Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, each and every one of us are reminded yet again of God’s love, His kindness and compassion to each one of us which He has repeatedly shown again and again throughout time, and in how He gave us all the perfect gift of His love, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to be our Saviour and Hope. As we heard from our Scripture passages today, we are all truly blessed and beloved by God, Who made and renewed His Covenant with us all, His people, again and again, from time to time. We have been shown mercy and love, just as how God saved Noah and his family from the Great Flood, and also in how Christ, the Son of God, came into our midst to save us all from certain destruction.

In our first reading today, we continue to hear the account from the Book of Genesis, and this time, as mentioned, it is still about the time when the Great Flood occurred and wiped out almost all life on this world, except for all those who were brought into the great Ark that Noah built upon the instructions from God. All those who were inside the Ark were spared and kept alive because of the faith that Noah had in the Lord, in obeying His Law and commandments. All the other children of mankind were crushed and destroyed by the Great Flood because of their wickedness and sins, their refusal to follow God’s ways, and all of those wickedness which had accumulated and disgusted the Lord, to the point that He released the Great Flood to cleanse the whole world, as there was no more virtue and righteousness in the world back then save than what was found in Noah and his family.

God rescued Noah and brought him and his family safely through the Flood and we heard in today’s first reading passage of the moment when the Flood had finally receded from the world, and Noah and his family offered a great thanksgiving to God, to which God responded by reassuring him of His love and faithfulness, establishing a Covenant with him, and renewed His love for all of the people, all of the children of man. At the same time, however, He also highlighted that should Noah and his descendants commit sins against the Lord once again, doing what those who perished during the Great Flood had done, then they too would have to suffer for their sins and wickedness. Essentially, God reminds us all that He loves us all sinners, but He does not approve of the wickedness that we have committed.

The love which God has for each one of us is also reflected in His promise made to all of us, in how He promised not to destroy us anymore through the water or the same Flood, by placing His own bow on the clouds, which we see during and after rains, the rainbow, as a reminder to Him and to all of us of this love and the Covenant which God had made with Noah that day, and which He has constantly renewed and reestablish again and again with us. Then, God made His new and everlasting Covenant through His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, by Whose coming into the world all of us have seen the light and hope that God wants to bring into our midst, showing us all the path out of the darkness and all the temptations of sin and evils all around us.

In our Gospel passage today, that is exactly what we have heard from the story of the Lord asking His disciples about Who He truly was, as the disciples spoke about Who they thought He was, with St. Peter proclaiming courageously that the Lord Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the Holy One and Saviour that was promised from God, and the One Whom all of them and all of us have to follow. This then led to the Lord revealing that the truth was such that in His role and part in bringing about our salvation and liberation from sin, He would have to be opposed and made to suffer, to endure painful and humiliating trials and persecution at the hands of all those who refused to believe in Him and oppose His works, and finally to die a most painful and humiliating death on the Cross on our behalf, and for the sake of our salvation.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we can clearly see just how much God has loved all of us, that He was willing to endure all of those things for us, to get us all out of the darkness and from the precipice of destruction. He put Himself at the crossfire, enduring the worst punishments for our sins, all on our behalf so that each and every one of us have the sure path out of the darkness and into the light. God has chosen to come into this world and willingly bore our many sins and burdens associated with them, so that we can be free from them, be reconciled and reunited with Him. That is all which God had done for us, all because of His ever amazing love and kindness, His attention and compassion towards us which He has never ceased to show us, despite our frequent stubborn attitude and refusal to obey Him.

That is why today all of us are reminded that we should not harden our hearts and minds, and resist Him and His love anymore. Like what St. Peter did in his moment of weakness in allowing Satan to tempt him and to speak through him, all of us must resist the temptations of worldly desires, ambitions, of our own pride and ego, and all other things that may cause us to become ever more distant from the Lord and His salvation. We have to be resolute in resisting the incessant efforts from the devil in trying to lead us to our downfall and damnation. We must remind ourselves of God’s ever enduring and present love for us, and strive to love Him therefore in the same way, rejecting the excesses of worldly pleasures and sins, and doing whatever we can to live our lives faithfully as Christians, as those who profess our faith in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour.

May the Lord continue to guide us and strengthen us in our journey of faith through life so that we may ever walk faithfully and righteously amidst the many temptations to sin and may we all be good examples and role models, inspiration and strength to one another. May God bless us always and remain with us, guiding us throughout our every good endeavours and efforts, through every good and faithful deeds in life, now and always, forevermore. Amen.

