Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we listened and remembered the words of the Sacred Scripture passages on this Sunday, we are all called to reflect on what it means for us to be a Christian, as one who believe in the Lord and in His truth, and as one who are called to walk on the path that He has revealed and shown to us, following Christ’s example in obedience and love. As we remember those words of the Scripture, let us all ponder carefully how we should move forward in life and how we can better live our lives in the way according to the Lord and His will.

In our first reading today we heard from the Book of Wisdom the account of the words of the people who plotted against the faithful servants of God. The Book of Wisdom was often known as the Wisdom of Solomon, but was in fact written in Alexandria in Egypt during the period just around the time of Christ in the first century before or after His birth. Thus, as we heard from today’s passage, we heard how there were influences and information contained from the prophets, such as the prophet Isaiah, that detailed in one of his prophecies, the prophecy of the Suffering Messiah and servant of God.

This, coupled with the historical experience of how the prophets of God were treated during their years of ministry, rejected and ridiculed by the people they had been sent to minister to, makes understanding the context of our first reading today very important for us to appreciate just how much mankind had made it difficult for the Lord and all the messengers and servants He had sent to them. They were stubborn in their sinful ways and in refusing to listen to the truth or in embracing the forgiveness that God has offered freely to them.

In our Gospel passage today, which we listened from the Gospel of St. Mark, we heard of the time when the Lord was speaking to His disciples regarding His mission and also what it means for them to be His followers. The Lord spoke plainly before them that He, the Son of Man, would be delivered into the hands of men, to be persecuted and then killed. Then on the third day, He would rise again from the dead. This is a premonition that the Lord made on His eventual Passion, suffering and death on the Cross, and His eventual glorious Resurrection by which He would save all mankind.

Just as the prophets in the earlier times, the Lord Himself would not be spared the same fate of being made to suffer and to be rejected by the people. But why is that, brothers and sisters in Christ? The Lord has offered His people so many good things, blessed them and sent His messengers one after another to remind them of His love and patient mercy, and yet, why did they refuse to listen to Him and follow Him? Why did our ancestors persecute the prophets and messengers of God? And why did they persecute and crucify our Lord? That is because of our pride, our ego and desire, and our refusal to admit our sinfulness and our vulnerabilities.

Let us first look at what happened then in the Gospel passage, as the Lord spoke to His disciples regarding the debate that they, especially the Twelve, the Lord’s own inner circle just had before they had the conversation with the Lord. They were arguing among themselves who among them were the greatest among them, wondering who among them was the one whom the Lord cherished the most or who was the most favourite disciple among them. In another occasion in the Gospels, we even had two of the Twelve, St. James and St. John, the sons of Zebedee, who went along with their mother before the Lord asking for special favours and honoured positions from Him.

The Lord then made it very clear before all of them, and made His point by bringing a child before them, pointing out to them how if they want to be His true followers, then they had to welcome the child, and in saying this, He meant that they should learn to be small, insignificant and humble like that of a child. Adults often exclude children from their talks, debates and arguments, dismissing the latter as being immature, unknowledgeable and for other reasons. Yet, a young child is pure in his beliefs and ideals, not yet being tainted by the corruptions of worldly desires and evils.

The Lord also said to the Twelve that all those who sought to be first would be last, while those who were last would be first. This means that the more they argued among them who was the greatest, most superior and honoured among them, and the more they strived and attempted to be the first, in fact, the further away they would end up in the path towards the kingdom of God. As Christians, all of them are expected to be humble in all things, and to put God first and foremost in their lives, and not their personal desires and ambitions.

God has reminded them to do this and He also showed it by His own example. Referring to what He Himself would do for the salvation of mankind, even though He is the King of Kings, Lord of Lords and Master of the whole Universe, the Almighty God, but He willingly humbled Himself and emptied Himself of all glory, prestige, power and honour, by first assuming the humble appearance of a Man, born into this world not even of the powerful and mighty, but to a poor carpenter living in a small village on the periphery of the Jewish world back then.

He also humbled Himself and not wanting to make Himself prominent and known in the manner of how some others who claimed to be the Messiah at that time boasted of themselves as the Chosen One of God, only to falter and fail miserably because God was not with them. He has shown the perfect obedience to the will of His Father, to endure for our sake, the burdens of our sins, even though they must have been incredibly heavy, as the weight of the Cross bore down heavily on His shoulders. He obeyed and in His fervent prayers for our sake, He has been heard and through His sacrifice, we have received the assurance of salvation and eternal life.

St. James in his Epistle, part of which is our second reading today, reminded us the faithful of exactly the same thing, as he spoke of how those who follow the Lord ought to have God’s wisdom and truth in them, and that jealousy, discord and hatred all came ultimately from our own desires and wants, from the corrupt temptations of this world and others. And if we allow these things to affect and influence us, then we will end up being divided among ourselves and indulging in our desires, in maintaining our ego and pride, and in being stubborn in refusing to listen to God and to the words of His truth.

