Reflection from Friar Nicholas

SAINT JUSTIN, MARTYR    1 Cor 1:18-25; Ps 34:2-9; Mt 5:13-19 Letting the Light Shine for Others The revelation of God as a Trinity of Persons is a very heartwarming and excellent part of the Good News we have received. It emphasizes the fact that we have a communal nature; human nature flourishes in a community, as it is created in the image of God, who is a Trinity of Persons. This means that a community brings out the best in us. Hence, we have come to understand that community is salvation, and salvation is community. The revelation of God is for our perfection and salvation, for it offers us the community of God that illuminates our minds, enlarges our hearts in the warmth of love, and grounds or roots us deeply in the Father of all spirits. We can compare the perfection and goodness of a human community to a pot of well-prepared soup, wherein every ingredient contributes its best as unique to its nature. We can imagine what the taste of the soup would become if the ...

THE MOST HOLY TRINITY   Exod 34:4-6,8-9; Dan 3:52-56; 2 Cor 13:11-13; Jn 3:16-18 The Communion of Salvation in God We celebrate the solemn Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. The revelation of God is, of course, the salvation of man essentially, for being made in the image of God, we cannot know ourselves without God. Hence, the main aspect of the revelation is the understanding of God as given in three persons. The true nature of God as constituted in three persons has always been present in the history of the revelation of God or the history of human salvation, but our understanding of the persons in the Godhead is part of the fullness of divine revelation. If the knowledge of God is essential for our salvation, then our knowledge of God as the Trinity is necessary for our salvation. We must seek to understand the Trinity of God, not just in a notional way, but in a concrete way, in order to enter into communion with the Triune God that constitutes our salvation. Though Go...

SATURDAY, EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME      Jude 1:17,20-25; Ps 63:2-6; Mk 11:27-33 Building on the Holy Foundation of Faith On the day of our baptism, a lit candle was given to us to signify the spiritual light our faith in Jesus Christ has brought into us. The same ritual is repeated every year at the Easter Vigil Mass. The repetition ensures that those baptised as infants have the opportunity to own the faith their parents and Godparents professed in their place during their baptism. The solemn profession of faith in the Triune God and rejection of Satan and his lies is repeated. Another reason we repeat this ritual every year is to remind ourselves of the solemn profession of faith in the Risen Lord and to renew our spiritual life by celebrating the mysteries through which we were given new life. The Easter celebration of the Paschal mysteries offers us the opportunity to re-comprehend our faith in the Risen Lord and thereby solidify the foundation of our spirit...

FRIDAY, EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME      1 Pet 4:7-13; Ps 96:10-13; Mk 11:11-26 The Special Graces of Service Understanding our new life and spiritual relationships with God reforms our understanding and knowledge of the material and temporal life and realities therein. We have access to temporal and spiritual realities through our natural and spiritual lives. We are accustomed to the former, for we knew no other until we came to know Jesus and received the Holy Spirit. The latter is received, as it were, in the former; It grows only to the extent we give it attention and the required spiritual food. We can afford an unconscious living in the former, carried only by the senses and their attractions to sensible things. But the spiritual life needs our conscious and constant attention. Saint Peter, in order to help us develop this consciousness, reminds us of the temporality of the physical world. “Everything will soon come to an end, so, to pray better, keep a calm ...

THURSDAY, EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME      1 Pet 2:2-5,9-12; Ps 100:2-5; Mk 10:46-52 The Sacrifices of Royal Priests We continue to follow the Apostle Peter as he leads us deeper into the mysteries we have inherited through our faith in Jesus Christ and in God, who raised him from the dead for our salvation and glorification. As we noted yesterday, the apostles, before they received the Holy Spirit and a new birth in Jesus Christ, were oblivious of the importance of the Son of Man and what they stood to gain in him. In their spiritual blindness and ignorance, they considered him a means to exalted earthly positions and material wealth and well-being. Though Jesus promised them these, as we read earlier in the current chapter, when he said that those who left family and properties for his sake would be repaid a hundred times over. But these are not the core of his promise to us who follow him; they are only attractions for our worldly-oriented interests. A worldly-m...

WEDNESDAY, EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME      1 Pet 1:18-25; Ps 147:12-15,19-20; Mk 10:32-45 Jesus Christ as the Servant of All In today’s passage from the First Letter of Saint Peter, he continues to expound on the importance of our Christian mysteries. The great value and importance of the mysteries we have received ought to make us persevere in our faith with utmost care and attention. According to Peter, the pre-existing Son of God has now been revealed in our days for our salvation. “Who, though known since before the world was made, has been revealed only in our time, the end of the ages, for your sake.” In what sense was Jesus known before the world was made? Certainly not by human beings. The humanity of our Lord was not known by the angel as such, as the apostle intimated to us earlier in the part we read yesterday, when he said that the angels long to catch a glimpse of these mysteries of our salvation. That leaves the Trinity alone. In other words, the hum...