5th Week of Lent (B) : Sunday 17th March 2024

In the first reading from the Prophet Jeremiah, the message from God to the House of Israel was about the renewal of the Covenant. When God liberated the people of Israel from Egypt, He established a covenant with them. But this was not the first time a covenant was established because God also established a covenant with Noah before that. The question then is why does God need to re-establish covenant again and again? Isn’t one covenant enough?

A covenant is always reestablished because, very often, people fall away from God. When we become too comfortable in our lives and immerse ourselves in the world, we begin to forget who was the one who gave us that life in the first place. We often look at the gift but forget the giver. It is only when we keep dying to ourselves that we can continue to maintain this covenant with God. As Jesus tells us in the Gospel today, unless we die to ourselves, we will never grow and in trying to save our lives in this world, we will lose it in the next.

As we grow nearer to the journey of Holy Week, let us continue to strive to die to ourselves so that, like a seed, we can grow into what God wants us to be.

Dear Lord, grant us the grace to free ourselves from unnecessary concerns.