Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Lord in the Scriptures reminding us of the great love which He has blessed us with. He has given us His love, as St. John wrote in his Epistle, in none other than the perfect gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, the perfect manifestation of God’s love in our midst. There is no greater love than the love which God has given us, in allowing Himself to enter into our world in the form of Man, humbling Himself as such, just so that He could save us all from our fated destruction because of our sins.

In the Gospel passage today, we heard the passage from the Gospel according to St. Matthew in which the Lord Jesus showed His tender and compassionate love for His people, when He saw many of them, five thousand men and many thousands more women and children, who followed Him for many days, were hungry and without food. He had pity on them and He thus fed them to provide for their physical and bodily needs.

In that occasion, He performed the famous miracle of the multiplication of the loaves of bread and fishes, that from the five loaves of bread and two fishes present, all of the multitudes of people could eat to their hearts’ content, and still twelve full baskets of scraps and leftovers were collected. Through this, we can see how God loved His people so much, that He took care of them, giving them providence and sustenance in the form of the physical food.

But what the Lord has done in that occasion, was in fact merely just a foreshadowing of what was to come, what He was about to do in order to show them all His infinite love, by the breaking of His own Body, the true Bread from heaven, not the bread that satisfies just the flesh and the stomach, but the spiritual and true Bread, through Whom all of those who have faith in Him and partake in Him will be saved.

And that is God’s love for us, as St. John reminded us all through his Epistle, as God’s love become incarnate in the flesh, and became Man, so that, by that act, the perfect offering and sacrifice, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, Jesus Christ, Our Lord, may complete perfectly the long awaited salvation for all of God’s beloved ones, that is all of us. He offered Himself, His own Body and Blood, broken on the Altar of the Cross, that all of us may receive this rich and unimaginable bounty of life through His loving sacrifice.

Yet, unfortunately, many of us are still ignorant of the love which God has shown for us. We still live in ignorance of His love because of sin, that caused us to be desensitised to God’s love and mercy in our midst. We are so preoccupied by worldly matters, by all sorts of temptations, of power, of glory, of ambition, ego, and other greedy and unworthy pursuits in life, that we are unable to feel and recognise God’s ever present love.

And the wonders of God’s love is such that, even though we have sinned and disobeyed against Him, but God loves us so much that He was willing to be reconciled with us, if only that we are willing to accept His mercy and love, and repent from our sinful and wicked ways. Through Christ, His Son, He revealed and offered us His purest love, so generously, that all of us who have accepted Him as Our Lord and Saviour, will receive nothing less than eternal life and glory with Him.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, are we willing to make the commitment to love God? Are we willing to love Him just as He has loved us first so generously and tenderly? God is calling upon us to turn towards Him, filled with love, to receive the fullness of His grace and love, by uniting ourselves to Him, in perfect love, through Christ. Let us therefore, from now on, renew our commitment to live our lives with faith and devotion. May God, Our loving Lord and Creator, continue to love us always, now and forevermore. Amen.