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HAPPY THE PEOPLE WHOSE SINS ARE PARDONED

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THURSDAY, TWENTY FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Cor 15:1-11; Ps 118:1-2,15-17; Lk 7:36-50 Our Knowledge of God’s Love We cannot love God without God first coming to our help in love. The fact that we are sinners means that we are bereft of God’s life. Living in sin, we lack the knowledge of God and are unable to love him. God willed to bring us to spiritual life again by sending his Only Begotten Son to reveal his loving will to us. This is the content of the Gospel we have received. We cannot love God without getting acquainted with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The preaching of the Gospel is therefore the revelation of God’s love for us, for all peoples and nations. God invites everyone to his divine life through the proclamation of the Gospel. Hence, our ignorance of the Gospel causes our lack of repentance from our sins and sinful lifestyle. Our ignorance of the Gospel is ignorance of Jesus Christ; and the ignorance of Jesus Christ is ignorance of God and his loving pr...
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AMBITION FOR LOVE OF GOD

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SAINTS CORNELIUS, POPE, AND CYPRIAN, BISHOP, MARTYRS 1 Cor 12:31-13:13; Ps 33:2-5,12,22; Lk 7:31-35 A Good and Worthy Ambition God is infinite in every perfection. But the central perfection that best defines God's goodness is love. The first letter of Saint John 4:8 tells us that God is love, and anyone who loves is close to God. So, our growth in virtue of love is certain evidence that we are becoming like God. Recall that the purpose of our creation is to become like God. So, love advances us on the way of perfection more than any other virtue. Saint Paul understood this and encouraged us to be ambitious for the gift of love. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit, for he is specifically called Love. “Be ambitious for the higher gifts. And I am going to show you a way that is better than any of them.” The gift of love is more than any other spiritual gift, for loving leads us to immediate sharing in divine life. Love hits the mark, the bull’s eye. The other spiritual gifts only h...
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THE MOTHER OF SORROWS

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OUR LADY OF SORROWS 1 Cor 12:12-14,27-31; Ps 100; Jn 19:25-27 Woman, behold Your Son The Blessed Virgin Mary features prominently in the life of the Church because she played a key role in the life and mission of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Scriptures reveal the Church as the body of Jesus Christ, with Jesus Christ as her sacred and divine Head. The Holy Cross of Jesus Christ, which we understand as encompassing all that the Son of God endured in his Incarnation, life, death, and resurrection for the salvation of man, spills into the life of all his disciples. In a very prominent way, it spills into the life of his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. For this reason, the Church celebrates her sorrows immediately after the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The Seven Sorrows of our Lady are events of her participation in the Cross of our Lord. The Seven Sorrows are: (1) The Prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:34–35), (2) The Flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13–14), (3) The Loss of...
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THE LESSONS OF THE CROSS

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FEAST OF THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS Phil 2:6-11; Ps 78:1-2,34-38; Jn 3:13-17 The Son of Man must be lifted Up The core of the mystery of Jesus Christ as the Son of Man is his cross. The cross of Jesus Christ signifies his passion and death on Calvary. The passion and death of the Son of Man constitute the centre of the mystery of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world. Therein lies the mystery of human salvation. The divine aspect of the mystery is our faith that the One who died on the cross is God and man. How would God allow his Son to become man, to suffer, and to die a cruel death for the salvation of us, men? There is no other reasonable answer to the question than Saint John’s statement in 1 Jn 4:8 that God is love. Often, love appears irrational. The Father's love for us led him to give up his Son to ransom slaves. This is the core of the mystery for us, for it poses an impasse to our poor human understanding. But God really willed that; and his Only Begotten ...
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CHANNELS OF GOD'S FORGIVENESS

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SUNDAY, TWENTY FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccles 27:33-28:9; Ps 103:1-4,9-12; Rom 14:7-9; Mt 18:21-35 Our Mutual Forgiveness of Sin Forgiveness is so central to our Christian life and spirituality that it can be seen as another name for Christianity. Every Christian is born of forgiveness, for that is what our baptismal ritual implies. No one becomes a Christian without experiencing forgiveness of sins. This is because our journey to Jesus Christ originates from our recognition of our sinfulness. This humble beginning makes our Christian journey introspective. Our Lord stated this truth when he said that only the sick need a physician in Mt 9:12. Anyone who considers himself righteous will not need repentance; only the self-aware sinner seeks the Son of Man for forgiveness and spiritual healing. Since our nature was wounded from origin, we inherited a sinful nature and sin regularly. No one, therefore, is found without sin, except the Blessed Virgin Mary and her Son, Jesus Chri...
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OUR OCEAN OF DIVINE GRACE

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THE MOST HOLY NAME OF MARY 1 Cor 10:14-22; Ps 116:12-13,17-18; Lk 6:43-49 Our Common Inheritance God offers himself to us in the Incarnation of his Eternal Word, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, as our common inheritance and our salvation from sin and evil. The same God, who is goodness and rich in mercy, prepared a common foundation or receptacle in our human nature for his Word. We have always referred to the fall in Gen 3:15 as the moment when God promised to rebuild the corrupted human nature through the woman and her offspring. Since what God promised to accomplish through the woman and her Son is the common salvation of all peoples, the woman and her Son constitute our common inheritance or wealth. The name which the woman of promise received, therefore, points to this common inheritance. The name of Mary has been understood variously; but the most suitable and nearest to what the Blessed Virgin Mary stands for is ‘from the ocean or sea of grace’, or ‘ocean of grac...
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THE JOY OF GOD'S TEMPLE

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FRIDAY, TWENTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Cor 9:16-19,22-27; Ps 84:3-6,12; Lk 6:39-42 Knowledge of our Eternal Communion The Psalmist introduces today's theme. He speaks of the loveliness and attraction of God’s court. Of course, David’s immediate reference is the beautiful place he prepared for the Ark of the Covenant, even before Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem; he also makes a mediated reference to the heavenly Temple of God. David was a mystic and always related to God. His mind and heart were rarely removed from contemplation of God and his Law. Thus, going to the house of God was a moment of exultation and joy, because he felt God’s presence more deeply with the physical things that relate him to God. More fundamentally, his joy in going to the court of God was from the spiritual encounter he would have with God there; for God dwells spiritually in his Temple. We must form the habit of going to the house of God to worship, for it is a great act of worship and a...
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