Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are reminded of the need for us to be humble and to seek God’s healing and mercy for all of our many sins and wickedness, all the things which had kept us all away from the fullness of God’s love and grace. If we are not humble and if we do not realise our shortcomings, faults and flaws, then we may not realise just how far we may be in the path towards our downfall and destruction, in getting further and further away from the Lord’s righteousness and compassion. We must not let ourselves to be tempted by pride, ego and ambition in our hearts, all of which can lead us further astray, away from what God had taught and shown us. And in this time and season of Lent, we are all reminded to return to the Lord with humble and contrite hearts, ridding ourselves of all sorts of pride and ego in our hearts.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Hosea in which the Lord told His people through Hosea of His desire to see them all reconciled and reunited with Him, as He called on all of them to return to Him and to find their way back to Him. The Lord told them all of this hope because He wanted all of them to continue to put their faith and trust in Him, to follow His guidance and to walk in the path that He has shown them through His many prophets and messengers. All of these are due to the desire that God has in wanting us to be forgiven from our many sins, that we may be cleansed and purified from all the taints and corruptions of sin. But many of us like those Israelites before us failed to achieve this because many of us were distracted by our pride and ego, all of which presented serious obstacles to us in our way towards God and His redemption.

The prophet Hosea reminded the people of God in Judah and elsewhere of God’s wrath at the sins of the people, many of whom had faced sufferings and hardships because of their refusal to obey the Lord and their actions in adopting the wicked practices of their neighbours, worshipping the pagan idols and all the other practices that were not in accordance with the Law and commandments that God had given to all of them to follow and obey. That was why the Israelites were divided and scattered, and by the time of the ministry of the prophet Hosea, those Israelites who lived in the northern kingdom of Israel had been defeated, conquered and exiled by the Assyrians, bereft of their homeland and their homes. The same fate would also happen to the people of the southern kingdom of Judah as well, who would also have their cities destroyed and crushed, and their Temple destroyed in time to come.

However, the Lord still loved them all, His beloved children and people, and like a loving father, who while being angry at his children and chastising them, he did all that because he desired only what was good for them, to discipline and guide them all in the right path. The children of God were therefore reminded of the mercy and compassion of God by the prophets sent to them including Hosea, and this same reminder is also meant for all of us as well, who listened to those words of reassurance from the Scriptures. We are being reminded during this most appropriate time of Lent that we should not harden our hearts and minds any longer, striving instead to leave behind our old ways of sin and evil, and embrace wholeheartedly the love and compassion of God that He has shown us most generously.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the words of the Lord Jesus to His disciples and those who followed Him of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. In that parable we heard how both the Pharisee and the tax collector were praying at the Temple and House of the Lord. And as we heard, the Pharisee prayed with great pride, openly boasting of his many achievements and piety, and not only that but even looked down on the tax collector whom he deemed to be inferior and less worthy, a greater sinner than himself. Then we have also heard how the tax collector humbled himself greatly before God, not even daring to look up, keeping his sights low and beseeching the Lord to forgive him from his many sins.

The Lord praised the faith and humility of the tax collector in that parable, highlighting how the humility of the tax collector had made his desire to be forgiven to be heard by God. The Pharisee on the other hand, because he was so prideful and full of himself, was not forgiven because not only that he did not recognise his flaws and mistakes, but he allowed himself to be swayed such by his own ego and pride that he acted condescendingly on his own brethren, essentially committing more sins due to his own hubris and arrogance. And this depiction of the action of the Pharisee in fact was a criticism of how the Pharisees of the time of the Lord’s ministry actually behaved, as many of those Pharisees often paraded their faith and shown publicly their acts of piety before others in seeking for approval, recognition and praise for those things that they had done.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we have been reminded today by this passage from the Scriptures, let us all therefore remind ourselves that as Christians, as the holy and beloved people of God, all of us are called to turn away from our many sins, faults and wickedness, to embrace once again God’s most wonderful love and mercy, the compassion that God has for all of us, His beloved ones. He has called on us to embrace this generous mercy and love, and we should not squander the many opportunities which He has presented to us so that we may truly be reconciled to Him and find our way to His Presence, purified and made whole again, after having been corrupted, tainted and afflicted by sin. We should humble ourselves, realising the errors of our ways, and sincerely seeking the forgiveness from God.

May the Lord, our most loving, compassionate and merciful God continue to show us His love and mercy, guide and strengthen us all so that we may always persevere in following Him faithfully, and be good role models and inspirations for one another, in how we carry on living our lives, in this Lenten observances and practices, that many more may follow in our examples and lives, and be worthy and faithful to the Lord as well. May we all make good use of these opportunities which had been presented to us by the Lord, and come ever closer to Him and the salvation that He has promised us. Amen.