Sunday

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Sunday, 15 March 2020 : Third Sunday of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

John 4 : 5-42

At that time, Jesus came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well is there. Tired from His journey, Jesus sat down by the well; it was about noon. Now a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” His disciples had just gone into town to buy some food.

The Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan and a woman, for a drink?” (For Jews, in fact, have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift of God! If you knew Who it is, Who is asking you for a drink, you yourself would have asked Me, and I would have given you living water.”

The woman answered, “Sir, You have no bucket, and this well is deep; where is Your living water? Are You greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank from it himself, together with his sons and his cattle?” Jesus said to her, “Those who drink of this water will be thirsty again; but those, who drink of the water that I shall give, will never be thirsty; for the water, that I shall give, will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to Him, “Give me this water, that I may never be thirsty, and never have to come here to draw water.” Jesus said, “Go, call your husband, and come back here.” The woman answered, “I have no husband.” And Jesus replied, “You are right to say, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you said is true.”

The woman then said to Him, “I see You are a Prophet; tell me this : Our ancestors came to this mountain to worship God; but you Jews, do you not claim that Jerusalem is the only place to worship God?” Jesus said to her, “Believe Me, woman, the hour is coming when you shall worship the Father, but that will not be on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”

“You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is even now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for that is the kind of worshippers the Father wants. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit, and truth.”

The woman said to Him, “I know that the Messiah (that is the Christ) is coming. When He comes, He will tell us everything.” And Jesus said, “I Who am talking to you, I am He.”

At this point the disciples returned, and were surprised that Jesus was speaking with a woman, however, no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are You talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar and ran to the town. There she said to the people, “Come and see a Man Who told me everything I did! Could He not be the Christ?” So they left the town and went to meet Him.

In the meantime the disciples urged Jesus, “Master, eat.” But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” And the disciples wondered, “Has anyone brought Him food?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the One Who sent Me, and to carry out His work.”

“You say that in four months there will be the harvest; now, I say to you, look up and see the fields white and ready for harvesting. People who reap the harvest are paid for their work, and the fruit is gathered for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. Indeed the saying holds true : One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap where you did not work or suffer; others have worked, and you are now sharing in their labours.”

In that town many Samaritans believed in Him when they heard the woman who declared, “He told me everything I did.” So, when they came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and Jesus stayed there two days. After that, many more believed because of His own words, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you told us: we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is the Saviour of the world.”

Alternative reading (shorter version)

John 4 : 5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42

At that time, Jesus came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well is there. Tired from His journey, Jesus sat down by the well; it was about noon. Now a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” His disciples had just gone into town to buy some food.

The Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan and a woman, for a drink?” (For Jews, in fact, have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift of God! If you knew Who it is, Who is asking you for a drink, you yourself would have asked Me, and I would have given you living water.”

The woman answered, “Sir, You have no bucket, and this well is deep; where is Your living water? Are You greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank from it himself, together with his sons and his cattle?” Jesus said to her, “Those who drink of this water will be thirsty again; but those, who drink of the water that I shall give, will never be thirsty; for the water, that I shall give, will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to Him, “Give me this water, that I may never be thirsty, and never have to come here to draw water. I see You are a Prophet; tell me this : Our ancestors came to this mountain to worship God; but you Jews, do you not claim that Jerusalem is the only place to worship God?” Jesus said to her, “Believe Me, woman, the hour is coming when you shall worship the Father, but that will not be on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”

“You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is even now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for that is the kind of worshippers the Father wants. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit, and truth.”

The woman said to Him, “I know that the Messiah (that is the Christ) is coming. When He comes, He will tell us everything.” And Jesus said, “I Who am talking to you, I am He.”

In that town many Samaritans believed in Him, so, when they came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and Jesus stayed there two days. After that, many more believed because of His own words, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you told us: we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is the Saviour of the world.”

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Sunday, 15 March 2020 : Third Sunday of Lent (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Romans 5 : 1-2, 5-8

By faith we have received true righteousness, and we are at peace with God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Through Him we obtain this favour in which we remain and we even boast to expect the Glory of God.

And hope does not disappoint us because the Holy Spirit has been given to us, pouring into our hearts the love of God. Consider, moreover, the time that Christ died for us : when we were still helpless and unable to do anything.

