Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day as we listened to the Scripture passages, we are all reminded of the wonderful ‘treasure’ that all of us have received from the Lord, the truth and the blessings we have received from God, and all the graces we have been given. We have been blessed with generous love from the Lord and we should appreciate this and thank Him for all that He had done for us, all these while, seeking Him with all of our might and abilities.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Exodus about the moment when Moses returned to the people after having met the Lord face to face within the Holy of Holies of the Holy Tent of Meeting. Moses went into the Holy Tent periodically to meet with God, to converse with Him and to know what it is that the Lord wanted to tell His people. The Lord spoke to Moses directly, and he saw the Lord in person, in all of His glory. Normally, no one would have been able to see the Lord face to face and live, but God gave Moses the special grace to be able to do so.

In that way, the people of God knew that Moses truly spoke God’s words and truth, as the glory of God was reflected and shown on his face whenever he finished speaking with God. That was how God led His people throughout the journey of the Exodus, keeping them in check throughout the many temptations and disobedient attitudes that they had shown Him. God was always ever patient in seeking His people even though they repeatedly again and again abandoned and betrayed Him. He chastised and punished them with justice, but also showed them compassion and guided them to the right path.

That is why we have to consider ourselves so fortunate that God has taken care of us so wonderfully all these time, and He has always ever patiently sought us and wanted us to be reconciled and reunited to Him, and He wants us to be good and to abandon our sinful ways, and that was why He gave us His Law and commandments, and sent us prophets and messengers, one after another in order to work with us, and to reveal to us God’s will and truth, all the truth about His generous love and mercy.

That is why, He sent us in the end, as He promised, the assurance of salvation through Christ, Our Lord, His own only begotten Son. Through Christ, all of us received the fullness of truth, as He revealed to His disciples and to the Church, through the Holy Spirit, the fullness of God’s truth and salvation, which He has brought into this world. And He taught the people through parables and other stories, which He used to explain this truth to them, including what we have also heard in our Gospel passage today.

The Lord told the people about what the kingdom of God is like, likening it to a pearl of great price and value, as well as to a great treasure that lies hidden in a field. The Lord said that just as how one would react upon discovering such a treasure, be it in the sea or on the land, that they would sell everything and leave everything behind and obtain that treasure, therefore it is a reminder to all of us the faithful people of God, that first and foremost, in all things, we have to seek the Lord with all of our strength and might, with all of our efforts and abilities.

The Lord should be the centre and focus of our lives and communities, our actions, activities and interactions. We have to put Him first in all things, and in all that we say and do, we should strive to do His will, in obeying the commandments and the Law which He had clarified and made known to us through the Church. We are all called to follow the Lord with all of our hearts, and today we heard those Scripture readings as reminders for us if we have not done so yet. The Lord has called us a lot of times, but it is often that we have shut ourselves off from Him, all these time.

Let us all therefore learn to trust in the Lord, open ourselves and our hearts and minds to receive the Lord into our midst, speaking with Him and communicating with Him through prayer and silence, just as how Moses once communicated with the Lord. Let us all be thankful of everything God had done for us, in His patience to love us and to forgive us our sins, and His ultimate gift to us in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, that by His suffering and death, He has set us free from the tyranny and bondage to sin and death, and leading us down the path to everlasting life and glory. Amen.