20160228 TAKING THE GRACE OF GOD FOR GRANTED
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Violet.
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First reading
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Exodus
3:1-8,13-15 ©
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Moses was looking
after the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law priest of Midian. He led his flock
to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in the shape of a flame of fire, coming from
the middle of a bush. Moses looked; there was the bush blazing but it was not
being burnt up. ‘I must go and look at this strange sight,’ Moses said, ‘and
see why the bush is not burnt.’ Now the Lord saw him go forward to look, and
God called to him from the middle of the bush. ‘Moses, Moses!’ he said. ‘Here I
am,’ Moses answered. ‘Come no nearer,’ he said. ‘Take off your shoes, for the
place on which you stand is holy ground. I am the God of your fathers,’ he
said, ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ At this
Moses covered his face, afraid to look at God.
And the
Lord said, ‘I have seen the miserable state of my people in Egypt. I have heard
their appeal to be free of their slave-drivers. Yes, I am well aware of their
sufferings. I mean to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians and bring
them up out of that land to a land rich and broad, a land where milk and honey
flow, the home of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites,
the Hivites and the Jebusites.’
Then
Moses said to God, ‘I am to go, then, to the sons of Israel and say to them,
“The God of your fathers has sent me to you.” But if they ask me what his name
is, what am I to tell them?’ And God said to Moses, ‘I Am who I Am. This’ he
added ‘is what you must say to the sons of Israel: “I Am has sent me to you.”’
And God also said to Moses, ‘You are to say to the sons of Israel: “The Lord,
the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is my name for all time; by this name I shall
be invoked for all generations to come.’
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Responsorial
Psalm
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Psalm
102:1-4,6-8,11 ©
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The Lord is
compassion and love.
My soul, give thanks
to the Lord
all my
being, bless his holy name.
My soul, give thanks to
the Lord
and never
forget all his blessings.
The Lord is
compassion and love.
It is he who forgives
all your guilt,
who heals
every one of your ills,
who redeems your life
from the grave,
who
crowns you with love and compassion,
The Lord is
compassion and love.
The Lord does deeds
of justice,
gives
judgement for all who are oppressed.
He made known his
ways to Moses
and his
deeds to Israel’s sons.
The Lord is
compassion and love.
The Lord is
compassion and love,
slow to
anger and rich in mercy.
For as the heavens
are high above the earth
so strong
is his love for those who fear him.
The Lord is
compassion and love.
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Second reading
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1 Corinthians
10:1-6,10-12 ©
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I want to remind you,
brothers, how our fathers were all guided by a cloud above them and how they
all passed through the sea. They were all baptised into Moses in this cloud and
in this sea; all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual
drink, since they all drank from the spiritual rock that followed them as they
went, and that rock was Christ. In spite of this, most of them failed to please
God and their corpses littered the desert.
These
things all happened as warnings for us, not to have the wicked lusts for
forbidden things that they had. You must never complain: some of them did, and
they were killed by the Destroyer.
All this
happened to them as a warning, and it was written down to be a lesson for us
who are living at the end of the age. The man who thinks he is safe must be
careful that he does not fall.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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Mt4:17
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Glory to you, O
Christ, you are the Word of God!
Repent, says the
Lord,
for the kingdom of
heaven is close at hand.
Glory to you, O
Christ, you are the Word of God!
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Gospel
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Luke 13:1-9 ©
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Some people arrived
and told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with that of
their sacrifices. At this he said to them, ‘Do you suppose these Galileans who
suffered like that were greater sinners than any other Galileans? They were
not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. Or
those eighteen on whom the tower at Siloam fell and killed them? Do you suppose
that they were more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem? They
were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they
did.’
He told
this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came
looking for fruit on it but found none. He said to the man who looked after the
vineyard, “Look here, for three years now I have been coming to look for fruit
on this fig tree and finding none. Cut it down: why should it be taking up the
ground?” “Sir,” the man replied “leave it one more year and give me time to dig
round it and manure it: it may bear fruit next year; if not, then you can cut
it down.”’
TAKING
THE GRACE OF GOD FOR GRANTED
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: Ex 3:1-8,
13-15; Ps 102:1-4, 6-8, 11; 1Cor 10:1-6, 10-12; Lk 13:1-9
This
is the Jubilee of mercy. All the scripture readings of this Sunday
proclaim the goodness, mercy, compassion and patience of God. The text from the book of Exodus
speaks of God’s identification with the misery and the cries of the
Hebrews. God said to Moses, “I have seen the miserable state of my people
in Egypt. I have heard their appeal to be free of their slave-drivers. Yes, I
am well aware of their sufferings.” Indeed, God is never oblivious or blind to
our sufferings and struggles in life. He feels with us and for
us. More than that, He wants to set us free from our misery, our
slavery and our hopelessness. He told Moses, “I mean to deliver them
out of the hands of the Egyptians and bring them up out of that land to a land
rich and broad, a land where milk and honey flow.”
Truly,
this God of ours is a God of mercy and compassion. His compassion goes beyond
merely delivering us from our misery and suffering, He comes to free us from
the cause of our misery, namely our sins. The responsorial psalm
speaks of the experience of the Israelites of God’s mercy and
forgiveness. “It is he who forgives all your guilt, who heals every one
of your ills, who redeems your life from the grave, who crowns you with love
and compassion. The Lord is compassion and love, slow to anger and rich
in mercy. For as the heavens are high above the earth so strong in his love for
those who fear him.”
