While most leaders, when they finish their term of office, are given big farewells with much fanfare, long recitations of the good works they have done, and their achievements, Moses’ last days was modestly recorded. Indeed, seeing the Lord face to face was enough reward for Moses. He saw himself as a servant of God. He was a faithful servant right to the end. Despite all the great things he had done, he remained just a faithful servant of the Lord, which we all are. He did not want people to venerate him for fear that it would distract them from worshipping God alone. Can we dedicate our lives in faithful service to God just like Moses?

We must attend to the soul that is crying for the touch of God.  When we have used up all our strength, and exhausted ourselves, our energy and resources, are tired and burnt-out, we need to find peace in God. We must withdraw, just as Elijah did to be alone with God in the wilderness. It is in the quiet of our hearts that God will speak to us deeply, not in the harried activities of life, not when we are full of anger, hatred, vindictiveness, fear and anxiety. By listening to Him attentively in the scriptures and receiving Him in Holy Communion, His Spirit will abide in us and give us the strength to walk in truth and charity.

To remember God's Word, we must first memorise some significant scripture texts so that they become part of our thinking. Secondly, we remember by teaching and sharing about Scriptures with others. Third, we remember by publicly witnessing our faith. The more we remember God's Word, the more our faith is strengthened.

It takes time to fully understand the meaning of mountain-top experiences. Like the apostles Peter, James and John who understood the Transfiguration event only after Jesus' resurrection, may we too be patient to what God is revealing to us through our religious experiences.

Quite often leaders do not only have to manage the affairs of the organization or the community they are leading, but they have their personal and domestic issues to contend with. And yet in public, they have to put on a brave front, act normally and not impose their pain or sadness on others but quietly carry the burden in their hearts. It is important that as leaders we do not take our frustrations out on those who are not responsible for our pains. This would be selfish and unreasonable. In today’s gospel, Jesus shows us the way to exercise patience as a leader. Before He could undertake His passion, He needed to find where they stood with regard to His identity. He gently led them to answer for themselves who He really was and not just what others thought of Him. Coming to understand Jesus’ identity and faith in Him itself is a grace of God and not our human effort. That is why we must be patient when those under us are behaving childishly, are unreasonable, ignorant or slow to understand and cooperate.

Today’s reading is an important lesson for us to learn as well because many of us are blind to what the Lord had done for us in the past and what He is doing for us in the present, and thus we do not surrender our future into His hands, and walk by faith, not by sight. If this God has met our needs in the past and our needs today, why do we doubt that He will provide for us tomorrow? This is why in the Lord’s Prayer, we are asked to pray for our daily bread, that is the bread for today because tomorrow, He will also provide just as He did for the sons of Israel when God told them to gather the manna enough for just the day, no more and no less. When there is faith in the Lord, we can overcome all odds. When we lack faith, we are depending only on our own strength and human calculation. We, too, can strengthen our faith and love for Jesus through prayers and intimacy with the Lord. Jesus was so moved by the faith of the Canaanite woman and love that He said to her, “Woman, you have great faith. Let your wish be granted". Can we be like the Canaanite woman and come to the Lord in faith with our prayers today?

When we do not rest in God's love, and allow Him to work in us, we become restless. We look for external things to fill our emptiness within. Greed and seeking the approval of others are some examples. May we seek God, the bread of life, the bread that lasts.

Sustenance of planet earth is not just about man’s relationship with the environment, with plants and animals. Ecology must also deal with right relationships among nations, peoples in each country and community, workers and employers; family and marriage. There is an unequal distribution of wealth and resources. On the family front, we do not protect the right relationship of family life and marriage. So what is destroying the planet would not just be the abuse of the environment but international and inter-human relationships. If we do not respect the ecology of creation, of the environment, nature will unleash its wrath on us all. If we do not respect God’s creation of human beings, as man and woman, called to be good stewards of God’s creation and to multiply, the world would become extinct as there would be fewer and fewer people left.

The liturgy is not static, but dynamic. What is important is that when we evolve our liturgy, it must be faithful to the theological meaning of the celebration. The Church wants to ensure we are always faithful to what we are celebrating. Let us thank God for all the rites that we have, which allow us to encounter God.

We live harried lives because of the demands that are made on us. The world moves rapidly with technology and so people have become more demanding of our time and the speed with which we accomplish the tasks assigned to us. This leaves us very little time for silence and prayer. Although we may not feel that prayer is a waste of time, yet we do not put it as a priority. We pray only when we can find some time. If we truly love God, that love is real only when we love our brothers and sisters. In order for us to love others unconditionally, we must first be loved totally and without reservation. But that someone who can love us without conditions is only God. Let us learn from Martha, how we can continue to grow in our faith, being active in love and balancing our life with a life of intimacy with the Lord.