Few would accept to die for an upright person; although, for a very good person, perhaps someone would dare to die. But see how God manifested His love for us : while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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Sunday, 15 March 2020 : Third Sunday of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 94 : 1-2, 6-7, 8-9

Come, let us sing to the Lord, let us make a joyful sound to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him giving thanks, with music and songs of praise.

Come and worship; let us bow down, kneel before the Lord, our Maker. He is our God, and we His people; the flock He leads and pastures. Would that today you heard His voice!

Do not be stubborn, as at Meribah, in the desert, on that day at Massah, when your ancestors challenged Me, and they put Me to the test.

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Sunday, 15 March 2020 : Third Sunday of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Exodus 17 : 3-7

But the people thirsted for water at Rephidim and grumbled against Moses, “Why did you make us leave Egypt to have us die of thirst with our children and our cattle?”

So Moses cried to YHVH, “What shall I do with the people? They are almost ready to stone me!” YHVH said to Moses, “Go ahead of the people and take with you the elders of Israel. Take with you the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you on the rock at Horeb. You will strike the rock and water will flow from it and the people will drink.”

Moses did this in the presence of the elders of Israel. The place was called Massah and Meribah because of the complaints of the Israelites, who tested YHVH saying, “Is YHVH with us or not?”

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Sunday, 8 March 2020 : Second Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, the second one in the season of Lent, we are all called to listen to God’s will and heed His calling. Indeed, today’s Scripture readings are focused on one important aspect of our faith and our lives, and that is to respond and answer God’s call in our lives. God has called all of us His people to follow Him just as He has called many of our predecessors in the past, and for those who followed Him and walked in His path, God would bless them and guide them to righteousness.

In our first reading today, we heard of the Lord’s calling of a man named Abram from the land of Ur in southern part of Mesopotamia in what is today southern Iraq. This man seemed to appear from nowhere, suddenly making its appearance in the Scripture in the Book of Genesis. But this was the man whom God had called and chosen, for God Who knows the heart and mind can see that Abram had faith in Him and was a righteous and obedient person.

And God called Abram to follow Him with the promises that He swore before him, that He would make Abram to be a great nation, blessed and presented by the grace of God. God promised that the name of Abram would be blessed and great, and He would bless all those who bless him and curse all those who curse him. Such were the promises that God had given to Abram, and Abram believed in God fully and completely, leaving his ancestral family and lands behind, and walked with God to the land of Canaan.

God called Abram to an unknown wilderness and an uncertainty. Abram had a lot of property, amazing connections and things he definitely enjoyed in his ancestral homeland in Ur. But Abram chose trust in God and left his past behind him, and walked with Him to the land which God promised that He would give to him and his descendants. Abram trusted and had faith in God, committed himself and his descendants to a Covenant which God would make and seal with him.

The Covenant that God made with Abram, who was then known as Abraham, had been renewed again and again, and Abraham became the father of many nations as God has promised. Through his sons Isaac and Ishmael, many nations including the Israelites called Abraham as their father and ancestor, and ultimately, by the last renewal of the Covenant by none other than Christ Himself, all of us who believe in Christ, also call Abraham our father, as our father in faith. For like us who answer God’s call, Abraham was the first to respond to that call, and we follow in his footsteps.

In our second reading today, we heard from the Epistle of St. Paul to St. Timothy who reminded us as Christians again about what our Christian calling is all about. God has called on all of us through Christ to serve Him and to be witnesses of His truth and His Gospels. We are all called to holiness to serve the Lord through obedience to His Law and to His will and commandments, and to listen to what He has called and taught us to do, as we heard in our Gospel passage today on the account of the Transfiguration of Our Lord.

Through the occasion of the Transfiguration at Mount Tabor mentioned in our Gospel passage today, as the Lord Jesus was glorified and appeared before three of His disciples, St. Peter, St. James and St. John in His fullness of glory and divinity, together with Moses and Elijah, essentially God has revealed through them to us, that by sending Jesus Christ, God’s own beloved Son into this world, He has called us all yet once again, to follow Him and to forge that new and everlasting Covenant with us.

It was revealed at the moment of the Transfiguration that Christ was not just merely a Man, but also the Son of God. In the person of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the world or the Messiah, was two distinct yet inseparable natures of Man and Divine, through which Christ would then seal and make a new Covenant with all of us that will last forever. This refers to the Covenant that He made through His Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross. By this Covenant, all of us are made to be sons and daughters of God, and we are made sharers of God’s inheritance and glory.

