Today we conclude our celebration of the story and the mystery of God’s salvation for us. The devil could not defeat God. Evil could not overcome God’s love for us. It is love that has defeated evil, even death itself.

Christ has risen from the dead and all who believe in him will have eternal life. Christ has reconciled us with the Father.

Through Christ, our relationship with God has been transformed. We do not have to fear God’s judgment.

In Christ we have our Saviour who pleads for us. He has died for our sins and has risen from the dead, offering us eternal life through him. God will always be with us with His love to forgive us in Jesus His Son. God just awaits for a humble and contrite heart to come before Him.

But this is not the end of the story of our salvation. Jesus has not just brought God’s love and mercy but invites us now to a new life. Through his resurrection, Jesus has poured God’s love upon us that we may now live in God’s love.

Do not seek what the world has to offer. Seek God and God’s Word. In there is life, hope and love.

We are called from the darkness into the Light.
We are called from despair of our sinfulness into hope of God’s mercy.
We are called from hatred to love as Jesus loves.
We are called from the death into life.
We are called to rise from the tomb to a life in Christ.

Christ is our light who shines the way for us.
Christ is our saviour when we fall into sin.
Christ is God who teaches us how to love.
Christ will always be with us.

Christ is Risen!
He lives and he lives in us today.

EZEKIEL 37: 12-14
PSALM 129
ROMANS 8: 8-11
MATTHEW 11: 1-45

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In the first reading, to a people in Exile, through the Prophet Ezekiel, God tells the people:
“I shall put my spirit in you and you will live……”

In the second reading, St Paul in his most profound letter, tells the people that ‘the Spirit of God has made his home in them.’ He writes, ‘And if Christ is in you then your Spirit is life itself.’

And in the Gospel in Jesus we see the purpose of the gift of the Spirit, that God may be glorified.

This Easter, Adam will be received into the Catholic Church through the sacrament of Baptism. What does our baptism mean to us? Through our baptism, we are given the fruit of Jesus death and resurrection: a new life in the Holy Spirit. Today, let us ask ourselves, ‘How is the Holy Spirit within me, life giving?’

The challenge to us today is that sometimes we can feel bounded by our sins or feel we are not good enough that we despair. We end up being like Lazarus in the tomb. We can sometimes feel it is not possible to change and so close the tomb we are in and not allow Jesus to free us.

Yet, if we say we believe then believe that Jesus can transform our lives because he has risen.

The words that Jesus speaks to Martha in today’s Gospel, he is saying to us today also.
“I am the Resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, though he dies, he lives,
and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. DO YOU BELIEVE THIS”

In Baptism, through the Holy Spirit we are made into the image of Christ. As St Peter said as Jesus is Priest, Prophet and King, so are we through our baptism.

As priest, Jesus was a person of prayer who taught us how to prayer and prayed for us.
Sometimes people can avoid prayer because they think it is too difficult and too time consuming. Prayer is simply a talking to God: a simple thank you or sorry or a asking for a blessing on a person in need or for ourselves. What is important in prayer is not length of time but a sincere love in our hearts and faith in God.

As prophet, Jesus proclaimed God’s mercy and God’s way and God’s almighty power. We are all prophets of God when we live out our Christian virtues in seeking right relationship with our neighbour, even those who hate us. We are all prophets of God when we gather to worship God, for in so doing we are telling the world the importance of having a right relationship with God.

Another image of the king is that of the Good Shepherd. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus cared for the sick, the poor and the sinner. In so doing he revealed God’s mercy and compassion.
We are called to share in Jesus’ kingship by being shepherds who care for those in need, the poor, the sick, the lonely, the outcaste, the sinner even the enemy in need.

Yes, if we say we believe then believe that Jesus can transform our lives even today, because he has risen and with him we too will rise.

1 SAMUEL 16: 1, 6-7, 10-13
PSALM 22
EPHESIANS 5: 8-14
JOHN 9: 1-41

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In the year 403, after the troops of the Emperor Honorius had defeated his enemies, great games were held in Rome to celebrate this victory. These games included gladiatorial games where men fought and killed one another. This was even though Christianity was now the official religion in the Roman Empire and even Christians attended these games.

