Many beautiful relationships have been broken because we place people before Jesus. We place our ambition, career and power before Jesus. When Jesus is not the centre of our lives then everything will be out of perspective. But when we put Jesus in every relationship, we can be sure that the relationship will blossom. Because when Jesus is in that relationship, Jesus will tech us how to love, how to give; how to be selfless; how to be authentic. When the person loves like Jesus, the relationship will always work out. When we love Jesus, we want to love others. To love with our own strength, we will not go very far. We must love with the love of Jesus in our heart.

Jesus made it clear that the love of God and the love of neighbour, although distinguished, cannot be separated. Living out these two commandments will give us meaning and joy. It is true that we might not necessarily be blessed with riches even if we obey the laws, but we will live a rich life nevertheless. If one truly loves his brothers and sisters, he can never be too rich because he is called to share with others who have much less. Whatever he has belongs not to him but to God’s people, of which he is called to be a steward in distributing God’s wealth to others.

We must never imagine ourselves to be greater than who we are, or conversely, lesser. In fact, we should just be ourselves, living out our identity and exercising the gifts that God has bestowed upon us, for the service of humanity. It is about exploring the full potential of our being so that we can expend and expand ourselves for the good of others. By so doing, the greatest reward and joy we have would be our fulfilment and self-realization. Those who seek places of honour will be embarrassed when they realize that they have over-estimated their position in society, like the person who picked the place of honour when he was invited for a wedding feast. Our place and role in society is not because of our hard work alone but primarily because God has graced us according to the role He wants us to play in society and in His plan.

Christ, the Son of God, has been revealed to us as the Way, the Truth and the Life. He paid the price for our salvation. In spite of the fact that we are God’s adopted sons and daughters, His children, we have failed to live out our sonship in Christ. We take for granted the blessings the Lord has given to us. We take our faith as an inheritance, just like the Jews. But we have not done anything to grow our faith, to own it personally and to spread it. Instead, we store them away, hidden from our eyes and our consciousness. Instead of valuing the scriptures, the Lord has given to us, we do not read them or spend time praying the Word of God. We have been given the sacraments, the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but we have not made full use of them to strengthen our faith and spiritual life, or to seek healing of mind, body and spirit. Such is the tragedy of those who have received God’s blessings, whether spiritual or temporal, but squandered them away, either through disuse or misuse, instead of using them for others. God mourns for us, because we have received tremendous privileges as children of God; but have we made use of the privileges that we have? Let us pray that we be more grateful for all that we have.

The Church is built on unity in diversity, not uniformity or homogeneity. The basis for unity in the Church is alignment with Jesus, with Him as our cornerstone. To promote unity, we need to dialogue with one another in sincerity and humility.

We are to cooperate with God's grace as much as we can. He does not judge us by our achievements but by our sincerity in trying to do His will and following Him in discipleship. We might fail or fall short but God will even use our mistakes and sins for our growth and purification. We must not be discouraged when things do not work out or when we experience set-backs in life. God will bring good out of them.

On Mission Sunday, we are called to give hope and direction to the world. When the Israelites were about to go on exile, Jeremiah gave them courage. He spoke of the hope for Israel even when the disasters were about to strike. God as the Father of Israel would never abandon Israel forever. Indeed, even the blind and the lame would be brought back. The truth remains that Jesus is on our side as He was on the side of Bartimaeus. When he shouted at the top of his voice, he caught the attention of our Lord. This is why we must be thick-skinned, not allow the crowd, symbol of society to drown us and intimidate us in reaching out to Jesus. This requires us to be attentive to the Lord instead of listening to the noises of the world. We must have faith in His mercy even when we fail or when we face obstacles in life. We must remain firm and strong when we are challenged in our faith. It was the faith of the blind man that saved him.

If we allow the Spirit of God to reign in our lives, we will see and think like Christ. We will be compassionate and forgiving to others. The Spirit of God will also bring fruits of joy, love and peace.

Through the grace of the sacrament of reconciliation, our sins are forgiven and once again, our relationship with God is re-established. With the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts, we are empowered to live out our sonship. But this does not mean that we will not give in to temptation at times. That is why we constantly need God’s forgiveness in the sacrament of reconciliation. By acknowledging our weakness as St Paul openly did, we confess our faith in Christ who saves us and empowers us. We no longer rely on ourselves but on Him alone. As we come before the Lord in shame for our sins, instead of hiding it to protect our pride, we are set free from our fears, our shame and the guilt that oppresses us. Let us surrender ourselves to the Spirit of Love, that is the only law we should always observe.

Indeed, there will be division in the family, among closed ones, in the community, in society, in the country and among the nations as there will be those who seek to eliminate the truth from being taught because the gospel exposes their deceits and selfishness. It is not surprising that the world wants to marginalize not just Christianity but all religions and relegate them to our homes and churches. They want to make secularism the religion of the day where there is no God, no values, no truth, no immorality, so that they can promote licentiousness. The choice we make must depend on the outcomes we desire. If we want to save the world, then like Jesus we must be ready to ignite the world with the fire of truth and love that purifies our minds and hearts. Indeed, either we evangelize the world, salt it with the gospel truth and light up with the light of Christ, or we will allow the world to desensitize us to what is good and true. We will allow sin to reign in the world until we are all destroyed.