What then happened at the Transfiguration and what is its significance for us, brothers and sisters in Christ? This is where then we need to pay attention to how the Transfiguration of the Lord revealed to us what we ought to do as Christians, in how we ought to be living our lives and our faith from now on. In that occasion, we heard how St. Peter suggested to the Lord Jesus that they ought to build three tents for Him, for Moses and Elijah, reason being that it was so wonderful and glorious to be up there in the mountain in the sight and presence of God’s glory.

Certainly, the Lord was tempted by that offer, for He clearly knew what He was about to do in order to establish the New Covenant with all of us. He clearly knew that He had to suffer terribly, bear the burdens of our sins on His Cross, to be rejected and treated terribly and humiliated by His enemies, and finally to suffer and eventually die a most painful death as a condemned and humiliated criminal on the Cross for everyone to see. Who would not have wanted to avoid such a fate?

But the Lord resisted that temptation, just as He had resisted the three temptations of Satan mentioned in our Gospel passage from last Sunday’s readings. And God then came over all the three disciples, reminding them to listen to the One He had sent into this world to be its Saviour. Essentially, through this, God has called on His people again to trust in Him and to follow Him in the path that He has shown us and which He Himself had walked.

I refer to the fact that the Lord Jesus chose willingly to descend from Mount Tabor and leave behind His glorious moments there, and walking down, heading eventually towards Jerusalem where He was to suffer and die. We can see here a clear parallel between Abraham and Jesus, in how both chose to follow the path that God has presented to them, with Abraham following God and obeying Him as he journeyed and dwelled in the Promised Land, while the Lord Jesus obeyed His heavenly Father’s will, and fulfil the mission which He has been entrusted with, through the Cross.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, now as I mentioned earlier, all of us have also been called to follow God and to obey His will. And looking from the examples I mentioned earlier, when we are called by God to follow Him, often the outlook and the path forward may seem to be uncertain and unknown to us, as compared to what we are now having in life. And the devil is always ready to strike at us, persuading and tempting us to stay put and not to follow the Lord, but instead to remain in our comfort zone.

During this season of Lent in particular, we are all called to reexamine our lives, how we have lived them thus far and think and discern of how we are going to proceed forward in life. Are we able to discern carefully what we are going to do with our lives from now on, brothers and sisters in Christ? God has called us to follow Him, but are we willing to put in the effort to follow Him and to put our trust in Him, in whichever directions that He is going to lead us to?

Let us all therefore make good use of this season of Lent, to detach ourselves from the excessive attachments we have to the many comforts in life, and to restrain ourselves from succumbing to our many desires, lusts, greed, ambition among other things that prevented us from truly living our lives as righteous and faithful Christians. Let us all spend more time with God, through prayer and through fasting and abstinence, that we may turn our attention and focus back towards Him and away from the temptations of this world.

Let us also be more generous and loving in our interactions with our fellow brothers and sisters, especially to all those who are marginalised, rejected by others, weak and poor, sick and dying. Let us all be more charitable and loving, following the examples that Our Lord Himself has shown and taught us. In doing so, we are doing what St. Paul had told us in his Epistle of our second reading today, to live our lives with holiness and to respond to God’s call with faith. For it is by showing love to one another that everyone may know that we are God’s beloved people.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, are we willing to follow God more closely this season of Lent going forward? Are we able to make the commitment to change our way of life that from now on we will become more faithful, more trusting in God, more obedient to His will and more loving in all of our actions in life, first of all towards God and then towards our fellow brothers and sisters, particularly those who are in need of our help and love, our care and attention?

May the Lord, our loving Father and Creator, Who has shown us His eternal and infinite love through His gift of His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ to be our Saviour, always be with us through the trials and difficult moments of our lives that we may always remain faithful in Him throughout our journey of faith, and that we may grow ever more faithful and loving towards Him with each and every passing moments in our lives. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 8 March 2020 : Second Sunday of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 17 : 1-9

At that time, six days after Jesus predicted His own death, He took with Him Peter and James and his brother John, and led them up a high mountain, where they were alone. Jesus’ appearance was changed before them : His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became bright as light. Just then Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Jesus.

Peter spoke and said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here. If You wish, I will make three tents : one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Peter was still speaking, when a bright cloud covered them with its shadow, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is My Son, the Beloved, My Chosen One. Listen to Him.”

