Liturgical Colour : Green

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate together the love of God for us mankind, which He had shown by giving us Jesus, His own Son to bring this world and all mankind into salvation and eternal life with Him in heaven. And today we heard how Jesus performed His miracles, casting out demons and healing the sick as He ministered to the people of God, doing many good works.

Jesus showed us hope and strength by showing that evil and death has no power over us, and over all those who had put their trust in the Lord. Those who trust in the Lord will never be disappointed, for God will care for them and protect them, all the days of their lives. And through Jesus we have been given the Spirit of God, that is the Holy Spirit, who passed through the Son from the Father, and who revealed to us the truth about our Lord and God.

Those who belong to the spiritual world, that is the Spirit of God and the holy angels who serve the Lord, all are beyond our ability and physical senses to be able to detect them and know them, and yet through the Spirit and the revelations given to us through the Church, we know that they are there, and they are around us, and within us, that is the Spirit of God which had been placed in us.

And even the evil spirits, the allies and the servants of Satan, which we witnessed in the men possessed at the time when Jesus was ministering in Capernaum, knew Jesus and understood His true nature fully, for they too, once belonged to the same order of angels that served the Lord. They followed Lucifer, the evil one who fell and be trapped in his own pride, and entered into a rebellion against God, and thus they were together cast away from heaven.

God is truly loving towards us, and we are truly the most beloved and the greatest among His creations, created in the very image of God and be awakened with the very Spirit that came from the breath of God. Do you notice this? The Lord Himself breathed life into us through His Spirit, that dwelled in us and made us whole. Yet, we too fell when our ancestors followed Satan into his rebellion by listening to Satan and disobeying the will of God.

But the Lord gave us such a grace, that we are given another opportunity through life to redeem ourselves, and through the sending of many prophets and messengers that carried on the will and word of God to us, which all are aimed at our salvation and redemption from destruction and eternal damnation that is our fate. Yes, the fate of all who had defied the will of God and rebelled against His love is death, and yet, the Lord wanted us to know that we have no need for fear, as long as we put our complete trust in Him.

Satan and his angels, the evil spirits, were not given a second chance, and indeed, they remained in their rebellion and hatred of the Lord and all of His creations, that they are truly beyond any form of redemption. It is not the same for us humans, for God had made us special and to be the greatest and most beloved of all of His creatures.

Satan who tempted and made our ancestors to fall into sin certainly did not remain quiet and passive throughout this. In fact, he had marshalled all of his forces in the world and beyond, and he launched strikes after strikes at us mankind, so that more and more may fall with him and to suffer together in eternal damnation and separation from God. But the Lord who knows all and who created all had other plan for us.

He showed that He is truly in control, and He cast out the demons to show it clearly to them and to men, that in God, everything is possible, and that He is truly the One whom everyone ought to praise and worship. All honour belongs to God and to Him alone. And if He cares for us and loves us beyond everything else, then we are truly blessed, for we share in the Lord, the promise of salvation which He had made to us through Jesus.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, we all need to come to a greater realisation that God is with us, and that He has placed within us His Spirit, so that we may know the great works of Jesus, and by listening to the readings from the Holy Scriptures today, we are made aware of the assurances given to us by the Lord, who promised to protect us and guide us on our way, rebuking forever and rejecting forever the power and authority of Satan, the great enemy of all who are living.

Satan is afraid of the Lord, and he rightly did so, because he already knew his fate and the futility of his endeavour, for he goes up against none other than the Lord and Master of all the universe, and even Satan himself and all of his allies are bound and answerable to God and His authority. And he knew of his ultimate fate, that is destruction, eternal agony and suffering that await him, and thus, he and all of his angels feared the Lord greatly, for they knew that it is in Him that their doom will come. Jesus is the great Judge, the last Judge of all who would judge all creations at the end of time.

May our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen in our hearts, our desire to know more about Him, so that we may truly discern about His presence around us, and therefore bringing all of us to greater wisdom and understanding in the Holy Spirit of God. Let us reject Satan with all of our hearts, our strengths and our minds. If we have any trouble, let us all remember that, if we call on the Holy Name of Jesus with full faith, no evil may stand against us. May Almighty God instead bring you to triumph and victory in His Name. God bless us all. Amen.