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THE MERCY OF GOD FOR MAN

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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...
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CONSEQUENCES OF THE RESURRECTION

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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 ...
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SALVATION THROUGH THE NAME OF JESUS

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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...
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ENCOUNTERING THE PRINCE OF LIFE

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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...
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FAITH IN HIS REAL PRESENCE

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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...
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VISION OF THE RISEN LORD

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EASTER TUESDAY    Acts 2:36-41; Ps 33:4-5,18-20,22; Jn 20:11-18 Faith and The Risen Lord The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the emergence or appearance of a spiritual world that is accessible only through faith in the word of God. God, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, has caused the spiritual light to shine for us mortal men. But only with the eyes of faith can we see the light and, through it, the heavenly realities. The ability to see spiritual light is not new to us, for God created us spiritual. We lost the ability through the original sin of Adam and Eve, which was a choice they made for us to walk in the darkness of sin and evil. The resurrection has caused the spiritual Sun that we lost when we chose to walk by ourselves and not by God’s light to rise in our land of exile. Thus, the gift of faith in the word of God is connatural to us, who are made in the image of God. As we have noted several times, our habitual living and walking by the senses would ...
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THE RISON LORD FOR ALL NATIONS

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EASTER MONDAY    Acts 2:14,22-33; Ps 16:1-2,5,7-11; Mt 28:8-15 The Galilee Reunion with the Lord The Lord suffered and died in Jerusalem, the city of God, according to the understanding of the blessings of Abraham received or inherited by the physical children of his and highlighted in the promise made to David. The crucifixion of the Son of Man by the physical descendants of Abraham symbolically represents the end of the era of God’s manifestations and blessings of the children of Abraham by bloodline, who inherited his blessings. It is the beginning of the manifestations of God and the blessings of the spiritual children of Abraham. The former and all the blessings they received served as a means to the end, which is the manifestation of the spiritual children of Abraham. We put away the means once we have attained the end. This is exactly what the Risen Lord is doing by guiding his disciples to go back to Galilee for their reunion. Galilee, as we know, is the symbol o...
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