Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we all listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures presented to us, we are all called to remember God’s providence and love for each and every one of us, in how He has constantly reached out to us with generous love, kindness and compassion at all times. He has provided us through His various means, helped us all when we have difficulties and challenges, in His own unique and mysterious ways. Essentially, He never abandoned us and has always wanted us all to be truly blessed and provided for, at all times. Ultimately, He gave to us the ultimate gift in His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, through Whom God has saved all of us and gathered us all once again, giving to us all the gift of the Living Bread from Heaven.

In our first reading this Sunday, taken from the First Book of Kings of Israel and Judah, we heard of the moment when the prophet Elijah, who had been sent to minister to the people of God in the northern kingdom of Israel. At that time, Elijah had been persecuted and oppressed by the Israelites and their king, Ahab, and his wife, Queen Jezebel, both of whom had disobeyed God and persecuted His prophets. The latter in particular was very hostile against Elijah because of his role in leading to the deaths of four hundred and fifty priests of Baal, the false god promoted by Queen Jezebel, as Elijah showed everyone that God is truly the one and only True God against the false god Baal at Mount Carmel, where a contest was held between Elijah, the sole representative of God, and Baal’s four hundred and fifty priests. The Lord showed His power before His people, while Baal was impotent.

Elijah was persecuted afterwards, and he had to flee into the desert. We heard his frustrations and sufferings when he expressed it to the Lord there. But God reassured Elijah and strengthened him, giving him the courage and resolve to carry on with his mission despite the challenges and trials he had to face. He sent to Elijah an Angel bearing food and drink for him to consume and to be strengthened in his body. Through the food that he received, he was empowered, and making the journey of forty days and forty nights, he eventually went all the way to the Mountain of God, Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai, where the Israelites once established a Covenant with God at the time of their Exodus, and where God revealed Himself to all of them. It was there that God would appear to Elijah as well, reassuring him and strengthening his resolve to continue to minister to the stubborn and rebellious Israelites.

Then in our second reading this Sunday, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in Ephesus, we heard of the reminders with St. Paul told the people of God of the great grace and love which all of them had received through the Lord, by the grace of His love, of the loving Father the Creator, the presence of the Son in this world in our midst, and by the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit in all of us, who have received the gift of the Spirit of God from the Father Himself through His Son. That is why all of us as Christians, as God’s holy and beloved people, each and every one of us should always strive to be ever faithful and committed to Him, and to be exemplary in all of our lives and actions. We should always be righteous and just in all of our dealings and attitudes in life.

And as St. Paul himself mentioned to the Ephesians, that they all had to imitate the Lord’s own examples in loving us and in showing us His commitment to the Covenant which He had made with us and constantly renewed with us. God has always shown us all His patient and ever enduring love, His most generous love and kindness, His compassion and mercy which He has kindly extended to each one of us without exception. Even the greatest of sinners have access to God’s generous love and mercy, and He has always been patient in guiding and leading us all to Himself. He has given us all ample opportunities, moments and times for us to embrace Him and His loving kindness, His mercy and forgiveness, and for us to repent from our sins and change our ways in life. But that is up to us to choose, to make a stand and be faithful to the Lord in all of our lives.

In our Gospel passage, from the Gospel according to St. John, we heard the continuation of the discourse on the Bread of Life which we have begun last Sunday, when the Lord told them that He is the Living Bread from Heaven, the Bread of Life, through Whom God wanted to give us all the assurance, nourishment and promise of eternal life, that all who worthily partake of His Body and Blood, all shall receive the fullness of His grace and love, and receive the promise of eternal life. We heard how the Jewish people and many among those who have heard Him openly grumbled and doubted Him because He told them that He is the Bread from Heaven, the Bread of Life that God would give to His people, comparing Himself to the manna, the heavenly bread that their ancestors had received and consumed, and how this Bread of Life is far better than all that manna in the past.

The Lord reiterated again that He is the Bread of Life, and this is a precursor and premonition of what would soon happen, when the Lord Himself offered His Body and His Blood at the moment when He accomplished and perfected His mission through His Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross. By His willing acceptance and shouldering of all of our many sins and wickedness, our faults and mistakes, God through His Son, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, had taken up upon Himself, as the Paschal Lamb, the Sacrificial Victim to be offered on the Altar of the Cross for the forgiveness of all of our sins. Through His offering of this most perfect and worthy of offerings, He Who is also our Eternal High Priest, had created for all of us the New and Eternal Covenant, the one Covenant through which God reconciled us all to Himself and restored us to the state of grace.

