Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us heard from the words of the Sacred Scriptures the reminders for us of the richness of God’s love and mercy, which He has always provided generously to us all, to remind all of us that we are truly beloved and precious in the eyes of God, without exception, and that all of us have the chance and the opportunity to seek full reconciliation and reunion with God, our loving Father and Creator, our Master and Lord, through everything that He had done for us in order to make all of these possible for us. He provided the path for us to return to Him and patiently gave us the guidance and help so that we may find our way and be restored to grace in Him.

In our first reading from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard of the words of assurance and comfort from the Lord Who was telling His people to have faith in Him and in His salvation because He would not forget about them and He would always care for all of them without exception, and He would show them His mercy and love, His compassion and passionate mercy, as He led them all to the right path and reconciliation with Him, by fulfilling everything that He has promised to them and to their forefathers, of the salvation that He has brought unto them all through the Messiah or the Saviour that He has revealed to them, that is none other than His own Beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom the fullness of God’s love and power has been manifested in our midst.

Then, linking to that reading from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, continuing with the Epistle to the Hebrews in our second reading this Sunday, we are all reminded by the author of that Epistle of the role which our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Son of God has taken up at the moment when He accomplished perfectly everything that God had planned in order to save us all mankind. It was the moment when He redeemed and freed all of us mankind from the slavery and domination by sin, evil and darkness, He has become our one and true, Eternal High Priest, the One Who bridged between us and God our loving Father and Creator, from Whom we have once been separated and sundered due to our disobedience and sins, our wickedness and evils.

As our High Priest, Our Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour has gathered all of our prayers and needs, our petitions and sorrowful longing for God our loving Father, and He offered all of His prayer and ours together, as He united Himself to us and our humanity, while bearing up the heavy Cross of the burdens of our sins and wickedness, the punishments for all those evils and sins, which He does not have to bear for us, and we should have indeed faced the consequences of our faults and errors, and yet, our Lord willingly and lovingly, selflessly and kindly bore for us those punishments on our behalf, so that by His sufferings and by the breaking of His Most Precious Body and the outpouring of His Most Precious Blood, Christ our Lord may redeem us and lead us all to eternal life and true happiness in God.

For our sins and wickedness, our evils and the corruptions of the darkness around us are so great that no amount of offerings, sacrifices or prayers could have sufficed to atone for our many trespasses and sins, the combined weight of all of our sins and all the burdens of our punishments, except for the one and only worthy offering that is found only in Christ, Who is both our High Priest and also the Paschal Lamb, the Lamb of God, Who has been slaughtered for us on the Altar of His Cross at Calvary. That like the blood of the lamb having saved the Israelites in Egypt during the Passover, thus, through the Most Precious Blood of the Lamb of God, all of us are rescued and saved from the corruption of sin and death, and we have been washed clean by the Blood of the Lamb, made pure and worthy again of God.

Finally, in the Gospel passage of this Sunday from the Gospel according to St. Mark, we heard of the story of the moment when the Lord encountered a blind man during His mission, and in that occasion, Bartimaeus, the blind man, the son of Timaeus, did not give up on trying to ask help from the Lord, despite the approval of everyone around him, who discouraged him, as he shouted to beg the Lord, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’. The Lord heard his cries and words well, and He saw the faith in the blind man, seeing how the man kept on trying his best to seek His help and did not lose faith despite all the challenges and discouraging comments and obstacles that he had to face in the midst of him striving to seek the Lord and His help.

Brothers and sisters, we are just like Bartimaeus, the blind man who has been healed by God. We may be physically well and have no issues with our eyes and vision, but like Bartimaeus, there is a part of us that is not whole and well, and for all of us, we all suffer from this affliction of sin, which had made us all spiritually unwell and unfit. The Lord is always ready to come and heal us, and to welcome us back to Him, just as He had done and reassured us all through His Son, and everything that He has done for us. But we must first have faith in Him, and seek Him like what Bartimaeus had done, to call on Him and to have the resolve and conviction to follow Him, to find Him and His love, His mercy and compassion. Can we do that, brothers and sisters in Christ?

Let us all therefore renew our faith and commitment in the Lord, doing our best to seek Him and to centre our lives and existence on Him, to do our best to live our lives in the manner that He has shown and taught us to do. Let us no longer harden our hearts and minds against Him or resist His patient outreach and love towards us. May the Lord continue to love us all regardless of our rebelliousness and persistence in sin, and help us so that we may be touched and called to repent from all those sins, to change our lives so that from now on we may no longer dwell in sin, but come towards Him ever more faithfully at all times, seeking His mercy and compassion, now and always. Amen.

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we all reminded clearly by the Lord that as Christians each and every one of us must not allow ourselves to be tempted and swayed by the various worldly desires, ambitions and temptations which can lead one astray in the journey towards the Lord. All of us must instead continue to focus ourselves upon the Lord, our God and Saviour, and upon all the love, attention, care and compassion which He has always lavished on us. We must always hold strongly to this assurance of the Lord’s promises and all that He had reminded us through His Son, in how He has made His love and compassion tangible for us, making Himself approachable and accessible to us, so that we may come to seek His ever patient love and mercy, and be truly reconciled with Him.

