Chosen, Redeemed, and Sealed in the Mystery of Divine Love

Solemnity of Our Lady of the Flight into Egypt – 8 February 2026

On this patronal feast of the Archdiocese of Cape Town, the Solemnity of Our Lady of the Flight into Egypt, we proclaim our identity as Church, the Body of Christ. We are named for Our Lady, and we are under her patronage. Today we ask her to intercede for us that we may grow in holiness as a church, as a people chosen and loved by God.

The second reading from St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians is a masterpiece of theology and spirituality. It sums up the entire sweep of salvation history in one magnificent passage. We are given a panoramic view that stretches from the distant past—when God chose us before the foundation of the world—through to the present—where God has adopted us as sons and daughters in Christ—to our future glory. All this is the work of the Blessed Trinity reaching out to us in love. The Father chooses us, the Son redeems us, and the Holy Spirit seals us.

St Paul’s text develops in three movements. Firstly, in God’s eternal plan of love, we were chosen before time. Pope Benedict XVI said in his inaugural homily in 2005: “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.” These words capture the truth Paul announces: God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world.”

Before the first star burned, before time itself began, we existed in the mind and heart of God. We were not an accident or afterthought. We were intended by God. We are known by God. Our faith is not primarily about our choice of God, but his choice of us.

This choosing was “in love”—motivated purely by divine love, not by any merit of ours. God simply loved us into being. And he chose us for a purpose: “that we should be holy and blameless before him.” The universal

call to holiness flows directly from this eternal choosing. We are called to be holy because we were chosen to be holy.

We belong to a family summoned by God himself. Our dignity as Christians comes not from our achievements or good works, but from being chosen, destined to be “his sons and daughters through Jesus Christ.” Every time we celebrate Mass, we participate in this eternal plan. The Mass makes present in time the sacrifice through which God’s choosing becomes effective in history. We step into the mystery of our own identity as God’s beloved children.

In the second movement, St Paul teaches that all grace, all God’s saving love, comes through Christ, the Beloved Son. God’s plan, conceived before time, was accomplished in time through his Son, Jesus Christ. The phrase “in Christ” or “in him”, referring to Christ, appears eleven times in this short passage. Everything comes to us through Christ: our choosing, our adoption, our redemption, our forgiveness. There is no grace that does not come through Jesus Christ.

Christ is our Redeemer. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.” Redemption in the ancient world meant freedom purchased for a slave by paying a ransom price. Christ redeemed us from the slavery of sin by the price of his own blood. He paid what we could never pay, and redeemed us for something glorious: for divine sonship, to be adopted as sons and daughters of God.

St Paul speaks of “the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us.” God lavishes grace upon us, pours it out abundantly in Christ. Through him, we are brought into the very life of the Trinity.

God’s ultimate plan is “to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.’ Christ is the center point of all reality. We who belong to Christ are called “to live for the praise of his glory.” Our entire existence finds meaning when it becomes praise of God’s glory in Christ.

In the third movement, St Paul says we were sealed by the Spirit and this is the pledge of future glory. The Father’s choosing and the Son’s redeeming would remain distant from us without the gift of the Holy Spirit. St Paul describes a progression: hearing the Gospel, believing, and then being sealed with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the mark that we belong to God.

Again, in the ancient world, a seal was a mark of ownership and protection. When God seals us with his Spirit, he marks us as His own. We believers are divinely sealed by the Spirit.

St Paul calls the Spirit “the guarantee of our inheritance”— a down payment, the first installment of what is to come. When we experience the peace that surpasses understanding, the joy of forgiveness, the love of God in our heart, that is the Spirit giving us a taste of heaven. We already possess a foretaste of heavenly blessings while we await their fullness.

The Spirit works both individually and corporately, building us together as the Church, the family of God. Being a Christian is never something we do alone. We are chosen together, redeemed together, sealed together. The Church is not a human organization, not a social club, not merely a gathering of like-minded people. The Church is the family chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Son, and animated by the Spirit, all moving together toward the ultimate unity of all things in Christ.

This calls for a response from us. We must receive this choice of God. We must accept this adoption as sons and daughters in Christ. We must live in the reality of our redemption and cooperate with the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. We are called to be different, to look different, to be “holy and blameless” in God’s sight. This is the universal call to holiness that belongs to every Christian.

In a few moments, we will celebrate the Eucharist, which the Church calls “the source and summit” of our Christian life. Here we encounter Christ himself. Here we receive the grace of our adoption. Here we experience the Spirit’s presence as we await the fullness of our inheritance. The Mass is where God’s eternal plan touches earth, where heaven and earth meet, where we are transformed into what we are called to be.

Under the patronage of Our Lady of the Flight into Egypt, who protected the Christ Child and brought him safely through danger, we ask Mary to intercede for us. May she help us to treasure the gift we have been given. May we grow in holiness as individuals and as a church. May we live each day as the chosen, redeemed, and sealed children of God that we truly are.

We are not a mistake or here by chance. We are not forgotten. We are not alone. We are willed by God. We are loved by God. We are necessary to God’s plan. Let us live in that truth, and let our lives be, now and forever, to the praise of his glory.