Reflection from Friar Nicholas

FRIDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER    Acts 15:22-31; Ps 57:8-12; Jn 15:12-17 The Structures of Divine Love We have often explained the infinite goodness of God, as displayed in the entire creation, which God intends to be our first school of divine goodness, teaching us the right attitude and willingness of creatures to obey the divine order and will. We do not learn the initial lesson from the created reality due to our inattentiveness to God, creatures, the created order, people around us, and even to our true selves. In his infinite wisdom, God did not stop at surrounding us with the orderly creation; he ordained that each of us come to life through a family. The family is not just an orderly structure for supporting life, but also a cradle of love and providence for a new life. Coming from a family, each of us is received into a loving environment, cared for, as we grow and mature into loving and responsible individual persons. The love and care we receive in our fami...

THURSDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER    Acts 15:7-21; Ps 96:1-3,10; Jn 15:9-11 The Divine Will and our Holiness The holiness of our God is such that no creature can add to it or remove from it in any sense. God is so perfect that every one of his perfections is infinite and beyond our comprehension. This is why his divine will is so holy and immutable. His holy will, which stands for the greatness of God, is carried by his word. In the eternity of God’s existence, the Eternal Word is the Begotten of the Father. We worship the Word, the Son, as we worship the Father, for he shares in the Godhead of the Father. Based on this lofty and exalted holiness of God, none of us can be holy or compare in holiness to God by our own works or efforts, but we receive our holiness from God. The scripture bears witness to this by stating that all our works or righteous acts are like filthy rags before God. Cf. Isa 64:4. Our goodness or holiness of life comes from our conformity with the holy w...

WEDNESDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER    Acts 13:1-6; Ps 122:1-5; Jn 15:1-8 The Vine and Its Branches The Son of Man uses the beautiful analogy of the vine and its branches to awaken our minds and hearts to ruminate on the kind of communion we share with him in God. Just as the vine and its branches form a single tree, the Son of Man forms a mystical union with all his members. We gain the membership of his body through profession of faith in the divinity of the Son of Man. As our head, the Son of Man, is hypostatically united to the Eternal Word. His resurrection from the dead proves his divinity beyond doubt. So, our faith in his divinity is also our faith in his resurrection. Our profession of faith enables us to share in the blessedness the Son of Man received for us as the head of our human nature. What he received without merit, he received for us, his brethren; and what he merited by his faithful obedience, he shares with us, so that we may also receive the fullness of ...

  SAINT VINCENT FERRER, PRIEST    Acts 14:19-28; Ps 145:10-13,21; Jn 14:27-31 Opening the Door for Eternal Peace All our interaction with God is initiated by God. This is why we refer to God as the uncaused cause or unmoved mover of all things. As God, He is the initiator of every interaction and all interactions serve his purpose, for the first in everything sets the goal or purpose. Many of us do not usually give much thought to our relationship or interaction with God because of our over-engagement with the external world. We should develop the habit of meditating on our relationship and interactions with God. This is impossible for anyone in mortal sin or habituated to a sinful lifestyle. So, if the attempt ends in repeated failure, then it is an invitation to follow a process of conversion aided by sacramental confession. The inability to live an interior life means we are spiritually dead or too weak for any meaningful interaction with God. The Lord, through a...

MONDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE    Acts 14:5-18; Ps 115:1-4,15-16; Jn 14:21-20 The Word belongs to the Father From all eternity, the Word belongs to God the Father because He is God from God and Light from Light. The Word carries the will of the Father and nothing else. He is God with the Father and does the will of God in all things. The Word brought things into existence according to the will of the Father. Everything created by the Word is therefore good, for they conform to the will of God the Father. The Word became flesh for our salvation according to the Father’s will and died for our salvation to fulfil the will of the Father for us. Thus, obedience to the Father’s will defines the Person of the Word. When we observe and imitate the life of the Son of Man, the Word Incarnate, we receive the Holy Spirit of adoption, who gives us the reality of the Son’s life. He gives us a spiritual birth by which we are enabled to walk the Way defined by the Word in his human na...

SUNDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE    Acts 6:1-7; Ps 33:1-2,4-5,18-19; 1 Pet 2:4-9; Jn 14:1-12 I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life In considering the Son of Man as the way to the Father, we are wont to think of the way in a physical manner and understand the words of our Lord as such. But spiritual relations are quite different from material relations, in a way; while the latter is measured quantitatively, the former is not subject to such measurement. Using the same mode to understand spiritual and material realities is the source of our confusion in spiritual life and journey. Our Lord speaks in human terms in the Gospel but reveals divine truths. The human terms must be purified from our day-to-day usage to properly guide our minds to heavenly realities. To help us grasp high spiritual truths, which are mysteries to human minds, our Lord employs analogical language. This means that he models heavenly realities and relationships on earthly ones. The benefit of anal...