Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us are reminded by the message contained within the Sacred Scriptures which we have heard of the message of hope from God for all of His people. The Lord wants to remind us all through these readings of the Scriptures that if we continue to put our faith and trust in Him, and do our very best to live our lives with genuine faith and understanding of His ways and love, then we shall be provided for and protected by God, and God will always guide us all, and show us the way. And then, God also wants us all to make good use of whatever it is that He has given and blessed us all with, all the blessings, graces and opportunities that He has provided to us, so that we may use them well for the benefit of everyone.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Ezra, we heard of the moment when the Israelites living in exile in Babylon finally had their moment of freedom and emancipation after living in exile for many years. While traditionally it was numbered as seventy years or seven decades, the reality was such that some of those Israelites spent more years in exile while others spent less years in exile in Babylon, and for those people living in the northern kingdom of Israel, which was destroyed by the Assyrians almost two centuries earlier, some of them might have also returned to their ancestral lands as well, and it had been a long wait for all of them regardless. Contextually, the Israelites, the people of God had faced all these trials and challenges, all because their own disobedience against God.

They chose to follow the gods of their neighbours, abandoning the Law and commandments of God, persecuting the prophets and messengers sent into their midst to remind and call them to return to the Lord their God. They chose to embrace their worldly desires and ambitions instead of following the Lord and doing what He has taught and shown them to do, and as a result, they veered further and further away from the path that God has led them to, and as such, they fell from grace and lost the favour which God had once bestowed on them. They became divided and weakened, and they fell into disarray, becoming the object of derision and scorn from their neighbours, and were oppressed, conquered and subjugated by their enemies. Both Israel and Judah, Samaria and Jerusalem were destroyed and many of the people of God were carried into exile.

But the Lord did not forget them and still showed them all His wonderful and patient love as always. He reminded them of this love through His prophets and messengers that He sent to them, promising restoration and reconciliation for them, if they were to embrace Him once again with love and devotion, and with sincere and genuine repentance from their many sins and disobedience. That was what happened then, as God sent them deliverance through the King of Persia, Cyrus the Great, who conquered Babylon and emancipated those people of God who had been living in exile for many decades. He allowed the people of Israel to return to their homeland and to rebuild their lives there, and giving them the freedom once again to worship their God.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the words of the Lord to His disciples in which He told them all with a parable using the example of lamp placed on a lamp-stand for everyone to see to highlight the need for their faith, for the faith that all of us have in the Lord to be lived genuinely in our own respective lives in each and every moments. This means that whatever God has given to us and blessed us with we should not ignore or neglect, or use them for the purposes that are not meant to glorify God. God has given us all various gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities which we should actively use and engage in our daily lives and in everything that we say and do so that in even the smallest things that we do, we will always do the Lord’s good works and proclaim His Good News to all.

The Lord also mentioned that whoever produces more, shall be given more while those who have not produced, even what they had will be taken away from them. This is the same reminder of how each and every one of us need to be active in living our faith, not through grand gestures or amazing achievements, but rather through daily actions and words which truly show that we are indeed God’s holy and beloved people. As Christians, it is imperative that we have to be full of God’s love as always, to love God wholeheartedly as we should, and not like the people of Israel in the past that had been unfaithful to Him. At the same time, we must also love all those around us, and especially those who are truly dearly beloved to us, and we should not neglect them or ignore their needs.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, each and every one of us have been given various responsibilities in our own areas of life, and we are all called to be active and faithful disciples of God, ever mindful of the impact that our words and actions have on everyone around us. Consequently, we should always strive to live our lives ever more faithfully in all things, by becoming closer to God and also to all those whom we love, practicing our genuine faith by showing love and care for everyone, including even to those who have hurt and disappointed us. It is by these actions of love that we are indeed showing tangible signs and evidence that we are God’s beloved people, and it is by those real and tangible actions and works that we can touch the lives of others and help them to come closer to God.

May the Lord our most loving God continue to be with us and guide us all in our respective journeys in life. May He continue to strengthen each and every one of us to carry out our daily activities showing ever greater faith and commitment to Him, so that we may touch the lives of many others around us, and thus helping many to find their way to the Lord as well, through inspiration of our own good and worthy lives filled with God’s grace and love. May God bless our every efforts and endeavours, now and always. Amen.