And all of us receive from Him, through His Institution of the Most Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper, which we commemorate every year on Holy Thursday, His very own Most Precious Body and Most Precious Blood, which have been broken and shed for us from His Cross, the same ultimate sacrifice that He has performed and offered on Calvary on Good Friday. Each and every one of us who partake of His Most Precious Body and Blood receive this same Bread of Life that Christ our Lord had promised to us, and He therefore dwells in us, making us all part of the same Body, the Body of Christ, the Church of God, uniting us all into one people, one flock of those whom God had called, chosen and saved from this world. It is through God Himself that we have been saved, and we should not squander this great opportunity that has been granted to us.

Through what we have therefore heard from the Scripture passages this Sunday, each and every one of us are reminded of God’s most generous love and kindness which He has always given to us, His providence, love and patient nurturing and care, which He has always given us freely. Therefore, recognising this fact and reality that we are truly blessed to have been loved in such a manner by the Lord, our most loving God and Father, let us all strive to live our lives worthily for Him, to love Him first and foremost in all things and distance ourselves from any forms of sin or corruptions that can prevent us from coming towards the Lord and His loving Presence. Let us also realise that while God’s love and mercy have been extended to us freely and generously, as mentioned earlier, we need to embrace His love and mercy, and act upon them so that we can be truly reconciled and reunited with Him.

Hence, let us all continue to do our part as Christians, as God’s holy and beloved people, so that in each and every moments of our lives we will always put our faith and trust in Him, believing in His Providence and help, in all the guidance, strength and all the things that He will bless us all with in our respective journeys in life. There will likely indeed be challenges, trials and difficulties we may encounter in our journey, but as long as we remain faithful to the Lord and trust in Him throughout our journey, in the end, we will be triumphant with Him, and we will receive the fullness of all the wonders and blessings, the graces and all the good things that God has promised and reassured us with, through His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. May all of us continue to walk faithfully in the path that Our Lord has shown us, and let us all continue to inspire one another to do the same, to be ever faithful at every moments of our lives. Amen.

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us are reminded on one very important aspects of our Christian faith, the very core tenet of our beliefs, namely that of the belief in the Real Presence of the Lord in the Most Holy Eucharist which we partake at every celebrations of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We are all reminded that as God’s people we are all cared by Him, and He has always loved us most generously and tenderly without any exception. Each and every one of us are beloved of the Lord, so much so that He has provided for us physically and spiritually in all things most wholesomely just as how He had shown it in the past through what we have heard in our Scripture passages this Sunday. And ultimately, He gave to us all the ultimate and best gift of all, namely that of His only begotten Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

In our first reading this Sunday, we heard from the Book of Exodus in which the Lord provided His people, the Israelites, with food and provisions during the time of their Exodus and journey from the land of Egypt to the Promised Land of Canaan through the desert. At that time, the Israelites after having travelled through the desert for some time began complaining about their state of life, as they compared their status to when they were still enslaved back in the land of Egypt. They were saying that it would have been better for them to remain in Egypt as slaves and enjoying whatever bounties and food that they had in Egypt rather than to be free and to wander off in the desert on their way to this land promised to them by God.

This showed that the people of Israel did not have faith and trust in the Lord, and showing just how little confidence they had in God Who up to that time had showed them repeatedly His love and kindness, His compassion and mercy. God has not abandoned His people even when they disobeyed Him and refused to listen to Him. He provided for them and helped them, just as He had done earlier on in Egypt. He showed them His power when He led the people out of Egypt, striking upon the Egyptians with ten great plagues that humbled the Egyptians and their Pharaoh, forcing them to admit that the Lord is truly the one and only God, the Master of all, and that He is the Lord over all the Israelites, whom He brought out of the land of Egypt with great power, even opening the sea itself before them. He kept on doing these even when His people doubted Him and did not fully put their faith and trust in Him.