Saint Telemachus, a monk, determined to show that Christian love could not tolerate this, travelled to Rome, obtained entrance to the amphitheatre, and when the fight began leapt over the barrier to part the gladiators. The crowd of people shouted with rage and started throwing stones and other missiles at St Telemachus. He was soon pelted to death.

But the sight of him lying dead cooled their rage and opened their eyes to their cruelty. The emperor called his death a martyrdom and he went on to ban the gladiatorial games and the people agreed.

Lent is a time of growing in our faith in God. It is a time to ask ourselves, ‘Where is Jesus in my life today? What is Jesus saying to me?’ To answer that question, we need to ask ourselves, ‘what does the crucifixion of Jesus mean to us?”

The cross is the symbol of God’s love and what that Love calls for is compassion, mercy and sacrifice. The voice of Christ is always there calling us to his love.

St Telemachus could recognize the evil of the gladiatorial fights and went on to right a wrong. He heard the voice of Christ to right a wrong.
St Francis of Assisi came to encounter Jesus when he embraced a leper.
St Theresa of Calcutta came to see the face of Christ in the destitute and dying of the city.
St Mary of the Cross MacKillop began her mission to serve the poor and educate underprivileged children due to her faith in Christ calling her to help those in need.

I know in my own life how Christ has spoken to me through others even people of other faiths and no faith.

As the children in our parish make their commitment to preparing for the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Holy Communion and Confirmation, it is a reminder to us that the ‘Sacraments of the Church’ is the voice of God speaking to us.

What stops us from hearing the voice of Christ are own sinfulness and our prejudices and judgment of others and our pride. That was what blinded the Pharisees. They had already made their judgment of Jesus and simply because they did not like what he taught.

The difference between them and the blind man is that the blind man could recognise his own poverty and so his need of God. The question we need to ask ourselves is how much do we recognise our own need of God? How well are we willing to listen and follow Christ?

Jesus is there with us always, speaking to us, waiting for us to recognize him. When we open our hearts, our eyes to the love of the cross that is filled with compassion, mercy and a willingness for sacrifice that we will come to hear the voice Christ.

May our experience of the Cross of Jesus help us to more fully understand the meaning of the Resurrection and so hear the voice of God speaking to us.

EXODUS 17: 3-7PSALM 94: 1-2, 6-9ROMANS 5: 1-2, 5-8
JOHN 4: 5-42

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What is the extent of your faith experience of God’s loving presence in your life?

Do you find that being a Christian, being a Catholic, gives you meaning and is life giving or do you find it an intrusion in your lifestyle? Do you always seek time for prayer and long for the Mass or do you find it difficult to pray and see the Mass as just an obligation to fulfill?

For some people, their faith in God is so important that there is always a desire to seek to grow in their relationship with God. For some, it can be meaningless that they give a limited or minimum time to that relationship and they are always finding excuses to let go of their Catholic beliefs and practices.

In today’s Gospel, we see the growing of faith in the Samaritan woman in her encounter with Jesus. She is at first taken aback by Jesus, a Jew coming to speak to her, a Samaritan, for Samaritans and Jews hated each other. She then came to think that Jesus must be a prophet. Later she wondered if he was the Messiah. Eventually with the people, she realized that he was indeed the Saviour of the world.

Contrast this with the people in the first reading. Here was a people were freed from slavery by God. And God had given them so much to survive in their desert journey. But now they are grumbling. They had forgotten what God had done for them. Many still do today. They do so because they do not know and do not trust God.

Grumble about having to go to Mass or why it is so long, or that it is boring.

In contrast, this is what St Paul wrote in today’s second reading: “That through Jesus, God has poured out his love upon us to save us from our sins even though we did nothing to deserve it.” Nothing can be compared with God’s great love for us.

Sometimes we may not appreciate the promise and gift that Jesus offers us because, like the Samaritan woman, we do not understand. In the Gospel Jesus tells the Samaritan woman and us: ‘If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying this to you.’ Personally, I know that there is still so much that I still have to understand.

