Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about the meaning of our faith. Our faith is not about being seen by others as pious or trying to outdo each other in piety. Rather, it is about obeying God’s commandment sincerely in our hearts. And it is also about listening to God’s will and humbling ourselves before Him rather than being judgmental on others and being unjust in our actions and deeds.

True expression of faith does not depend on external appearances or on the outward gestures of piety without true understanding of what the faith is truly about. God does not desire the punishment of the wicked and sinners, but instead the repentance and redemption of all of us mankind. And to this extent, He had sent Jesus His Son to remind all of His people of the need to change their ways and follow our Lord.

This is the essence of Lent, the season of recollection, the season of mercy and forgiveness, a time when we all should pull back from all of our busy schedules and hectic lives and instead seek to know more about the Lord, finding out more about His wishes and desires for us all, that is for us to abandon our sins and wickedness, and therefore for us to attain salvation and justification through our faith.

We are all called to come to realise the depth of our sins and all of the wrong things and mistakes which we have committed in life. It is easy for us to fall prey to the temptations of our pride and to the lures of our desires. Like the Pharisees, the scribes, the elders and the teachers of the Law, they took great pride in their supposed piety and strict observation of the extensive Law of the Jews.

But in their actions, and in how they lived their faith, they had failed miserably and greatly. This is because of the pride and the greed that covered their hearts and minds. They considered themselves righteous and just, and thinking that they alone were worthy of the salvation and the grace of God, to the point that they condemned all others around them, thinking that they all do not deserve salvation as they had received.

We are all reminded in this season of Lent, that we are all sinners, no matter be it small or great in terms of the sins we committed. Sins have entered into us since the day when we first disobeyed God, His will and His commandments. Even the greatest of the saints and the holiest of all God’s creations were all also once sinners, or even great sinners before.

What matters is therefore, if we look at it more carefully and closely, is the change of attitude and the change in our ways, that if we once walked in the path of sin, then now we would no longer remain in sin, but instead, seeking the true Light of Christ, we may be remade anew in righteousness and justice of the Lord. This is the essence of the repentance from sins, which all of us should aim for.

Our Lord and God is willing to help us and to forgive us from our sins, but only if we on our part also sincerely change our ways for the better, that is to sin no more but follow the Lord from now on through all of His teachings, and listen to what Jesus had told all of the people and His disciples in our today’s Gospel reading. This Lent, let us be thoroughly and completely transformed, from a creature of sin, into a creature and child of God. God bless us all. Amen.