This was exactly why the people persecuted the prophets and the messengers of God in the times past, as they refused to admit that they could have been wrong or mistaken in their ways or in their thoughts. They would not admit that they were sinners and in need of help because their pride and ego would not let them to do that. They dwelled in their desires and pride, and they allowed those things to mislead them into the path of sin, in refusing the generous offer of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, how about us then? Let us all reflect on our own lives and how we have lived them thus far. Let us remember each and every moments when we look down on others just because we feel that we are better than them, and at every moments when we refused to admit our faults and ended up in quarrelling and being divided against each other, in our own families and among our relatives and friends, in our schools and workplaces among others. How often has it been that we prioritise our own desires and wants, our ambitions and pride first over that of God and His truth?

We often seek the glory of the world, the pleasure and satisfaction of our bodies, the comfort that we can enjoy from all these temptations in life. The issue is not so much so on the things that tempt us but rather more of our unhealthy attachment to them, or unbridled desire in wanting to gain more and more of those things that ended up causing us to be more and more distant away from God. This is something that as Christians we must consider and discern very carefully, that we do not end up falling into those same temptations and into the wrong path.

Let us all turn ourselves to the Lord, brothers and sisters, with a new heart filled with genuine love for Him, committing ourselves to Him with ever greater devotion from now on. Let us cast out from ourselves the excesses of our human pride and worldly desires, the desire for wealth, fame, glory, power and any other things that are truly impermanent and do not give us true happiness and joy. Instead, let us all seek the true happiness and satisfaction that we can find in the Lord, our God alone.

May the Lord be with us always and may He continue to guide us in our journey of faith through life, so that we may find our way to Him and learn to commit ourselves more wholeheartedly from now on. Let us all devote more of our time and effort, our attention and focus on Him, and inspire one another to do the same as well. May God bless us in our every good efforts and endeavours, for the greater glory of His Name. Amen.

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we listened to the Word of God in the Sacred Scriptures we are all called by God to be dedicated to Him through real actions and good works, to follow Him wholeheartedly and to endure challenges for His sake. We have to trust the Lord and walk down the path that He has shown us, living our lives as righteous and as virtuous as possible, to be exemplary in all things and be role models and inspiration for each other in our Christian faith and life.

In our first reading today, we heard the words of the prophet Isaiah, as he spoke the words of prophecy regarding the One Whom God would send into the world as His servant and deliverer for all the people, the identity of Whom was not yet known to Isaiah. This Servant of God would suffer, be rejected and endure all sorts of punishments and humiliations, to be scourged and beaten, all so that through Him, all of us could see the truth of God’s love for each and every one of us, not just through words and proclamations only, but through real and concrete action.

It is a reference and prophecy on what the Messiah or Saviour of God would do for the sake of the people of God, for all of mankind, the promise that God would save all of His people, despite all the disobedience and sins that they had committed in a lot of the occasions past. And all these would come to be fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God born into this world to be its Saviour, revealing the long promised salvation of God at long last. The Lord Jesus Himself also revealed that He was that Saviour that God had sent into the world.

And in our Gospel passage today, we heard the Lord Himself revealing to the people and His disciples on what He was going to do, to bring about the salvation of all mankind, as He spoke in response to St. Peter’s courageous proclamation that He is the Messiah of God, amidst people wondering Who He really truly was. Some believed that He was one of the prophets, or even confused Him with St. John the Baptist. But the Twelve and the Lord’s closest disciples, led by St. Peter truly believed that Jesus was the One promised by God, the Messiah or Saviour Who would lead all of God’s people to freedom.

However, what all of them did not know was the manner in which the Lord would save His people, even though the prophecy of Isaiah has explicitly stated what would happen to the Messiah, Who would suffer and endure bitter punishment and sufferings, all so that the people of God may receive through Him the consolation and redemption that God has promised and endeavoured to bring into our midst. He did not just offer them mere empty words and unfulfilled promises.

Instead, He gave us His all, as He sent us no less than His own Son, the Divine Word and Son of God incarnate, taking up our existence and nature in the flesh, becoming the Son of Man, and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, His mother, making Himself the tangible expression of God’s true and enduring love for each and every one of us. Through Christ, God has reached out to us and called us out of the darkness and into the light, showing us the path that He revealed before us, that by following Him we may find our way to eternal life and salvation.

But the people, including the disciples would find it hard to believe what the Lord and Saviour of this world would have to go through in order to save all of us, as we heard in our Gospel passage today, how St. Peter reacted strongly and protested against the Lord when He said that He would be rejected, especially by the chief priests, condemned and put to death, a most painful and humiliating death before rising up on the third day in the glorious Resurrection.

