Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard of the moments when God revealed to His people just how beloved they are, and how faithful He is to His Covenant with us, as we heard in the first reading today from the Book of Genesis how He reaffirmed Abraham of His promises, that He would give him the son that He has promised to be born of Sarah, his wife. Through that son, Isaac, God would make Abraham the father of many nations, just as He promised, and everything did come true eventually.

At that time, Abraham had also managed to sire a child with Sarah’s slave Hagar, upon the instruction made by Sarah herself, as any child born of the wife’s slave would and could be considered as the legal child of the wife. Sarah as well as Abraham were worried that they would not have a child in the end, and hence resorted to such a way to conceive a child, not waiting for the Lord’s promise wholeheartedly.

Yet, despite this, the child born of Abraham and Hagar, named Ishmael, while not the child promised or sanctioned by God, was still blessed by God as we heard in our reading today, still being a child of Abraham, and would eventually become a father of many nations himself. In the end, God fulfilled the promises He had made to His faithful servant, Abraham, above and beyond what He could and should have done.

In our Gospel passage today, then we heard of the Lord at the moment when a leper came to seek Him to be healed, and asked Him to cure him of his predicament. The Lord cured the man and healed him of his leprosy and told him to follow what Moses had commanded to the Israelites on the matter of leprosy and being healed from it. At that time, the Lord did not yet want to reveal Himself and yet, He has pity and love for the leper.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all realise through all that we had heard today, just how beloved we are and how fortunate we are that God wants to love us and make His Covenant with us. It is not only just that but God had also deemed us to be His own beloved children. While we fell into sin and disobeyed Him again and again, He still loved us and while punishing and chastising us, He still helped us and guided us down to the right path, and patiently helped us along the way.

Yet, many of us are still unaware of this fact and many of us still ignore the Lord and refuse to follow the Lord despite all that He had done for us. Many of us Christians ourselves despite what we profess to believe, we have not genuinely and sincerely loved Him in the way we should have. Instead, like Sarah and Abraham, we resorted to other means besides entrusting ourselves fully to the Lord, preferring to do things our own way instead of remembering His promises and reassurances.

This is not what we should be doing, brothers and sisters in Christ. As God’s chosen people, and those whom He has considered as His own people, and blessed all these while, we should begin to appreciate everything that He had done for us. God has loved us all since the very beginning and we have to remember how fortunate we are. God could have destroyed us and crushed us for our insolence, our disobedience and wicked sins, but He is still patient with us, no matter what.

Let us all therefore turn towards the Lord from now on with a renewed heart and love for Him, and let us be ever closer to Him, seeking Him wholeheartedly and dedicating ourselves ever more to Him with each and every passing moments. May the Lord be with us always, and may He bless us in our every good works and endeavours, always, now and forevermore. Amen.