Today is the second Sunday of Lent, a season of grace, prayer, penance, and almsgiving that helps us walk with God. The Lenten observances and practices are meaningful if they are carried out in loving obedience and faith to God. Lent as a season of grace is a time when we leave behind those distractions and develop a deeper relationship with God. In today’s liturgy, we are called upon to have absolute faith in God irrespective of the challenges and trials that confront us every day. Such challenges can lead to loss of faith in God but from the example of Abraham in the first reading and Paul’s injunction in the second we are encouraged to remain firm and steadfast.

Lent is here again when we draw closer to God and go into the desert with the Lord in prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The season of Lent is a season of grace because by working with the Lord for this forty day journey we draw strength and grace from the life of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We embark on Lent as a special time of repentance, reconciliation, and reparation. We grow during Lent by accepting and living the Good News deeper in our lives. No matter how much the power of sin and it’s effect have flooded every area of our lives, salvation is possible for us the moment we turn around and embrace the mercy and love of God which He offers us every day and the Lenten period is the time His grace flows in abundance because Jesus wants us to come very close to him with our heart and mind.

The first reading presents us with the agonizing condition of a leper who must be declared unclean by Aaron the priest when the signs like a scab, or pustule or blotch appear on the body of the person. While in the Gospel Jesus heals a leper who begs Him for healing. According to the Mosaic Law it is the priest who declares an individual a leper when certain signs appear which makes the individual unclean and unfit to be part of a community. Whenever the person is cured it is also the priest who certifies the person clean and able to be welcomed back into the community.

In the gospel passage of last Sunday, Jesus was seen in the Synagogue teaching with authority and casting out demons from a man under demonic influence and possession. In that, He demonstrates His power over evil forces and demons. In today’s gospel reading He demonstrates His power over pain and sickness. We read that “when He came into Peter’s house, the mother-in- law of Peter was sick with fever and immediately they told Him of her. And He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up and the fever left her.” This action reveals some amazing qualities of Jesus.

In the Gospel of today we hear how Jesus taught His audience with authority unlike the scribes and Pharisees who came before Him. To teach with authority is to demonstrate that everything comes from Him and not appealing to any outside authority to convince His audience as done by the scribes and Pharisees of His day. This finds confirmation in the first reading of today, when Moses spoke to the people saying the Lord says, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin, and will put my words into His mouth, He shall tell them all that I command Him” He taught with personal authority meaning that He needed no authority beyond Himself.

One remarkable aspect we see in today’s liturgy is that Jesus begins his first public ministry by callingpeople to repentance and to believe the Gospel. His first sermon after His baptism were “This is thetime of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.” It shows what Hecame to do, to call humanity to repentance and reconcile people with God. This message of repentancewas also the first sermon John the Baptist preached and equally the first sermon of Peter after theresurrection of Christ. Jesus’ sermon of repentance is immediately followed by an invitation of people tofollow Him and to believe in the gospel, the good news He has come to deliver. Similarly, the messageof repentance and reconciliation is also what we see in today’s first reading from the book of Jonah.The Lord orders Jonah to go to Nineveh, capital of Assyria and preach repentance to the Ninevites.

The call of Samuel in the first reading demonstrates how God calls each of us individually. Just like Samuel who wasunaware of God’s call at the beginning, we too maybe unaware when God is calling but with patience, steadfastness, focus,open heart and mind we can recognize His voice in our lives. Just as Eli pointed out to Samuel that it was God calling him sotoo we can recognize God’s voice when we pay attention and listen to our parents, teachers, priests and those God hasplaced to look after us. As He called Samuel by name for a particular purpose so also God calls each of us by name for acertain mission and purpose He wants us to do. Samuel responded with “speak your servant is listening” when he realized itwas God calling him. How I am open to hear God’s voice and how ready and disposed I am to do God’s work He may becalling me for? How can I make myself available as to say with confidence like Samuel, “Speak Lord your servant is listening”.

