20170914 REMEMBERING THE DEEDS OF THE LORD
Readings
at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Red.
EITHER:
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First
reading
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Numbers 21:4-9 ©
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On the way through the wilderness the people lost patience. They
spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die
in this wilderness? For there is neither bread nor water here; we are sick of
this unsatisfying food.’
At this God sent fiery serpents among the people;
their bite brought death to many in Israel. The people came and said to Moses,
‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede for us
with the Lord to save us from these serpents.’ Moses interceded for the people,
and the Lord answered him, ‘Make a fiery serpent and put it on a standard. If
anyone is bitten and looks at it, he shall live.’ So Moses fashioned a bronze
serpent which he put on a standard, and if anyone was bitten by a serpent, he
looked at the bronze serpent and lived.
OR:
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Alternative
First reading
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Philippians 2:6-11 ©
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His state was divine,
yet Christ Jesus did not cling
to his equality with God
but emptied himself
to assume the condition of a slave
and became as men are;
and being as all men are,
he was humbler yet,
even to accepting death,
death on a cross.
But God raised him high
and gave him the name
which is above all other names
so that all beings
in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld,
should bend the knee at the name of Jesus
and that every tongue should acclaim
Jesus Christ as Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 77(78):1-2,34-38 ©
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Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
Give heed, my people, to my teaching;
turn your ear to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable
and reveal hidden lessons of the past.
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
When he slew them then they would seek him,
return and seek him in earnest.
They would remember that God was their rock,
God the Most High their redeemer.
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
But the words they spoke were mere flattery;
they lied to him with their lips.
For their hearts were not truly with him;
they were not faithful to his covenant.
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
Yet he who is full of compassion
forgave them their sin and spared them.
So often he held back his anger
when he might have stirred up his rage.
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
When a Feast of the Lord falls on a weekday,
there is no reading after the Psalm and before the Gospel.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Alleluia, alleluia!
We adore you, O Christ,
and we bless you;
because by your cross
you have redeemed the world.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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John 3:13-17 ©
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Jesus said to Nicodemus:
‘No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who came down from heaven,
the Son of Man who is in heaven;
and the Son of Man must be lifted up
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost
but may have eternal life.
For God sent his Son into the world
not to condemn the world,
but so that through him the world might be saved.’
REMEMBERING THE DEEDS OF THE LORD
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [NUM 21:4-9; PHIL 2:6-11; JN 3:13-17 ]
In the refrain
to the responsorial psalm, we say, “Never forget the deeds of the
Lord.” Indeed, forgetfulness is the cause of many sins and the
repetition of history. The problem is that the human mind has very short
memory of the past, good or bad. That is why we are never grateful for
what we have, or regret for the mistakes that we had made. We tend to
repeat history all over again. When we study the history of humanity, it
is but a repetition of the same mistakes that our forefathers had made, albeit
now in new circumstances, but the mistakes are essentially the same.
This was the
mistake of the Israelites in today’s first reading. They had just seen the
spectacular powers of God saving them from the pursuits of the Egyptian
army. They witnessed the guiding hand of God in their journey across the
desert in the pillar of cloud during the day and the pillar of fire at
night. When they complained they had no food, God sent them manna
and quails for meat. They ate to their hearts’ content. But they
were always grumbling and complaining. They were so forgetful of what God
had done for them.
We too are
like the Israelites. We are always complaining about our lives. We are never satisfied with
what we have. When we are young we wish we were older so that we can have
greater freedom and mobility. When we are older, we wish we were young,
because then we were more carefree and had less responsibilities. Those
without jobs complain that they do not have work, whilst those with jobs
complain about their work, their bosses and colleagues. Those who have
plenty of food complain that the food is not good enough, or they worry about
eating too much; whilst those without food worry about where to find the next
meal.
The cause of
our anxiety comes from our failure to remember the mercy and love we have
received from God. This explains why we lack confidence that He will take care
of our future. We count our woes instead of our blessings. When we
reflect on our life, we will realize that we have received many blessings from
God in different ways, through our successes and achievements. These
blessings came to us through different people in our lives. Indeed, what
we are today is the consequence of all the people and opportunities given to
us. If only we remember how the Lord has taken care of us all these
years, then we would be assured that if He had looked after us until today, He
will surely see us through the future as well. Remembering the goodness
of the Lord will give us the confidence to trust Him with our future.
Secondly, the
failure to remember God’s deeds for us is always the cause of our ingratitude. In spite of the
blessings we have received, we tend to take them for granted. Some of us
think that everything is due to our hard work. We fail to realize that
success is not all due to our hard work and our intelligence alone. God
needs to bless us with good health, grey matter, opportunities, money and link
us up with the right people. When we lack gratitude, we will remain
discontented. If we are grateful for what we have already, then we will
not be greedy for more, but happy to be what we are. Those of us who are
not grateful will always be envious of others, lamenting about what we do not
have instead of what we already have. Remembering the past with gratitude is
the key to contentment.