Lent is a time when we are invited to become like the Samaritan woman and to listen, to understand, to know and so let the living Word of God live in us. There is something that Jesus is offering us in this life that will live forever.

All the worldly things that we may like, will pass away. Ask the Olympic stars and the movie stars of the past. Who remembers them today and would like to meet them? They cannot re-live their past.

On the other hand what Jesus offers us, no one can take away. It gives meaning to life and life itself. It gives us eternal life

Jesus is saying to us, “Give me a drink.” He is calling to open our hearts to him that we may then be able to see his heart of love which is life giving, to encounter him like the Samaritan woman. It is then that our faith experience will be transformed and we will desire to grow ever closer to God.

Let us reflect then: ‘What then has your last encounter with Jesus been like? What did Jesus say to you?’

GENESIS 12: 1-4
PSALM 32: 4-5, 18-20, 22
2 TIMOTHY 1: 8-10
MATTHEW 17: 1-9

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Just before my ordination to the priesthood, a priest friend of mine advised me to truly take in all that will be happening at the ordination ceremony. He said that when at times as a priest I find it hard going, the memory of this celebration would give me strength to continue.

The ordination was a wonderful experience, yet what sustained me in hard times was not the memory of my ordination but my belief in God, my conviction of God’s call to me to the priesthood and my own relationship with God. This is only possible with a continuing opening myself to God’s presence to listen to God. It calls for trusting in God and praying to God.

Even in marriage relationships: as wonderful the wedding day may be, it is not that that will sustain the marriage. The marriage relationship has to grow from there. It calls for a continuing nurturing of mutual love that will help both husband and wife to find meaning and grow in their relationship.

In today’s Gospel, we see Peter, James and John going up the mountain with Jesus. There they experience the transfiguration of Jesus. It is such a wonderful experience that they want to stay there.

One would have thought that this should have strengthened them. Yet we know that they later became afraid when Jesus was arrested and they all ran away. Why did they run? Shouldn’t they have known? The transfiguration event for the apostles was not enough because they did not understand.

For Jesus, the Transfiguration event had a different effect. It strengthen him to continue his journey to Jerusalem. The difference being Jesus knew God the Father and had a relationship with the Father.

My ordination could have been a transfiguration event for me, but I was more focused on it ending being stressed over it.

Abram too had an experience of God calling him. That did not guarantee an easy journey. He had to trust in God as he faced many a difficulty. In the second reading too, Timothy is encouraged to persevere and trust in God for our faith is worth persevering for. Perseverance is a willingness to live our faith, to listen to God because we believe in God.

A moment of religious experience though does not make the disciple. Peter, James and John were to become great saints not because they experienced the transfiguration but because they began to believe and live out that belief after Jesus’ death and resurrection. And it is in faith that they came to understand the truth of the Transfiguration.

Our faith is a journey that requires a continuous growing and nurturing in prayer and sacrifice.

Lent is a time to strengthen our faith in God. The danger for us is often we can become complacent in our faith. We can so easily go through our religious practices without much thought.

Lent is a time to reflect more deeply what it means to have faith in God; What it means that God loves us and has saved us?

The key is how deep is my desire for God in my heart?

The Mass for instance is an invitation to a transfiguration encounter with God for here we encounter the glory of Christ. And it can be real if we come with a desire for God in our hearts.

Life is full of ups and downs. It is our faith in God that will see us through our difficult times. And our faith in God does not become real just because of one spiritual event but is real only when we seek to nurture and grow in our relationship with God.

GENESIS 2: 7-9; 3: 1-7
PSALM 50: 3-6, 12-14, 17
ROMANS 5: 12-19
MATTHEW 4: 1-11

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The key to our understanding of Lent is found in our opening prayer: ‘That this Lent will help us reproduce in our lives the self-sacrificing love of Christ.’

Today, it seems that we could be losing sight of the values of our Lenten practices of fasting and penance, prayer and charity. This, I feel is the result of the ‘Me’ and ‘I’ culture.

Today too, ‘Sin’ is one thing people do not like to speak or hear about for it seems negative. Yet the reality is that we cannot escape from sin. Each of us have sinned and all of us are affected by sin, our own and that of others.