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Lord in the Scripture passages, we are reminded always again and again of God’s love and kindness, which He has lavished on each and every one of us since the very beginning of time. God has created us all out of His love for us, and He has provided us with everything we need, ever caring, kind and compassionate towards us, and He has always reached out to us, even after we have fallen away from His path of righteousness and grace. God has never abandoned or forgotten about us, and He has always loved us all the same. Yet, we mankind were still often stubborn and refused to follow God’s path, or accept His love, compassion and mercy, as we allow ourselves to be swayed and tempted by sin.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis in which the story of how God created our first ancestors, blessed them and provided for them in the Gardens of Eden, was told to us. Back then, man was supposed to live in perfect bliss, happiness and harmony, to be with God in the state of fullness of grace, and having no need to worry or any suffering at all. God made everything to be good and perfect, all wonderful and amazing, all creation to be entrusted to us as their caretakers and guardians, as stewards and as the Lord’s servants, His representatives and workers, in caring for everything that God Himself had made. The Lord entrusted all of those to us, expecting us to be good and faithful stewards to His creation, to be filled with righteousness and obedience to His will.

Unfortunately, we have instead lapsed into sin, and allowed the devil to have his way with us, as we embraced his lies and sweet words over that of obeying God and His commandments. We chose to entertain Satan who tempted us all with the temptations of worldly glory and desires, of greed and ambition, to seek to know more and to become even like God, just as Satan said to Adam and Eve, our ancestors. They allowed themselves to be swayed and convinced by the falsehoods of Satan, and chose to disobey God, and hence, became corrupted by sin. Thus that was how original sin came to afflict each and every one of us. Sin corrupted us and tore us away from the Lord, sundering us from His love and grace, and it all came from our inability to resist the temptations to sin.

Yet, God never gave up on us, and while we have to suffer the consequences of our sins, forced to wander off in this world and away from the perfect bliss of Eden that was intended for us, the Lord continued to watch over us and provide for us the means by which we may find our way back to Him. He has always patiently cared for us and provided for all of our needs, even when we still refused to budge and were stubborn in our rebellion against Him. Not only that, He even promised that He will liberate us all from the tyranny of sin, evil and death, and will gather us back to Himself, which He has done through the sending of His own Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, into our midst, to be the source of our Hope and to lead us all as our Good Shepherd into the right path, that all of us may be reconciled to Him.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the account of the encounter and exchanges between the Lord Jesus Himself and a Syro-Phoenician woman. Back then, the Jewish people were often prejudiced against the non-Jewish people, and the Syro-Phoenician woman was one of the people inhabiting regions neighbouring the Jewish areas in Judea and Galilee, and the Jews, especially the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law among them, often considered their neighbours to be inferior and unfit for God’s grace and love, because they deemed themselves as God’s chosen people, and hence the only ones who were deserving of God’s love and salvation. Not only that, but they took great pride in that, and they scorned those who did not share their thoughts and ideas, and all the pagan peoples.

At the first glance, it might seem that the Lord Jesus was being very rude and dismissive towards the Syro-Phoenician woman. However, the Lord did not do that with the intention to ridicule or being truly prejudiced against the woman. Instead, the Lord actually wanted to make a point before all the people assembled and all of the disciples, that it is indeed folly and unbecoming of God’s people to have such an elitist and biased attitude which they had been keeping up to that point. The Lord used that example by showing to everyone just how persistent and committed the woman was, and what a strong belief and faith that she had in the Lord, that despite everything that the Lord had said to her, she still insisted to seek the Lord and to ask and beg Him to heal her daughter who was very sick. She continued to trust and to be faithful to the Lord, and this faith is a great example to all of the disciples, as well as to all of us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore do our best to resist the evils and the temptations of sin all around us. Let us all recall that every one of us have been created all good and perfect by the Lord, and are expected to lead a life that is truly attuned to God’s will, believing in Him and having faith and trust in Him much as how the Syro-Phoenician woman had lived hers, and in her persistence to follow the Lord despite all that she had to face and endure. Each and every one of us are reminded that if we do not do our part, and do not resist the temptations of sin, all around us, it will be harder and harder for us to resist the pull of sin and we may end up falling deeper and deeper into the wrong paths, as we can easily lose focus on our true focus and attention, that is the Lord, our God and Saviour.

May all of us continue to grow ever more in faith, and may we all grow ever stronger in our devotion and love for God, and may all of us do all that we can in order to glorify Him by our lives, our actions, words and every deeds. Let us all turn towards the Lord with renewed faith and zeal, and let us all be good examples and inspirations to one another, so that we may encourage each other to keep our faith and to turn away the falsehoods and lies of Satan. May God be with us always, and may He guide us to Himself, and help us to walk ever more faithfully in His Presence, now and always, forevermore. Amen.