As we heard in that passage from the Book of Exodus, the Lord sent to the Israelites bread from Heaven itself, the manna, which gave them sustenance and provision for their entire time and journey in the desert, over the whole entire forty years period of that journey. He also gave them flocks of birds in the evening just as the manna came in the morning to make them all have their fill, and despite the desert being mostly inhospitable for life and without any food, but God made His people miraculously not just surviving in their forty years sojourn in the desert, but also thrived during that whole period. He also gave them crystal clear and good water to drink throughout their journey, giving them everything they needed even amidst all their rebellious attitudes and actions.

In our second reading, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Church and the faithful in Ephesus, we heard of the words of the Apostle speaking to the people of the need for all of them to reject and abandon their past lives of sin, their disobedience against God and their wickedness, all of which should be exchanged for a new life filled with God’s grace and light, His truth and love. As Christians, St. Paul reminded all of us that we should no longer allow ourselves to be easily swayed by worldly temptations and all sorts of desires, ambitions, pursuits for fame and glory which many of us often indulged in, all of which can lead us astray from the Lord and His path as many of our predecessors had experienced. Instead, we should embrace the path that the Lord has shown us wholeheartedly, allowing Him to transform our lives to embody what we believe in Him.

Then, in our Gospel passage this Sunday, from the Gospel of St. John, we heard of the discourse of the Bread of Life from the Lord to His disciples and to all those who have come seeking Him. At that time, which was just after the Lord performed the wondrous miracle of the multiplication of the loaves of bread and fishes, feeding many thousands of people, many among the people were astonished at what they had experienced, in receiving the miraculous feeding with bread, that they came seeking for the Lord when He went away with His disciples. They were seeking Him as the Lord Himself mentioned because they were satisfied after being fed with all the food and they were seeking satisfaction and pleasures of the world, but they did not truly have strong and genuine faith in the Lord yet.

That was why when the people mentioned how their ancestors were fed by the heavenly bread, the manna, the Lord told them all that it was indeed God Who had provided and given them the bread to eat, to sustain and nourish them throughout the journey, a feat which the Lord Himself also replicated and repeated again before their own eyes, as they saw and witnessed how the Lord gave them multitudes of food from merely five loaves of bread and two fishes. Through this act and event, God showed them all His loving Presence being manifested through His Son in this world, showing them how He had been truly present in their midst, loving them and caring for them as He has always done. And not only that, but He was giving them even more than just merely physical bread, as He gave Himself to be the Living Bread, broken and shared for them, something that far surpasses even the manna.

For through His loving sacrifice made and offered on the Cross, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has given us all His own Most Precious Body and Most Precious Blood to share and partake, so that all of us may truly gain the perfect fulfilment and satisfaction, giving us the ultimate gift and nourishment that no physical sustenance can provide us. Through the Most Holy Eucharist, Our Lord’s own Presence in the flesh, in His Body and Blood, all of us have become the Temple of God’s Holy Presence, as He dwells within us, and the Holy Spirit He has imparted upon us blessing and sanctifying us all with His grace. But even more importantly, we must realise just how fortunate we are for us having been loved in such a way by our loving God and Creator, and we are therefore called to do our part in the Covenant that He has established with us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, each and every one of us as part of His one united Body, through this sharing of the Most Holy and Sacred Communion, of all the believers in Christ, we are all called to sanctify our lives and existence by doing our very best in each and every circumstances in our respective lives that our whole lives, our every actions and deeds may be truly filled with God’s light and truth, His grace and love. We should be thankful for everything that God has given us, and make best use of the many opportunities and the talents and abilities which He has blessed us with, so that in everything we say and do, in our every interactions with one another, we will continue to be good examples and role models, inspirations and strength for one another to continue living our lives as genuine Christians at all times.

May the Lord continue to guide us in our journey, and may He continue to strengthen and nourish us all with His Bread of Life, the Holy Eucharist that we continue to partake in. Let us all continue to focus and put the emphasis of our lives upon the Lord in all the things that we say and do, in all of our every moments in life. May we all as Christians also continue to live ever more worthily in all circumstances, doing our best so that we may continue to grow ever stronger in our love and faith in the Lord, and that our lives may continue to bring glory to the Lord, now and forevermore. Amen.