Homily: February 18, 2024, First Sunday in Lent (Repent and belive)

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 "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."

Jesus is crying out loud at the Jordan, the same place where John the Baptist was calling out to people before he was arrested.

There is sense of urgency in the message, a kind of ‘do it now’ warning, a very clear call for action, “repent, and believe…”

As we enter the first Sunday of Lent, this is the first call of Jesus to each of us.

‘Repent’ – have you?

‘Believe’ – do you?

If not, what are you waiting for?

This is usually the period when our catechumen and candidates go through their final stretch of preparation towards baptism, and this message of Jesus is also calling out to them to take action, to convert their hearts, to believe in Him, to wait no more.

Today, during this Mass, we will have the rite of sending, to dispatch them to our bishop for the rite of election at St. Francis of Assisi Parish. They have spent many months learning about the teachings of the Catholic Church, the sacraments, and the Bible. These upcoming weeks, they will dwell deep into salvation history, a journey back to the time before Jesus.

History reveals a lot. It is a memory storehouse.

Salvation History tells us why and how we are saved. We revisit the memories of the church’s faith journey.

The more we understand all that had happened, and why it happened the way it did, we begin to appreciate that our faith journey is essentially a journey of love, a journey that sets out in search of true love and circles back to the source, the origin, the beginning. It is a big discovery of the one and only true love – God and His call for us to go back to Him.

In the second reading, Peter taught that “Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God.”

God loves us, every single one of us. This is The Good news. Our faith is all about love.

In the first reading, God sealed His covenant with Noah, and with us, to never again devastate the world through flood.

Would you ever seal an agreement with someone who cannot ever meet the agreed terms and conditions?

Would you ever seal an agreement with someone knowing you will be the one to fulfil your share of the deal?

You would never. I would never too. But God did.

Because God is love and mercy. He sealed a covenant with man who will break it but God will save it.

“This is the time of fulfilment,” says Jesus, because God will fulfil His part of the covenant, He will save us from the death that came with our unfaithfulness.

So we repent, because we want to respond in love.

So we believe, because we want to embrace love.

As our catechumens and candidates enter the final weeks of preparation for baptism, may we also enter this time together with them, into our own preparation for Easter.

Let us repent and believe in the Gospel of love. Let us love and be loved. Let us go back to God, who is love. Amen.


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Homily: November 7, 2023, Tuesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time (Invitation).

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