Today we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord that our Lord Jesus Christ humbled Himself to receive baptism from John theBaptist. This great act of humility demonstrates Jesus teaching that the way to reach God is through act of humility. What isthe significance of Jesus baptism since He has no sin? Jesus by His Baptism sanctifies the waters of Baptism, making everywater for baptism purified or wholesome. Secondly to identify with sinners whom he has come to save. Jesus puts Himself insolidarity with the crowd and sinful humanity whom He has come to redeem. According to Fulton Sheen “The object of HisBaptism was the same as the object of His birth, namely to identify Himself with the sinful humanity. If He was to be identifiedwith humanity, so much so as to call Himself the son of Man then He had to share the guilt of humanity.” He was expressingHis relationship to His people, on whose behalf He has been sent. The baptism of the Jordan was a prelude to the baptism ofwhich He would later speak, the baptism of His passion. In the waters of the Jordan He was identified with sinners, in thewaters of His death, He would bear the full burden of their guilt.

Today, being the feast of Epiphany, we celebrate Jesus, the incarnate word being revealed to all the nations of the world. TheChurch calls it, the feast of appearance or manifestation of the Lord. Epiphany comes from the Greek word and means“Manifestation”. The Church celebrates the light of God’s revelation of his Son as human in Jesus Christ. The story of themagi is the story of the ways in which God reveals Himself to us and even more about the different responses and reactionsthis revelation receives. The Lord of the universe who reveals the star of Bethlehem to the Gentiles of the East gives each oneof us the same light of revelation to recognize and accept Jesus as Our Lord and Savior.

My dear beloved people of God,

It is Sunday! I bring you a message of great joy and hope. Jesus the Christ is Risen. Happy Easter and congratulations on the best Lent ever! Yes, the best Lenten discipline ever exercised in the body of Christ the church. Forced by the adjustments we all had to make due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw ourselves giving up much more than we anticipated at the beginning of Lent.

Consider how the disciples of Jesus were grief-stricken witnessing the Crucifixion of Jesus over 2000 years ago. The events still have the same effects on us today, the new disciples of Jesus. The Gospel of Mark records Jesus' agony My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (15:34). In the midst of the suffering of God the Son, God the Father was silent. At Easter, God the Father, spoke eloquently and powerfully. He did not only raised his Son from the dead, but placed him at his right hand where he placed dominion and powers under his feet. Easter is an invitation to Faith; faith that Jesus who died on Good Friday, still lives on.

At many moments of our lives, especially when we have to put up with suffering and unexpected sickness like our world Coronavirus, we feel that we are not self-sufficient. In such cases, modern people go to a psychiatrist, a marriage counselor, or a lawyer for guidance and advice. Where does God, visible in Jesus Christ, fit in your schedule? God's advice and wisdom is available in the words and example of the Lord Jesus.

The writers of the New Testament were concerned to bring out who the Risen Christ is and how we are related to Him. This Sunday we are invited to see the Lord as both the gate of a sheepfold, through which we should enter in security, healing and our shepherd, whom we should follow.

Indeed, our hearts are still filled with Easter joy as we continue to celebrate the victory of the Cross and Resurrection. The victory of life over death, of good over evil, of the Father of mercies over the father of lies.

The tradition of celebrating the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday was started by St. John Paul II, who was inspired by the visions of St. Faustina. We are all familiar with the image of Jesus that St. Faustina had painted. The painting shows Jesus with the rays of light flowing from out of His wounded side, like the blood and water that flowed from His heart on the Cross. This is what calls for our celebration today. Little wonder the readings for the feast are carefully selected to tell us more about God's mercy, the necessity for trusting Faith and the need for the forgiveness of sins.

Dear Parish Family,

Jesus' total victory over all sin and death is won today in His Resurrection. He defeated these enemies by looking them straight in the eye as He took them on in a battle for our lives. Jesus humbled Himself in our humanity and accepted death on a cross in order to conquer all death. Because of this ,God raised Him from the dead to new and eternal life. His Resurrection is our victory over the enemy of death.

There is a strong tendency in our culture to avoid dealing with death. We want to see the resurrection as God's easy answer to the problem of death. It is God's answer, but not an easy answer. At this time the human family is doing battle with a new and dangerous virus. The danger is that this virus can lead to death.