Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day all of us heard the long exhortation from the Book of Qoheleth or Ecclesiastes highlighting to us about the fact that there is time for everything, for every purpose, and everything will indeed happen as God wills it, and not up to us to decide what will happen to us, as there are indeed many things out there beyond our control and understanding, and we should not be impatient or impulsive, acting based on our desires and fears.

Continuing with the discourse from this week from this Book of Qoheleth, we are all reminded to be ever vigilant against the temptations of worldly desires and pleasures, the lure of pride and ego, the distractions that can keep us away from being faithful to God in all things. We must not allow ourselves be swayed by all these and forget our calling in life as Christians to be faithful to God.

We tend to worry about many things in life and we seek security and consolation, happiness and satisfaction by gathering for ourselves all sorts of worldly goods, fame, influence, glory and the desire to be accepted, acknowledged and respected by others. And in our world today, we have been raised and we have lived in a society that is often inundated with all these materialistic undertones, the pursuit of self-satisfaction and the glorification of the self.

But where does this lead us? All of these will never bring us true happiness. And the more we desire for all the satisfaction of the world, the even more we desire of whatever we have attained and received. That is because by our nature, it is difficult for us to be satisfied, and by all those riches of the world, they are just temporary and impermanent, illusory and unreal. They do not give us true and lasting happiness.

Then, let us all now see what the Lord told His disciples in our Gospel passage today. We heard the Lord speaking to His disciples as He asked them who they thought He was, and all of them spoke of what the others perceived of Him, as Elijah who came down from Heaven, as that prophet was taken up into Heaven at the end of his ministry, or that He was one of the prophets of God or holy man of God.

Then, when the Lord asked them again, of who they thought He was, St. Peter proclaimed the truth courageously before all, of what he and likely the other disciples professed of Him, as the Messiah and Holy One of God, the Son of God Most High. And the Lord immediately told them not to share with anyone that truth yet, and added grimly how the Son of Man must suffer many things, rejected and having to endure many trials before He was to be glorified and raised to life.

And we all know how the Lord Jesus, although the Divine Word of God, Son of God Incarnate, chose to empty Himself, humble Himself and suffer for our sake, taking up upon Himself the burden of the Cross, so that we may be saved from destruction due to our sins. And He did so in humble and perfect obedience to His Father’s will, dedicating Himself to do what His heavenly Father has entrusted in Him, the salvation of all mankind.

Our Lord Himself showed the perfect example of obedience, of the emptying of oneself from personal glory and the desire for that glory, for fame and for the other comforts of the world. Instead, as Christians, we are all called to follow in His examples in how we ought to be humble in life, be selfless in love, and always be concerned and caring for one another, that we put the best interests of the community above that our own.

Let us all practice our faith with sincere devotion and action, and let us all follow in the loving examples of Our Lord Himself, in giving of ourselves to each other, especially to those who are most in need of our love, care and compassion. May the Lord help us to grow ever stronger in our faith in Him, and to be more loving in the way that He Himself had loved us, from the beginning, to now the present, and to eternity. Amen.