God. Let us all do our own part in living our lives worthily of the Lord, by doing whatever we can in each and every moments of our lives to carry out what God had told us to do, and to follow Him wholeheartedly in all things just as we have heard from our Scripture readings today. We should always put the Lord at the centre and at the very heart of our every actions and works, in every moments of our lives and in our every interactions with one another. It is by doing all these that we are truly able to live a worthy, Christ-like life, and we can do what God has called us to do. Let our lives be truly filled with God’s grace and love in all things, and may we all be the worthy bearers of His light and truth, and may we inspire many others to walk in the same path that we have walked ourselves in our journey towards God. Amen.