Thirdly, the
failure to remember our past mistakes is the cause of our repeating them again. This is what the Psalmist
says, “Give heed, my people, to my teaching; turn your ear to the words of my
mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable and reveal hidden lessons of the past.
When he slew them then they would seek him, return and seek him in earnest.
They would remember that God was their rock, God the Most High their
redeemer. But the words they spoke were mere flattery; they lied to him
with their lips. For their hearts were not truly with him; they were not
faithful to his covenant.” Truly, many of us keep on repeating the
same mistakes in life, or the mistakes of our forefathers. We do not seem
to learn from our mistakes or theirs. We read in the papers of people who
have been charged for cheating, corruption, sexual offences, killing, reckless
and drunk driving, the evils of gambling, etc, yet, knowing the consequences
ahead of us, we still do the same thing. Students know the consequences
of not studying and being disciplined, yet they do not take their studies
seriously until they face the penalty of not being able to enter the school or
enroll for the course of their choice. Then they will drop out of
school and find that they are not able to secure a good job and a career for
their future.
This is
particularly true in relationships. Some of us have so many failed relationships simply because
we never learnt from the mistakes of the previous relationships. We
are quick to enter into another relationship simply because there is a vacuum
in our lives and we feel lonely and insecure. But without learning from
the lessons of the past, we are bound to repeat exactly the same
mistakes. Not knowing our history and not remembering our past will cause
us to repeat our mistakes.
The antidote
to our misery is to remember. “Never forget the deeds of the
Lord.” What does it mean to remember if not to re-member? When we
remember, we bring together all the events of our past, good and bad, making
sense of them, showing gratitude for the blessings we have received and
learning from the mistakes we have made. To remember is to give unity to
all that happened in our life so that we can see the hand of God working in the
daily events in our life. In this way, we can give thanks to God and be
grateful for all that has happened to us since all things work unto our good
for those who love Him. (cf Rom 8:28)
This indeed
is the way God helps us to heal our sinfulness and our lack of gratitude. In the first
reading, God asked Moses to erect a serpent on the pole to heal the people of
their ingratitude and sinfulness. “Make a fiery serpent and put it on a
standard. If anyone is bitten and looks at it, he shall live.” Why
did God use the serpent that bit them to be the instrument of healing?
This was because by remembering the serpent, they would remember their pain and
the mistakes they made in complaining and whining instead of being grateful to
God for the blessings that they had received, freedom, manna and meat.
They were taught to be contented and to be grateful in their hearts.
The serpent
lifted up on the pole of course is to anticipate Christ’s passion, death and
resurrection.
Jesus said, “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from
heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven; and the Son of Man must be lifted up
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes may
have eternal life in him.” Christ is our real deliverer, savior
and healer. He came to show us God’s mercy in forgiving our sins.
He showed us God’s compassion in healing our illnesses, curing our
diseases. He showed Himself to be the Wisdom and Word of God by
teaching us the truth about life, about His Father and about humble service,
self-emptying, forgiveness and sin. He proved Himself to be our deliverer
by freeing us from the clutch and the power of the Evil One, especially the
last enemy of humanity, the fear of death. By contemplating on the cross
of Christ, we come to be convicted of the mercy, forgiveness and power of God’s
love in rescuing us from death.
In Him, we
can truly exclaim, “Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son
into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world
might be saved.” This is what St Paul seeks to affirm in the second
reading. Contemplating on the love and mercy of God, he wrote, “The state
of Jesus Christ was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God but
emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are; and
being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a
cross.” The passion of Christ sums up the mercy of God in person.
But it is not
sufficient to speak of Christ being lifted up on the cross at His passion. We
must also speak of His resurrection. The cross without the resurrection would be tragedy; and
the resurrection without the cross would be without power. So the lifting
up of Jesus on the cross is also seen as His glorification. For as St
Paul said, “But God raised him high and gave him the name which is above all
other names so that all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld,
should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue should acclaim
Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
It is
therefore most appropriate that in the Eucharist, we celebrate the memorial of
His passion, death and resurrection. In celebrating the mass, we call to mind His life, death
and resurrection so that we will remember that Jesus is our life and our
glory. In receiving Him in the Eucharist, we are called to die with
Him so that we too can share in the new life of grace. In this way, we
will be able to live a life of gratitude and thanksgiving every day, which is
what the Eucharist is all about, thanksgiving.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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