On hearing the voice, the disciples fell to the ground, full of fear. But Jesus came, touched them and said, “Stand up, do not be afraid.” When they raised their eyes, they no longer saw anyone except Jesus. And as they came down the mountain, Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone what they had just seen, until the Son of Man be raised from the dead.

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Sunday, 8 March 2020 : Second Sunday of Lent (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

2 Timothy 1 : 8b-10

On the contrary, do your share in labouring for the Gospel with the strength of God. He saved us and called us – a calling which proceeds from His holiness. This did not depend on our merits, but on His generosity and His own initiative.

This calling given to us from all time in Christ Jesus has just been manifested with the glorious appearance of Christ Jesus, our Lord, Who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light in His Gospel.

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Sunday, 8 March 2020 : Second Sunday of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 32 : 4-5, 18-19, 20 and 22

For upright is the Lord’s word and worthy of trust is His work. The Lord loves justice and righteousness; the earth is full of His kindness.

But the Lord’s eyes are upon those who fear Him, upon those who trust in His loving kindness to deliver them from death and preserve them from famine.

In hope we wait for the Lord, for He is our help and our shield. O Lord, let Your love rest upon us, even as our hope rests in You.

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Sunday, 8 March 2020 : Second Sunday of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Genesis 12 : 1-4a

YHVH said to Abram, “Leave your country, your family and your father’s house, for the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curse you, I will curse, and in you all peoples of the earth will be blessed.”

So Abram went as YHVH had told him, and Lot went with him.

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Sunday, 1 March 2020 : First Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is the First Sunday of Lent, and as we begin the first in the series of five Sundays in this season of Lent, we are brought to focus our attention on the nature of this season of Lent as a time of renewal, rejuvenation of our faith, reconciliation with God and as a time for the forgiveness of our sins, through our repentance and forgiveness by God. The name of Lent itself came from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘Lencten’ which means ‘Spring’ referring to the coming of the season of Spring after that of Winter.

That is why Lent is symbolically very important as a time of renewal and rediscovery of oneself, after the bitterness and darkness of our spiritual ‘Winter’ due to our sins and shortcomings, as a chance for us to reconnect with God, to be reconciled with Him and to find our place once again in God’s grace and loving embrace. It is a time for us to turn away from the excesses of worldly desires and greed, from the many temptations we find in the world, and focus our attention instead on God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today on this First Sunday of Lent as we remember again what we have just heard from our Scripture passages today, we focus on the theme of sin and temptation to sin, and then the freedom from those sins. We heard first of all the account from the Book of Genesis which showed us the moment of mankind’s fall into sin, when our first ancestors fell to the temptation of the devil, and then up to the Gospel, when we heard yet another temptation story, this time the devil tried to tempt the Lord Jesus as He went for forty days right after His baptism to the desert to prepare Himself for His ministry.

In the beginning of time, God created everything all good and perfect, and He made the first man, Adam and his companion, Eve, to live in the wonderful Garden of Eden. This means that mankind, all of us were actually meant to live with God in the fullness of God’s grace and love, to enjoy the wonders of God’s providence and blessings forever. However, this was not to be because we fell into sin as we were unable to resist the temptations to sin, which the devil, disguised as a snake, brought upon Adam and Eve.

What did the devil tempt them with? As Satan first approached Eve, he tempted her with the temptation of desire, the desire for the forbidden knowledge that God has expressly forbidden for man to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And Satan reasoned very cunningly that the fruit of the tree did not seem to be harmful, and how eating from the tree would bestow great knowledge upon man and made them to be like God. Through this temptation, Satan planted the seeds of pride and greed in mankind’s hearts.

Thus, according to the Book of Genesis, that was when mankind fell into sin, and therefore consequently were banished from the Garden of Eden to wander on this earth and suffer the consequences of our disobedience, which led to sin. Sin came forth because we did not obey God and in our failure to do so, we fell short of what was expected of us, and sin came forth. In the Greek language, the word sin is known as hamartía, which means failure to reach or grasp a target, or in summary, meaning of falling short of what one is expected to do.

God has blessed us and meant for us to enjoy forever the fullness of His grace and love, and He has set precepts and rules for us to follow. Yet, tempted by the devil, we succumbed to the temptations, and not just Adam and Eve, but all mankind ever since then, have fallen into all these temptations in various forms, and came short of our expectations in life to live a virtuous and good life as God’s beloved people, and thus we sinned. Sin has been with us since that moment when Adam and Eve fell, and it has corrupted innumerable sons and daughters of man since.

