“Moses spoke to all the people, saying ‘A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, will raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen.”

The Hebrew people were about to enter the promised land, Moses would not be entering the land with them. Up to that moment, it was he who passed on the words that God spoke for them, because the people could not bear hearing the voice of God. Now Moses declared that the Lord would raise up prophets who will speak to them, and share the word of the Lord. The Old Testament speaks of these prophets, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others who faithfully proclaimed the word of God to the people.

Then, the time came, when God wished to speak directly to His people, and to the all persons on earth. It is now that Jesus, the living “Word” of God, makes His appearance. He brought the Word of God directly to the people, changing the relationship humanity had with the Father. By his death and Resurrection, he freed us from the hold sin and death had over us, he showed us how we can draw closer to the Father, to share in the joy and peace such an encounter with our living God can provide.

Through Jesus, we have a closer relationship with the Father, in that relationship, we find ourselves encouraged to change, to be converted into more loving persons, to be drawn closer together as brothers and sisters in Christ. In our experience of God’s love for us, we are all also being called to share in the work of Christ, to proclaim the Good News, to work towards a world that can be transformed into a more loving and peaceful place for all people. We do this by both our words and our deeds. Together or individually, we reach out to the poor, the wounded, the isolated, the desolate. It can be through our acts of charity, large or small. Or it can be by just giving a smile to a stranger, a warm handshake, a gentle embrace. There are so many ways that we can share with the world the joy we all have felt when we experience the love of God.

I would like to close with these words I came across in my reading. It is a quote from the writings of St. Oscar Romero, assassinated Archbishop of San Salvador:

“To know Christ is to know God. Christ is the homily that keeps explaining to continually that God is love, that God is power, that the Spirit of the Lord is upon Jesus Christ, that he is the divine Word, God’s presence among us.”