Yet
He is a patient God. He does not expect us to change immediately. He waits for us like the man who
had a barren fig tree that was not producing fruits. When the man
wanted to cut it down, the one looking after it said, “Sir, leave it one more
year and give me time to dig round it and manure it: it may bear fruit next
year; if not, then you can cut it down.” So God is caring,
forgiving and patient. He understands our struggles and our
limitations. He does not expect us to be saints overnight.
In
the light of our experience of God’s mercy and compassion, we must
rejoice. Indeed,
Christianity is about celebration, about rejoicing. What are the reasons
for us to rejoice? Simply because of His love and mercy for
us! A sad and hopeless Christian is a contradiction.
Authentic Christians are always positive, full of joy and live a liberated
life. How could it be that Christians are not joyful? How did they
lose their joy if they had it?
It
all boils down to a complacent spiritual life. The blessings of God are taken
for granted and not valued. They never consider the costs of God’s
sacrifice of His only begotten Son for the salvation of the world.
They never give a thought to Christ’s suffering on the Cross, His passion and
death. The graces of God that they received have been reduced to cheap
grace. It is grace without conversion, grace without repentance, grace
without fellowship, grace without commitment; grace without love. Indeed,
there is no transformation of life. Weakness becomes an excuse for a
mediocre Christian life. This is what St Paul is warning us as he warned
his fellow Christians of what happens if we take the grace of God for granted.
“I want to remind you, brothers, how our fathers were all guided by a cloud
above them and how they all passed through the sea. They were all baptised into
Moses in this cloud and in this sea; all ate the same spiritual food and all
drank the same spiritual drink, since they all drank from the spiritual rock
that followed them as they went, and that rock was Christ. In spite of this,
most of them failed to please God and their corpses littered the
desert.” So too, we might be baptized Christians and we might think
we belong to the Church of Christ. What is the use of belonging to His
Church when we do not share in His life, love and in communion with our
brothers and sisters? A ritual baptism and a mediocre Catholic life
cannot save us nor give life here on earth or in heaven!
The
way to recover our faith in Christ is through thanksgiving. Be
grateful for what we have received. We must give thanks for all that we have and
are. We give thanks especially for Christ who has taught us how to live a
meaningful life. We give thanks for His justice, compassion and
forgiveness.
To
give thanks is to show our gratitude not just in words and in worship. It
is to live a life in imitation of Christ. Only when we live a transformed life, will others
see the good works we do and give glory to God. Grateful people express
themselves by loving the person and doing things for the person who has loved
them. Without any offering to give to the Lord or a changed life, it
clearly shows that we are not grateful.
Indeed,
people without gratitude for God’s love in Christ either do not practice their
faith or they do it slavishly more out of fear of God’s punishment than out of
love for God. Their religious and spiritual life is but a routine, a set of
rituals that they perform but they are all empty practices that do not touch
the core of their being. It is done perfunctorily and
superficially. At most their faith, if any, is but an intellectual
knowledge of some doctrines taught to them.
To
remain grateful to the Lord, what is necessary is to keep on going back to our
memories of Christ’s love for us. This is done through prayer and meditation and
worship. We need to renew our relationship with the Lord all the time,
just as in human relationship. Out of sight, out of mind! If
it is true with human relationship, it is even truer in our relationship with
God. This is what secularization seeks to do, to empty and sideline the
sacred presence of God from our daily life.
Consequently,
if we were to keep our joy alive sustained by a life of gratitude, we need to
renew our personal relationship with God always. We need to go back to the
Burning Bush experience as Moses did. Only by reliving our Burning Bush
experience like St Paul in his Damascus experience, could we then keep our
hope, courage and joy alive. Unless we come to appreciate in our heart, not
just our head, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross not for us but for me and
you, we will never be cut to the quick and feel grateful.
Thus,
without constant prayer, worship, fellowship, and sharing the Word of God, we
will eventually become distant from God and from His love. We need to continue to
contemplate on His passion, death and resurrection; then celebrate it in the
Eucharist. This is the common mistake of our Catholics. They are
weak when it comes to follow up after a Conversion Experience or in Christian
discipleship. Many are baptized and just remain converts. Many are
born again but died prematurely. We lack mentors and serious Christian discipleship
to form and strengthen our Catholics in faith. Indeed, we are called once
again to stand on Holy Ground like Moses so that our experience of God’s love
can be renewed and we can be fired up again.
This
joy that we have must be sustained by an evangelical life. The only way to keep our experience is
to share with others. Like Moses we are called to announce the mercy and
compassion of God to others.
Finally,
there is a veiled warning that if we do not respond positively with joy and
gratitude to what God has done for us through a life of prayer, discipleship
and evangelization, we will lose whatever little we have. God is patient with us but there will
come a time of judgment like the Israelites. We too can suffer the same
fate as them and the Galileans like the fig tree if we do not bear fruit.
So before it is too late to regret, let us refocus our direction in life.
Let us take up the challenge of living authentic lives in joy, love and
service, regardless of our state of life. The whole world is holy ground
and we must bring the joy of Christ to all. Let us therefore not allow
the love and joy of Christ we have received to die with us. So, be
joyful witnesses of life and love wherever you are and in whatever you do!
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved
