Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded of the great love and compassion that God our most loving Father and Creator has shown to each and every one of us, all without exception, even to the greatest and most obstinate of sinners. God has always been generous with His mercy and forgiveness, and with all that He has prepared for us, His beloved children and people. God wants us all to come to Him and be forgiven from all the faults and mistakes that had become barriers and obstacles in our paths towards Him. And just as the Lord never gave up on us, but ever constantly reaching our to us and giving us chances one after another, we too should always put our trust and hope in God at all times.

In our first reading today, taken from the continuation of the Book of the prophet Jonah, we heard of how Jonah had gone to the city of Nineveh as he had been directed by God, and how he did as he had been asked by the Lord in proclaiming the upcoming downfall and destruction of Nineveh because of the great wickedness which they had committed, all the vile things that the Assyrians carried out throughout their often violent bloodshed and all the destruction which they had brought upon the many nations they attacked and conquered in their pursuit of power and glory. But when the people of Nineveh heard of the judgment and warnings that the Lord presented to them, the whole people of Nineveh, from their king to the lowest among the peasants, all repented their sins, showing publicly their repentance by wearing sackcloth.

And it was for this public and genuine repentance that the Lord showed His generous mercy and compassion on the people of Nineveh, sparing them the destruction that He had wanted to bring upon them. But as we heard from the passage today, Jonah was unhappy with the Lord’s actions, and he was angry and displeased likely because he went all the way to Nineveh after having tried to flee from the Lord and ignore the Lord’s calling and mission, only for his mission to be seemingly invalidated and his efforts wasted, from his perspective, when the Lord forgave the people of Nineveh from their sins and did not carry out what He had warned and declared to them through Jonah. Therefore, Jonah was angered because in his ego and pride, he likely thought that he deserved to see the destruction of Nineveh and its people just as he had announced it.

Yet, the Lord patiently explained to Jonah and told him how He truly cared for everyone, to even the least of the people of Nineveh, and even to the worst offenders and sinners. He considered everyone to be His beloved children, without any exception, and that included even the people of Nineveh themselves. When Jonah grumbled and complained when a sycamore tree that shaded him from the heat died, the Lord therefore referred to that example and showed how if Jonah cared so much about the life of a sycamore tree, then all the more God is ever more concerned about the lives of all of His children, no matter who they are or how sinful they have been. He wants all of them to be saved and reconciled with Him.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard from the Gospel according to St. Luke the Evangelist in which the Lord Jesus taught His disciples how to pray to their Heavenly Father, in the prayer that I am sure all of us know well, that is the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer, also known as the Pater Noster or Our Father, is the prayer that the Lord Himself has prayed and taught us all how to pray as the essence of the perfect prayer, upon which our prayers ought to be modelled after. For in the Lord’s Prayer is contained all that is the essence of our prayer, which is truly our communication with God. In that prayer is contained the essence of thanksgiving, contrition, adoration and supplication to God.

Each one of these aspects are important as they made up our genuine and living relationship with God, which should indeed be characterised by regular and dynamic communication with God through prayer. Prayer is truly central to our lives and actions as Christians, and without prayer we cannot truly be connected to God, or know His will and desire for us all. If we are true Christians then we will always make the conscious effort to keep in touch with the Lord actively and regularly just in the same manner that we are constantly connected to our family members and to our loved ones, even friends and those others whom we care for. That is why we should imitate the examples set by our Lord Himself, in how He constantly spent time in quiet prayer with His Father in Heaven.

But too many of us spent time praying in the wrong way, filling our prayers with demands, requests and thinking that by our prayers we can get what we want and that God will be bent to our wants and desires. That is not what a prayer is truly about. Yes, the Lord knows what we seek and He also genuinely listens to us whenever we ask of HIm. As our loving Father, He certainly cares about us and He wants the best for us. And the Lord Jesus Himself also said in another occasion, ‘Ask and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened for you.’ The Lord, our Heavenly Father is truly loving and generous with us, and if only we develop a strong and genuine relationship with Him through constant prayer, that we will be able to truly grow closer to Him and be more faithful and worthy of Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, as we have reflected from the messages of the Sacred Scriptures, and as we have discussed through our reflection today, let us all therefore have and develop this strong and genuine relationship with God our Father, acting as always with the desire to glorify Him and to do His will at all times. Let us allow ourselves to be guided and strengthened by God our loving Father in all things, and allow Him to guide us through the journey of faith that we have in our own respective lives. May God be with us always and may He continue to bless each and every one of us, now and forevermore. Amen.