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OUR HEAVENLY TREASURE

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FRIDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 11:1-11; Ps 111:1-4,7-8; Mt 6:7-15 The Father as Our Heavenly Treasure Life and everything good come to us from the heavenly Father, whom Jesus Christ revealed as the origin of all things and every good. We have understood this truth to be the core message of the Gospel. The simple truth is sown in our hearts as we receive the gift of the Son of God in his human nature in faith. As the heavenly seed germinates in our hearts as a new spirit, it becomes the centre of spiritual life in communion with the Holy Spirit. The spirit is the instance of the life of the Son of God in us. It cannot exist without the Holy Spirit, who causes it to germinate, nurturing and tending it to maturity with our faith and cooperation. Our Lord’s parable of the sower contains the foregoing understanding. Also, in this regard, Saint Paul referred to the Father as the one who provides the seed for the sower and the bread for the eater. As sowers, we cooperate w...
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OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN

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THURSDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 11:1-11; Ps 111:1-4,7-8; Mt 6:7-15 Our Prayer to the Father The core of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God in human nature, is the revelation of the Father in heaven, who is the giver of life and all good gifts. Understanding the central message of the Gospel and growing in the corresponding consciousness of the Son is crucial for us as Christians. To miss this all-important message of the Gospel is to lack the necessary foundation that would carry the Christian spirituality. Our understanding of the Trinity is rooted in the revelation of the Father. Once we focus our minds on the heavenly Father, we easily conceive the revealing of the Son of God as a clear and distinct Person proceeding from the Father as the origin of all things. The Son is not well conceived and understood without the Person of the Father from whom he proceeds, for the Father precedes the Son. Though our shared experience is of the Son of God in ...
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THE FATHER AS THE CENTRE OF FOCUS

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WEDNESDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 9:6-11; Ps 112:1-4,9; Mt 6:1-6,16-18 Our Relationship with the Father We have dwelt on the significant fact that our spiritual life is the life of the Son within us. What guides the development of our spiritual life, therefore, is our relationship with the Father. We noted that the Father has special care for the life of his Son in us and sends us our daily bread for that purpose. Our Lord himself taught us to pray, calling God our Father. The constant and frequent repetition of the prayer of our Lord establishes and reinforces the Father-Son relationship within us. God is called Father for the life and consciousness of the Son to grow and develop within us. Just as the love of the Father in heaven defined the mission of the Son of Man on earth, as Jesus Christ testified himself, saying, ‘I have come, not to do my own will, but the will of the One who sent me,’ the knowledge and love of the Father defines our mission as Christians a...
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GROWING IN THE AWARENESS OF THE TRINITY

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TUESDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 8:1-9; Ps 146:2,5-9; Mt 5:43-48 Our Growth in the Awareness of the Trinity Through seeing the will of God the Father in everything, we exercise our faith in him by accepting every condition and event as coming from his loving hand. The insight gained in this exercise of faith brings us to the mystery of the Father as the origin of all things, visible and invisible. The salvific insight has its source in the paschal mysteries of Jesus Christ. His paschal mysteries are the source of divine light that illuminates every darkness in the world and our individual lives and experiences. We understand that he is the way, the truth, and the life in this sense. Everything in existence: entities, events, and processes are from the Father, who is the unoriginated origin of all creatures. Everything comes to be by his will, which we comprehend only through his word. Hence, the exercise of faith in the Son of Man is the admittance of divine light th...
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OBEDIENCE AND SUBMISSION SHOW FAITH

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MONDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 6:1-10; Ps 98:1-4; Mt 5:38-42 Our Faith Shines in Obedience and Submission Our reflection throughout the week will deepen our meditation on the Trinity, the three Persons of the Godhead. Since our original fall has weakened our natural capacity to know God in creation and through the events of our daily lives, our profession of faith in Jesus Christ as the Only Begotten Son of God in our human nature furnishes us a spiritual faculty and adequate grace to see God and discern his holy will in our daily lives. The Church asks for the grace for us to form a habit of following the will of the Father in all things. The needed grace comes to us through following the unction of the Holy Spirit, as he reveals the will of the Father in the daily course of our lives. Jesus Christ makes the grace abundant as part of the spiritual nutrients we receive from eating our daily bread, the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and the reality of his real presence ...
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COMMUNION WITH THE HOLY TRINITY

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SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY Prov.   8:22-31; Ps 8:4-9; Rom 5:1-5; Jn 16:12-15 The Trinity of Our Salvation The celebration of the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity of Persons in God brings us to the core mystery of our salvation. It is the heart of the Christian revelation and the meaning of our salvation. The choice of readings for the celebration indicates the Church’s desire to guide us through the path of our experience in the meditation on this holiest of subjects. The Holy Trinity is our salvation because we are saved to the degree we understand and relate well to the three Persons in God. The doctrine of the Trinity was so obscure before the coming of the Son of God in human flesh. But after the Incarnation, the Son of Man opened our eyes to the reality of the Trinity everywhere, within and without. The foundational nature of this most holy doctrine is made evident in the fact that the Church, as the people of God, is founded and built on the Trinity. As the Sa...
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A NEW CREATION IN JESUS CHRIST

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SATURDAY, TENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 5:14-21; Ps 103:1-4,9-12; Mt 5:33-37 We are New Creation in Jesus Christ The Father gave birth to our spirits in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Since God is life, our spirits, which are instantiations of Jesus Christ within us, are also life. Our new birth was made possible by the death of the Son of Man in obedience to the Father. Jesus ransomed us by his death for God the Father, who brings us to birth through his Eternal Word. Thus, our new birth is at the instance of our profession of faith in the death and resurrection of the Son of Man. The Word of the Father is Life and Spirit. Hence, Jesus is our spiritual life guided and nourished by the Holy Spirit, who has made his home in us for that purpose. The principle by which we come to spiritual life is the same principle that nourishes and causes our growth and development in spiritual life. Since the Holy Spirit gave us life, he must also guide every aspect of the heavenly li...
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