In our first reading this Sunday, we heard from the passage taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah in which the prophet spoke about the prophecy of the Suffering Servant or Suffering Messiah, which was a premonition of what the Messiah or Saviour sent by God to His people would have to endure. This revelation of what the Lord would be doing through His Messiah or Saviour is a reminder for us that each one of us as Christians are not immune to sufferings, hardships and difficulties. If the Lord, our God Himself has suffered great challenges, been rejected, humiliated and persecuted greatly for speaking and delivering the truth that He Himself has brought into our midst, then who among us can say that we may not face the same challenges and difficulties as well?

We are reminded that sufferings, trials, persecutions, obstacles and difficulties are all parts of our ministry and journey as Christians. We may encounter moments when we may end up being in difficult position and we may have to struggle in deciding how to progress forward in life, and whether we want to continue to follow the Lord or not, or whether we follow the path of the world and what is comfortable for us instead. And this is where we need to make a strong and firm stand of our faith, to continue to hold strongly to our faith and commitment to God, despite all the various difficulties and obstacles we may encounter in our path. The Lord has always been with us, by our side, no matter what, and He has always guided us throughout all of our journey.

Then, from the second reading passage today, taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews, we heard about the role of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Saviour of the whole world as the High Priest of all mankind and all of creation, by all that He had done in offering Himself as the perfect and most worthy sacrifice for the atonement and forgiveness of our many sins and wickedness, all the things that had prevented us from coming closer to God and His salvation. The author of that Epistle also highlighted how this same High Priest, Who has offered Himself as the perfect and worthy sacrifice, also knew our sufferings and trials, Himself having been subjected to the same temptations and coercions we ourselves faced, but He did not give in to those temptations.

And in solidarity with us, by sharing in our humanity and our nature, He has united each one of us to Himself, and helping us all to realise what God has wanted from us, that is for us to embrace the salvation and love that He has shown to us so generously through His Son, that by following the example and having faith in the same Son of God, our one and true High Priest, Jesus Christ, all of us may receive and attain the fullness of God’s promise and assurance of eternal life, of true joy and happiness which He has always intended for us from the very beginning. We might have been separated from Him because of our disobedience and sins, but God’s love is far greater than any of those obstacles, temptations, pressures and all the other distractions and things that we may encounter in our path towards our salvation in God.

From the Gospel passage this Sunday, taken from the Gospel according to St. Mark the Evangelist, we heard of the time when the Lord was confronted with two of His disciples, the sons of Zebedee, namely St. James and St. John, who came with their mother to Him, asking for special favours and position from Him, to sit on His right and left. If we do not understand the significance of this request, we should know that it is a great honour to sit by the side of the King, and those two disciples sought to be honoured above the rest through such a request. Indeed, the Lord did show His favour to the two of them as He usually often brought the two sons of Zebedee, St. James and St. John together with St. Peter on the several important occasions throughout His ministry, but this did not mean that they should seek personal glory and ambition in their ministry as the disciples and followers of Christ.

The Lord told the two disciples that there are sufferings, challenges and sufferings that they would have to endure, and they would have to drink from the same cup of suffering which He Himself had to drink. What He wanted to tell them is that, following Him as a disciple is not about seeking the glory and satisfaction of the world but about service, to serve God wholeheartedly and to follow Him ever more faithfully and courageously despite the many challenges and trials we may encounter in life. All of us must not think that we will be rewarded with status, power and glory as many of us might have thought that we deserve for having followed the Lord and obeyed Him. Many of the disciples had the ambition and desires in their heart for all those things, and that was why they were unhappy at the actions of the two sons of Zebedee, and why they often bickered and quarrelled with one another over this matter.

As we have heard from the readings of the Sacred Scriptures and discerned from the earlier discussions and discourses we had, all of us are reminded that as Christians we must not allow ourselves to be easily swayed by the temptations and pressures of the world around us, and by the allure of desire and worldly glory. We are all called to be more humble and focused on the Lord, to distance ourselves from the trap of ambition, hubris and pride, all the things which can lead us astray and distracted in life, to walk down the path of disobedience and rebellion against God because we may be swayed by those temptations and desires, and all the falsehoods of the evil one, who would likely tempt us to think that we cannot be wrong in our ways and ideals, and end up getting further and more distant from the true path towards God. We should instead follow the examples of the Lord Himself, Who has humbled Himself, to be offered as a worthy sacrifice and offering for our salvation.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore remind one another that as Christians, as the disciples and followers of our Lord and God, we must always strive to be humble in all things, and to be ready and willing to listen to the Lord speaking to us, reminding and helping us to remain truly faithful to Him, and to restrain ourselves from all the pride, ego, ambition, hubris, greed, desires and all the things which may bring us away from the Lord and His grace. May the Lord, our most loving and compassionate God continue to help us to stay true to our faith and commitment in Him, and may He encourage and strengthen us to remain firm in our faith and devotion despite all the challenges that we may have to face in our journey and life, now and always. Amen.