Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, the seventh one in the season of Easter, we also celebrate the occasion of the World Communications Sunday, and this is important because as Christians, all of us are called to communicate first of all, to God our heavenly Father, and then to one another, engaging each other in meaningful and Christ-centric conversations and dialogues.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the Lord Jesus praying before His disciples to His Father in heaven, highlighting the very reason we celebrate this World Communications Sunday. Prayer is a form of communication, and when it is done right, prayer can be a very intimate and a form of a very close contact between us and God. In prayer, we do not just talk or speak what we want or ask God to grant us our desires, but instead, we open ourselves, our heart, our mind and our whole being to God.

And this is what the essence of prayer is all about. The Lord Jesus prayed frequently and regularly to His Father, speaking with Him and being fully attuned to His will. He showed us all what it means to be having true and genuine communication with God, which all of us should also be having, a genuine and active communication with our Lord, Father and Creator. Without prayer and communication with God, how can we know what it is that God wants us to do with our lives?

That lack of genuine connection and communication with God was the very reason why many of us mankind living in this world have not been attuned to God and His ways. If we have been attuned to God’s will and thoughts, then what happened in our first reading today would not have happened in the first place. In that occasion, we heard of how the faithful servant of God, St. Stephen suffered at the hands of his persecutors, who struck at him and refused to listen to the truth he has preached to them.

At that time, the Church was still at its very beginning stage, and there were many of the people who had misconceptions and misinterpretations on what the Church and its teachings were all about. The Jewish authorities, the Sanhedrin or the Jewish High Council, many of the priestly class and the Pharisees opposed the works of the Lord and His Apostles, refusing to listen to what they have passionately spoken about, and insisting on their own ideas and thoughts.

And why all these happened? It is because of mankind’s own pride and ego, their refusal to let go of their selfishness and their own sense of superiority, the pride and ego which affected their way of thinking and their thoughts. They maintained that they were right and did things according to the way that they thought was right, even though the Lord had tried to open up their minds and reach out to them, through His many messengers and servants.

That was why when St. Stephen preached to them filled with the Holy Spirit, revealing before them the truth of God and how God had prepared everything and provided everything for His people from the very beginning, they took offence at his words and became very angry, because they were stirred in their pride and ego. They refused to admit that they could have been wrong and mistaken, or that there could be another truth besides what they have always held to be right.

Many of them were outwardly pious, praying and showing their devotions in public. But the Lord Himself criticised these people earlier on, saying how many of them were hypocrites in faith, as they did not have true and genuine faith in God. They did what they have done because they wanted to be seen and therefore praised by the people for their piety and actions. The Lord did not have a central place in their hearts and minds.

That was why they were not attuned to God’s truth, and their thoughts and ways were discordant and wayward. They did not have a good communication and connection with God, and as a result, they were not attuned and aligned with the truth of God and His will. And that is why even among us Christians, there are many of us who do not have a good and healthy communication and relationship with God.

Many of us take our faith for granted, and taking for granted the love and compassion that God has for each and every one of us. We do not pray in the right way, as we pray like the Pharisees, with ulterior motives and desires, in wanting to gain something, focusing on ourselves and our selfish desires and our pride instead of on God. The true essence of prayer is one of genuine communication with God, where instead of us being someone who demand of God taking action in doing something for us, we become active communicators with God.

And this means for us to open our hearts, minds and our entire being to the Lord so that not only that we can speak our hearts and minds to God, Who knows everything that are in them, but also that God may speak in the depth and in the silence of our own hearts and minds, that He may stir in us the knowledge of His truth, and grant us wisdom and understanding of His ways. This is in essence what each and every one of us as Christians must do.

But that is not all, as first of all, of course we must be attuned to God, through a good and living relationship with God, but then we must also live our faith through good communication with our fellow brethren, by being authentic witnesses of our faith. Our Christian faith is one of evangelisation and exemplary actions, as all of us have been commanded and sent forth by God, in the last commandment He gave to us all, the Great Commission He has entrusted to us, His Church.

And that Great Commission is that all of us are sent into the world, to call all the people, of all races and origins, of all backgrounds and ways, to be true believers in God, the loving Father and Creator of all things. And the best way to communicate is often not through words, as we may think that in order to be witnesses to our faith we must be very good speakers and be inspirational and charismatic in all the things we do. No, brothers and sisters in Christ, what we need to do is in fact simple things, our everyday actions and all the things we do in our dealings with one another.

That means, in how we interact with each other, with our fellow brethren, we must always keep in mind what it means for us to be Christians. God must be at the centre and be the focus of all the things we say and do. And if God is at the centre of our lives and our relationship with Him is good, through genuine prayers as we mentioned and discussed earlier, then we will grow more attuned to Him in our lives and actions. And naturally, we will gradually become more and more reflective of God’s love and wonders in our own lives and actions.

Let us all therefore be great communicators in our own ways, as how God wants us to be, in what He has blessed us with, our abilities and respective talents. Let us all be exemplary in our lives, so that by our every words and actions we may become true and genuine witnesses of the Lord. May God bless us all in our efforts and in everything we say and do. Amen.