Lent is a time when we prepare for the celebration of Easter. It is a time then to help us to focus on why Jesus came: to save us from our sins. It is a time too to help us open us to his saving grace.

Lent a gift to us, not a burden.
Lent is a time for renewal;
a time to see where we stand before God;
a time to look at our relationship with others;
a time to deepen our love for God and neighbour.
Fasting and penance, prayer and charity are ways in which we enter into a spirit of renewal.

Lent recalls the forty days Jesus spent in the desert. Jesus prepares for his mission to bring the Good News to the people by going into the desert to fast, pray, and reflect. At the end of this, he is tempted, just as in the story of Adam and Eve and just as the Israelites were tempted in the desert during the journey to the Promised Land. The temptations might be seen as examples of how we are tempted.

The humanness of Jesus is revealed in his struggle with evil. He had to struggle against evil in every way that we too have to struggle, but he did not succumb. The devil’s temptation is subtle. After all what is wrong with having bread in the face of hunger or to show God’s power or to have wealth so that we can do good?
Our first reading gives us a different story of the human struggle with evil. It tells us that from its beginning the human race has turned away from God, its Creator. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and brought sin. Jesus obeyed to God and he brings salvation.

In Adam’s sin, we see that all sin has its roots in ‘ME’ and ‘I’ mentality.

The human struggle against evil continues in our lives. Whilst the root of all sin is Me, the source of redemption is Jesus. Lent is a time for us to choose the redemption offered by Jesus not the temptation offered by the serpent.

Fasting helps us to be open to God and to realise our total dependence on God.

Prayer helps us to grow in trust of God, and to recognise the message of the cross.

Charity helps us to be open to the needs of others and to grow in our love for neighbour and so doing to know God’s love for us.

The Sacrament of Penance is a vital aspect of our preparation for Easter. Lent is a time to recognise our own sinfulness, that we may confess them, and seek God’s mercy, grace and love. Easter can only be a celebration for those who know their need of God.

Fasting, prayer, charity and reconciliation are the ways in which during this Lent, we reproduce in our lives the self-sacrificing love of Christ.’

ECCLESIASTICUS 15: 15-20
PSALM 118: 1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34 R. v. 1
1 CORINTHIANS 2: 6-10
MATTHEW 5: 17-37

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Imagine someone coming to ask you for help. How ready will you be in helping him or her? I think our readiness will depend who is asking for help. And if we do help, the level we will be ready to help will also depend on who is asking. If the person is a beggar or someone we dislike, would we find an excuse not to help? Would we help an acquaintance the same was as we would a close friend? What would we do if it was someone we loved?

The reason for the different responses is simply one of relationship: love. Where there is love, there will always be a greater respond to help the other, to care for the other, to seek the good of the other.

For the people of Israel, the Law God gave them through Moses is central to their relationship with God. It was central to the covenant God made with them. Keeping the Law was being faithful to the covenant. It defined their relationship with God and the community.

The shortfall of all written laws though is that it does not necessarily build relationships. What is missing is that people can follow the Law but not seek the love of God. Just following the law has no heart in it. Jesus saw this in many of the Pharisees and Sadducees…

And so in today’s Gospel, Jesus says that he did not come to abolish the Law but to emphasize the depth of the meaning of God’s law which is God’s love to see others as God sees them. For God’s law is there to give life that builds relationship. This is what it means to be salt of the earth and light to the world which Jesus calls us to be in last week’s Gospel reading.

Jesus then goes on to show in two commandments what it means to love in following God’s law. The challenge for all of us is that sometimes we let our emotions control our actions.

One way of reflecting on our faithfulness to God in following His law of love is to ask ourselves, “How have we been life giving to others?” It is a question of whether we are self-centered filled with self-pity or are we concern about the welfare of our neighbour.
The more we are self-centered, the more we let our emotions control us.

The same question can be asked of our relationship with God. Where is our love for God in our religious practices?

It is God who eventually reveals what love is all about. The cross is the great image of the love of God who gave up everything out of love for us even for those who crucified him that we may have eternal life.