And the consequences of sin are dire, brothers and sisters in Christ, as sin is a defilement, imperfection and tarnish upon our humanity, and since God is all good and perfect, no impurity, imperfection and defilement can be present before Him. Our sins and shortcomings will end up destroying us if we dare to come before God with them in us, corrupting us and making us unworthy of God. Our shame and regret of having sinned before God would literally destroy us and prevent us from true reconciliation with our loving Creator.

This has been Satan’s plan all along, for he, once known as Lucifer, was once the greatest, brightest and most brilliant among all the Angels of God. Yet, in his brilliance and excellence, which should have been the showcase of God’s wonderful Light by his name of the ‘lightbringer’, he became proud of his own marvels and brilliance, and instead of shining with God’s light, he rebelled against God as he desired to overthrow his own Creator and rule over all instead. From his pride came greed and all other sins that we now know of, and he gathered many other Angels who supported him. But they were defeated and cast out of heaven.

Satan was unable to accomplish what he wanted, for he knew that he was no match for God, and he knew of his eventual ultimate defeat at God’s hands. But the least then he could do was to drag as many of God’s beloved ones, mankind, His pinnacle of creation into damnation and destruction with him. And that is why he brought to us the same defilements and sins he had with him, beginning with pride, and from there all the other forms of deadly sins we are familiar with, such as greed, lust, sloth among others.

And it seemed that Satan had achieved what he wanted, causing men to be sundered and separated from God. It seemed that mankind would perish altogether in hellfire with Satan, for they have sinned, and as the snares of sin were powerful, they would not have been able to be free of their bondage and therefore, would eventually fall into eternal damnation and endure the eternity of suffering with Satan and his fellow fallen angels.

But this is where we must not lose hope, for God ultimately loves us more than even the might of our sinfulness and wickedness, and all the efforts of Satan. His love for us has opened the path to redemption and salvation, by His sending of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and God into this world to be our Saviour. Through Christ, all of us sons and daughters of man have received the full promise of pardon, forgiveness and reconciliation from God.

Satan knew this very well, and that is why he tried to tempt Jesus as well, which we have heard in our Gospel passage today. He tried to stop Him from achieving and fulfilling the mission which God the Father has entrusted to Him to save mankind. And Satan used the same old tricks and temptations to tempt Jesus as well, which we heard being elaborately put into place throughout the Gospel today. When Jesus went to the desert for forty days to prepare Himself to begin His ministry proper, Satan came to tempt Him right there and then.

He began with tempting Jesus with food asking Him to turn the stones into bread, knowing that He was hungry after many days having not eaten any food at all as He fasted for the forty days He was in the desert. But the Lord resisted and told Satan off, saying that ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every words that come from the mouth of God’. This is a common temptation that we all usually face, the temptation of gluttony and greed, desire and want in our hearts, the weakness of our body and flesh to worldly desires that often made us to fall into sin.

The Lord Jesus obeyed His Father’s will and resisted the temptations of Satan, and He showed us that there are indeed things more important than worldly desires and the desire to satisfy our physical bodies and flesh, and that is to listen to the word of God and to follow Him wholeheartedly. It does not mean that food is not necessary or important for us, as we do need to eat and drink to sustain ourselves, but we must not be indulgent and obsessive over them. It is the attachment and excessive desire that we have for worldly things and pleasures that led us to sin.

Then Satan tried to tempt Jesus with his ace card, that is the sin of pride. He brought Jesus to the top of the Temple, using Scriptural quotations to tempt Jesus to show Himself off by jumping down from the Temple, and God would send His Angels as He Himself said to prevent Jesus from falling down and injuring Himself. This temptation was truly very cunning effort by the devil, who played on our pride, ego, ambition and desire, the desire for acknowledgement, praise and affirmation by others.

Again, the Lord Jesus resisted and said that we must not test the Lord by doing such things, by purposefully trying to test if God would fulfil His words, as this is tantamount of doubting God and His providence, and not having faith in Him. Satan was trying to use this as a leverage to gain control by playing into exactly that strong desire in us for recognition, power and glory, twisting into the pride and ego within our hearts and minds.

