After my early morning hours of encounter—praying the Rosary and sitting in the quiet glow of Adoration—I turn to Sacred Scripture. It’s Sunday, the Lord’s Day, and I feel drawn to linger longer in reflection.
Today, I revisit my homily, which I began preparing a few days ago. Before I can speak the good news to anyone else, the Word must speak to me first. I must be the first to receive what I hope others will hear. If the message doesn’t move me, how can I expect it to stir anyone else?
I open the pages of Scripture and find myself in Exodus chapter 3—the well-known encounter between Moses and God. This is when Moses receives his mission, and God reveals the divine name: I AM.
What strikes me, though, is not just the dialogue between God and Moses. It’s what comes before it.
At His Duty Post
“Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush…” (Exodus 3:1–2)
Moses isn’t on a mountain retreat. He isn’t fasting in the temple or sitting in silence under the stars. He’s working—carrying out his ordinary, everyday task.
He’s tending sheep. He’s simply at his duty post. And it’s there—right there—that the Lord breaks in.
This realization sits with me. How often we look for God in the distant, the dramatic, the extraordinary. But the God who names Godself I AM is the God who appears in the very rhythm of daily life.
The Lord shows up while we brew coffee at the corner shop, blending the perfect roast for someone’s early morning. God walks with us as we dig up dry soil in a village farm, planting seeds with calloused hands. The Lord is there as we navigate our cities’ crowded highways and backstreets, making our way to and from work.
Ever Present
And yes, God is present even when family tensions erupt, and voices rise over dinner tables—when we wrestle with each other’s perspectives, trying to defend what we believe is right.
The name I AM speaks of this kind of presence—intimate, constant, enduring, inescapable. It’s not a name in the conventional sense but a reality. God is. Here. Now. Always. In the darkest corners of our struggle, as much as in the radiance of our joy.
God’s words to Moses—“I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob”—remind me that God’s presence stretches across generations, stories, and time. He is not just the God of history but the God of this moment.
Make No Mistake. Look
In the second reading for this Sunday, Saint Paul reminds the Corinthians not to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors, who, despite the blessings they received, lost sight of God’s presence and promises (1 Corinthians 10:1–6, 10–12). But we are not under that cloud.
Christ, the true light, shines. And through him, we see clearly the face of the One who is always with us.
See, Retool
Then I come to today’s Gospel—Luke 13:1–9.
Jesus draws my attention to the need to redo, to retool, to repent. I hear him challenging me not to point fingers as his disciples did, speaking of those massacred by Pilate as if their suffering were a sign of sin. No—he turns the gaze inward.
If I want to see the world decked in holiness, I must start by making my own bed. Change begins with me—yes, with you—yes, with individuals before it ever transforms society.
This repentance is more than turning away from sin—it’s a re-orientation. It’s learning to see God’s movement within me before I worry about whether others are moving rightly. If I open my eyes, I’ll see that God is already working in me, calling me to bear fruit, to become the fertile ground where grace grows and overflows.
The I AM is All
Even though I believe in God’s presence, I must confess that there are moments when I’ve made the Lord too small and my challenges too large. Lent calls me to repent—not just of my actions but also of my perception—of the way I underestimate what God can do in the ordinary.
Repentance, then, becomes a grace-filled vision shift. A turning of the heart that allows me to recognize the I AM—the ever-present, ever-saving, ever-providing God—not just beside me but within me.
The burning bush is not always a spectacle. Sometimes, it is the daily task done in love, the voice of Scripture whispered in the dark, the conviction to start again—not with blame but with faith—indeed, with trust.