At that time, St. Peter echoed the opinion that everyone else also shared, on how they expected the Messiah to be the Saviour who would lead them to freedom from their enemies and from tyranny, which could at that time be equated to the freedom from the Roman yoke. Many of them expected Him to be their King and to lead them into glorious victory and triumph against their enemies. Thus, when the Lord revealed such a terrible and sad fate that would happen to Him, some could not avoid hearing in disbelief at what He had just told them, including that of St. Peter.

The Lord rebuked Satan who used St. Peter to try to sow doubt in His commitment to see the mission of the Lord and the salvation to completion. Satan himself also did not fully know what the Lord would do for the salvation of mankind, as the truth would remain elusive to him until the day of Our Lord death on the Cross, when everything He said came to be true, and Satan was defeated. Yet, back then when St. Peter tried to dissuade and protest against the Lord, Satan was hoping to prevent whatever it was that the Lord Jesus was trying to do.

But the Lord was resolute and firmly rebuked Satan who tried to lead Him astray, and reiterated all the things that He would do for the sake of His beloved ones. He showed through concrete deeds and action that He loved each and every one of us without exception, even to the point of laying down His life for us, just as He Himself said that there is no love greater than for someone to willingly lie down His life for a friend, and there Jesus showed us all the ultimate love of God, by His ultimate and most selfless sacrifice on the Cross.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that corresponds to what St. James also mentioned in our second reading today, that our faith must be in tandem with good works and actions, and we cannot truly be genuinely faithful unless we can show this faith through real action based upon the faith we have in God. It means that we should not just pay lip service or empty gestures for our faith in the Lord, or treat it as a mere formality.

In our world today, we often see many among us Christians who do not act in the way that we believe, as we often behave in ways that are contrary to our beliefs, and we did things, or said things that were against the Law and commandments of God. And many of us are also often idle and complacent, in not doing what the Lord had told us to do, or in not listening to the teachings and exhortations of the Church, of our bishops and priests.

Many of us profess to be faithful to God and loving Him, and yet, we spent a lot more time in seeking worldly pursuits and desires, and spent little time for Him, besides the usual prayers and attending the Holy Mass, which even many of us felt dreaded to do, or even considering as a waste of time. Many of us treat the Holy Mass and our faith life as no more than just a mere formality or even as a side afterthought, which is the sad reality of what is happening to many of our Christian communities all over the world.

There are even more people out there who no longer attend the Holy Mass or receive any of the Sacraments, among many other things. These are things that prevented us from becoming true Christians, as the true and genuine disciples of Christ. As St. James mentioned in his Epistle, faith without genuine good works and actions are dead, and meaningless for us. This means that we should truly commit ourselves to the Lord and follow Him and His examples in love, in giving of ourselves to God just as He has given Himself to us with utmost love.

As mentioned just earlier on, the Lord has showered us with such great love and compassion, that He has not even held back giving us everything, even in laying down His life for us. By His scourges and wounds, we have been healed, and by His sacrifice and death on the Cross, on the Altar of Calvary, He, our Paschal Lamb, shedding His Most Precious Blood and laying down His Most Precious Body, has given us all the promise of eternal life and redemption from all of our sins.

If God has shown us such a great love, not just by words and promises only, but through real and concrete action, even in going through the worst of sufferings and death for our sake, then why can’t we do the same as well, brothers and sisters in Christ? In fact, we should be most ashamed by our attitudes towards the Lord, His love and compassion towards us, and at how we treat our fellow Christian brothers and sisters, our faith in God and our participation at the Holy Mass among other things. Many of us have failed miserably in living up to our faith, and yet, God still patiently reached out to us and hoped for us to find our way to Him.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, having received from the Lord such generous and constant love, compassion and mercy, are we able and willing to show the same love and commitment to Him as we should have done? Are we able to live up our Christian faith through genuine actions and dedicate ourselves in each and every moments of our lives that we may be truly and genuinely faithful, in our every actions and deeds, in our every words and in all things, that all those who see us, interact with us and journey with us may know the Lord through us and learn more of the truth of God and His love through our own love? Let us all bring hope and light wherever we may be, and be the beacons of God’s truth and light to all men.

May the Lord give us the strength and the courage to be always faithful in all occasions and that we may always strive to do our best, in order to follow Him wholeheartedly, and to love Him just as much as He has loved us and cared for us. Let us all be genuine Christians, loving God and loving our fellow brothers and sisters, and giving hope and strength to all those who are suffering and sorrowful, that our actions may bring life and strength to them. May God bless us all in our every endeavours and good works, and guide us through the journey of our lives in faith. Amen.