And last of all, we heard how Satan tried one last time by showing all the glories, wonders and riches of the world by offering them to the Lord Jesus if only that He would bend the knee to him and worship him. Jesus rebuked Satan sternly and commanded him to go away, saying that only God alone is worthy of worship. He resisted this last temptation, which again is a difficult temptation to be overcome, as it pulls upon the same desires within us that crave for worldly goods and pleasures, for worldly glory, power and wealth.

In what we have seen from our Scripture readings, which is also summarised nicely by St. Paul in our second reading today in his Epistle to the Romans, we can see the clear contrast between what happened to Adam and Eve, when mankind first fell into sin, and Christ, Who resisted all the efforts of Satan to tempt Him and sway Him to prevent Him from fulfilling His mission. Christ is indeed the New Adam according to St. Paul, as He showed us that it is not necessary that sin has the power over us. He showed us that it is indeed possible for us to overcome sin and the temptations to sin, as He Himself has showed us by resisting the three temptations of the devil.

But many of us continued to sin, and to fall into sin because first of all, we do not have enough faith in God, and the devil knows this very well. You can already see from today’s readings alone just how adept he can be in using even Scriptural quotes to twist our minds and perceptions to lead us further down into the path of sin and focusing on ourselves and our desires more rather than on God. And many of us are even unaware of our sins and faults, as for various reasons we refuse to acknowledge them.

We often fear sin because we may think that sin made us to be despised by God and God would condemn us into hell because of our sins. However, the truth is actually such that it is precisely by our refusal to repent from our sins or to seek God’s forgiveness that our sins cause us to fall into damnation. Brothers and sisters in Christ, God alone can forgive us our sins and unless we allow God to enter into our lives and forgive us our sins, how can we then be saved?

There is a saying by St. Augustine of Hippo that goes like this, ‘there is no saint without a past and there is no sinner without a future’. This is a reminder for us that even saints were once sinners, and some of them were even great sinners, like St. Augustine himself. But what is important is the fact that they all turned away from their past, sinful ways and allowed God to work through them, forgiving them their sins and making them to be great instruments of His will. God despised not us as the sinners but the sins which we have committed all these while.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we progress through this season of Lent, the forty days of preparation time before the celebrations of Holy Week and Easter, let us all reflect on the preparation that Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself undertook, in the forty days He spent in the desert, and the other ‘forty’ which is the forty long years the Israelites spent in the desert to atone for their rebelliousness before they could enter into the Promised Land. All of these show a time of purification and a time of struggle and challenge-filled journey that we ourselves are facing now.

We should not see the season of Lent as something that is dreadful and gloomy but rather as a time of renewal and rejuvenation as I mentioned earlier. Let it be the ‘springtime’ of our lives and our faith. The season of Lent is a God-given wonderful opportunity for us to renew ourselves and to be reconciled with God. God has always offered His mercy and forgiveness freely to us, but it is often us who ignored and rejected Him all these while.

That is why we should model ourselves on Christ, the New Adam, and break free from the chains of our sins through Him. Like Christ, we should be humble and obedient to God, shunning all forms of pride and ambition. He is the King of Kings and Lord of all lords, and yet, He rejected the glories of the world, resisted the efforts from the people and from His own disciples to make Him their King, and He humbled and emptied Himself to die a most humiliating death on the Cross for our sake.

And Christ did not allow pride to prevent Him from humbling Himself before God, to open Himself up as we all know how He agonised during the night at the Garden of Gethsemane, as He awaited the moment of His suffering and crucifixion. He prayed and prayed very deeply in communication with His Father, and this is a reminder for us that, we too, need God’s help, and the best way for that is through a deepening of our spiritual life through prayer.

Let us all make our Lenten season meaningful and fruitful, brothers and sisters in Christ, by spending more of our time in meaningful prayer, opening our hearts and minds to God, and allowing Him to speak to us that we may truly know what His will is for us. And let us also learn to be more humble and to get rid from our lives the vestiges of ego and greed, pride and ambition, and instead imitate the humility of Christ and His obedience in everything we do in our own respective lives.

May the Lord guide us through this season of Lent, that we may grow ever stronger in our Christian faith and that we may resolve to live in a more Christian like manner with each and every passing moments. May the Lord be with us always and may He grant us the courage and strength to resist the devil and all of his lies and falsehoods. May God bless us all and may He bless all of our Lenten observances and endeavours. Amen.