Reflection from Friar Nicholas

MONDAY, SECOND WEEK OF EASTER    Acts 4:23-31; Ps 2:1-9; Jn 3:1-8 Our Spiritual Birth in Christ To understand the immeasurable gift God has granted to humanity through the resurrection of the Son of Man, we must be spiritually aware and spiritually minded. The work of making us spiritual belongs to God alone, for as we have said in relation to the Risen Lord, no one can give what he has not. The fact that the Risen Lord gave the Holy Spirit to the fearful disciples gathered in the locked room shows that he is God. Knowing that it would be impossible for a mere human mind to conceive the spiritual gifts of heaven, most importantly, the spiritual life, the Risen Lord bestowed on them the gift of the Holy Spirit to initiate a spiritual life within them. As we read from the Gospel of John yesterday: “After saying this, he breathed on them and said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retaine...

DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY    Acts 2:42-47; Ps 118:2-4,13-15,22-24; 1 Pet 1:3-9; Jn 20:19-31 The Gift of Peace and Joy in Jesus Christ The second Sunday of Easter is traditionally regarded as Low Sunday or Divine Mercy Sunday. On this second Sunday, the wonder of the Lord’s resurrection and its divine effects are gradually sinking deep into the disciples. We are gradually meditating on the fact of Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead. The different appearances to some disciples were reported and discussed with amazement and untold joy. What is the meaning of the Lord’s resurrection from the dead? What are the implications for the disciples? What nature would his ministry on earth take from then? These questions must have been in the minds of the disciples as he appears and disappears at will. It was gradually dawning on them that his presence with them would no longer take a physical form, for he only appears to them for a purpose and disappears again, leaving them instruc...

EASTER SATURDAY    Acts 4:13-21; Ps 118:1,14-21; Mk 16:9-15   The Mission to Proclaim the Good News The disciples found it difficult to believe the story of the resurrection from those who first encountered the Risen Lord because the news was unbelievable. They were not paying attention to the scriptures, just as we do not in our daily lives. They were just following the daily happenings or events. They all experienced his passion and death as a shock to the hope of deliverance. Thus, the news of the resurrection of the Lord was totally a new thing from the ordinary or known events ever. If one accepts the news as true, it changes everything: our understanding and perception of life, our daily lives, our religion and religious activities, our understanding of events, and our purposes in life. The effects would be too heavy to bear, and their consequences would be too revolutionary. This is why it was unbelievable. The news of the resurrection of the Son of Man ...

EASTER FRIDAY    Acts 4:1-12; Ps 118:1-2,4,22-27; Jn 21:1-14 The Name by which We are Saved The divinization of the Son of Man implies or translates to the fact that his name carries a divine authority. The name, which once referred to a man, the Son of Man, now invokes divinity. This is the result of the Passion he faithfully endured, which transformed the Son of Man into the Son of God meritoriously. Not that he was not the Son of God from conception, but what he was without merit, he now grounds in the merit of his passion and death. The merit is what he justly devoted to our salvation. The Son of Man steadfastly obeyed the will of the Father and remained faithfully human and vulnerable through his ordeals. By his faithful obedience, he entered the glory of the Son of God and merited to be one with the Eternal Word, as Isaiah prophesied in 53:12. By his steadfast obedience, he established human nature as an eternal dwelling of God, as the Father had proposed from...

EASTER THURSDAY    Acts 3:11-26; Ps 8:2,5-9; Lk 24:35-48 You killed the Prince of Life In metaphysical considerations, these three: life, truth, and good are seen as cognates; that is, they refer to the same thing essentially but are perceived differently. Ultimately, God is life, truth, and good. Other things share in these qualities to the degree they participate in the being of God. Therefore, we encounter God in our encounters with life, truth, and goodness. Our individual openness to these three presentations of God determines the quality of our existence and our transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ. The mission of the Word in human nature is basically to present the truth of God (his life and goodness also) in a way that is congenial to us for our salvation. As we have previously presented, the mission was first directed to the Jews, for it is from them that salvation comes. Our Lord made this clear to the Samaritan woman in the Gospel of John 4:22. “Yo...

EASTER WEDNESDAY    Acts 3:1-10; Ps 105:1-4,6-9; Lk 24:13-35 The Real Presence of The Risen Lord The crucifixion of the Son of Man formally ended the fulfilment of the promise God made to Abraham that pertains to his children according to the flesh. We have highlighted this fact in our previous reflection. The exclusive mission of the Word to the physical descendants of Abraham that inherited his promise is intended to act as a physical or visible foundation for the universal mission of the Word to all peoples that formally commenced with the resurrection of the Son of Man. Hence, we have seen that all who had encounter or will have encounter with the Risen Lord must possess the gift of faith. Without faith, the Son of Man would appear to us as any other Jew. But once a person exercises faith, he or she sees the Risen Lord. The Risen Lord is not limited by space or time, which makes him present to every soul that longs in faith to encounter him. This is the answer to the...