Reflection from Friar Nicholas

WEDNESDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT    Deutero 4:1,5-9; Ps 147:12-13,15-16,19-20; Mt 5:17-19 Attaining the Spirit of the Law As Saint Paul attested in his letter to the Romans, the Law is good as coming from the God who is infinitely good. He therefore wondered why the good Law produces evil results in us. The problem is an overemphasis on the written code without an equal or corresponding emphasis on God, who makes Himself present to His people through the means of the Law. The Law is a codification of the restrictions that prevent anyone from falling out of communion with God and His people. The focus should not be on the codes of the Law, but on God, who is the cause of the covenantal communion with the people of Israel. Our personal experiences validate this assertion or understanding. It is usually the case that our beginnings in spirituality are marked by a strong desire not to offend God by breaking any of the commandments. This initial focus on keeping the command...

TUESDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT    Dan 3:25,34-43; Ps 25:4-6,7-9; Mt 18:21-35 Moving from Ritual to Practice Because God is a Spirit, the Supreme Spirit, whom we cannot easily see or perceive to be with and within us, the tendency remains for us to formalize or ritualize our dealings with Him. However, the fact is not that we do not interact with God or relate to Him on a daily basis, but that we fail to recognize that God is within every aspect of our experience and never absent from all we perceive with our senses. Because we have not developed the needed personal communion with God through His word, we consider God very distant from us and only reachable through religious rituals and formalities. The ignorance of God’s closeness to us and his dwelling within us causes us to falter and commit sin very often. The entire Lenten observance of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving is geared toward developing our personal relationship with God. Fasting from all that distracts us...

MONDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT    2 Kings 5:1-15; Ps 42:2-3,43:3-4; Lk 4:24-30 The Prophetic Presence of the Word The story of Naaman the Aramean commander reveals something to us, which our Lord used to taunt the audience in his hometown of Nazareth during his ministry there. It reveals the fact that God is interested in everyone, irrespective of the tribe, race, people, or nation; He created everything and everyone. So, he is interested in their well-being and ultimate salvation. We ought to use this revelation to correct our misconception that God's salvation is only suited for particular people and not for others. The leprosy of Naaman, the Aramaean army commander, made him open to receive the word of God proclaimed by an Israeli slave girl in his house. The passage from 2 Kings reveals that the Lord granted victory to the Aramaeans through Naaman. Thus, God made it that they carried the little girl as a slave who would open the eyes of Naaman to the presence of God in I...

SUNDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT    Exod 17:3-7; Ps 95:1-2,6-9; Rom 5:1-2,5-8; Jn 4:5-42 Our Thirst for Eternal Life Our Christian vocation brings us to the company of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Man. The implication of the vocation we have received is that we have communion with Jesus Christ. This communion entails drinking the same cup that he drinks. He made this known to the sons of Zebedee when their mother (or they) made the request for the exalted position of being at his right and left hands respectively. Though he did not guarantee them the exalted position they asked for, he did promise that they would surely drink the same cup with him. We have reflected on the fact that the cup of the Lord has both sweet and bitter, desolations and consolations, material and spiritual contents. Some contents are accessible to our senses, and others through faith. Thus, to truly be the cup of the Lord, we must approach it with our senses and our faith, for Jesus Christ is ...

SATURDAY, SECOND WEEK OF LENT    Micah 7:14-15,18-20; Ps 103:1-4,9-12; Lk 15:1-3,11-32 Coming back to Life from Death The Lord uses the parable of the prodigal son to teach us about spiritual reality and our relationship with God. The story is set in the temporal realm, with material goods and relationships that have deeper meanings than what is easily discernible. The important relationship in the story is that of the father and the son. This is at the centre of the parable and draws out the core lesson of the parable. Within our temporal realm and life, the father-son relationship provides an analogy for our relationship with God, although not perfectly. There are many imperfect examples of this relationship we are aware of in our vicinity; these imperfect relations between fathers and sons are not our interest. The parable rests on the fact that, given a natural relationship between a father and his son, there comes a time when the son separates from his father to est...

FRIDAY, SECOND WEEK OF LENT    Gen 37:3-4,12-13,17-28; Ps 105:16-21; Mt 21:33-43,45-46 The Fate of the Son of Man In the field of mathematics, the concept and existence of irrational numbers never cease to amaze us; they are ubiquitous in the number system, but they defy our complete grasp and simple representation, unlike rational numbers. Their uniqueness comes from their refusal to be comprehended by any rational ordering. Sin has so much similarity to an irrational number, for it arises from a disordered relationship in a human will. Because we acquire new knowledge through a process of relating our new experiences with our old knowledge and experiences, whereby the old knowledge is reinforced, and new ones are initiated when we sense a certain non-commensurability between our new experience and the old and known ones. Sin stands out as irrational because it does not yield itself to being ordered to any rational good. Hence, sin is considered anti-life because i...