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THE PANGS OF BRINGING TO BIRTH

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FRIDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE    Acts 18:9-18; Ps 47:2-7; Jn 16:20-23 The Birthing of a Heavenly Man We have vaguely explained the difficulty of transitioning from our earthly or natural life to a spiritual or heavenly life, abandoning our usual or natural way of living and doing things to adopt a spiritual way of thinking and living. Our explanation is vague because the reality is more complex than words can ever capture. Explaining the process of transition implies that we are all familiar with the way; however, that is not the case. The scripture says that anyone who is in Jesus Christ is a new creation, with the old creation gone. But many of us are yet to complete our transition into Jesus Christ. Because our resolutions to follow Jesus Christ are weak and short-lived, we come to life and die again, like the traditional Abikus or Ogbanjes , due to mortal sins not resolutely abandoned. We are not able to bring ourselves safely to birth in faith because of our inc...
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LOOKING UP TO JESUS CHRIST

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SOLEMNITY OF THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD    Acts 1:1-11; Ps 47:2-3,6-9; Eph 1:17-23; Mt 28:16-20 Developing a Heavenly Mindset We have often written about our fixation with sensible things and the attractions of sensible life and pleasures. We are not really to be blamed as such, for the scriptures affirm that we are sinners through and through, conceived and born in sin. So, we have no knowledge of any other way to live our lives, apart from going after the sensible goods and pleasures. Hence, God takes his time to train souls he intends to work with, to imbue them with faith in the God they do not see nor perceive with their senses. The difficulty of this training for our sinful nature is confirmed by the sins and failures of the men of the Old Testament to please God. The decision of God to send his only Begotten Son in human nature is in consideration of this difficulty and in order to fit our salvation to our mode of living and acting. The Incarnation, which brought t...
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AN ALTAR TO AN UNKNOWN GOD

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WEDNESDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE    Acts 17:15,22-18:1; Ps 148:1-2,11-14; Jn 16:12-15 Dwelling In God without Knowledge The risen Lord is always with us without our knowledge. In fact, he is with all men and women of goodwill, even when they do not know him yet, as we have posited in the previous reflections. Indeed, he is with all human persons, for we are all made in the image of God. The image of God we bear is essentially the risen Lord, notwithstanding the disfigurement of that image by our sins. The image of God in each of us is the way or path that God built in us to lead us back to Himself, who is our God and the last End. According to our Lord Jesus Christ, no one comes to the Son unless the Father draws him. The desire of the Father to draw all men to the Son is already evident in the fact that He created us in the image of His Son. The choice of the first parents and subsequently our choices to live in sin, is our decision not to walk on the path leading us...
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OUR PATH TO RESURRECTION

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TUESDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE    Acts 16:22-34; Ps 138:1-3,7-8; Jn 16:5-11 Sharing in the Resurrection of the Lord We have understood the resurrection of the Son of Man or his glorification as his entrance into the glory of the Eternal Word. Though he was conceived with beatific vision and hypostatically united to the Person of the Son of God, that is to say that the human nature belonged to the Son of God, but the Son of Man, in his body, learnt obedience through suffering. In obedience, he was totally conformed to the will of the Father in the body he assumed, as he was in the divine nature he shares with the Father. Through his total obedience, the Son of Man deserved to share with us what he was given as a gift, namely, the glory of God. He opened the same way or path he travelled in his body for us. Thus, he informs us that he is the way, the truth, and the life. As we hinted in yesterday’s reflection, every person of goodwill sees the way leading to divine...
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FAMILIARITY WITH THE LORD

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MONDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE    Acts 16:11-15; Ps 149:1-6,9; Jn 15:26-16:4 You will be My Witnesses The Son of Man does not encounter us only when we hear the Gospel preached to us, but he calls us every day of our lives. We encounter the Son of Man within us, in the testimony of our rational nature. We have often explained how he is the perfection of our nature and therefore, everything good in us answers to him or draws us to him. We encounter him every day as we come to apprehend the created reality which contains his impression and speaks to us about God. We encounter him each time we understand and know a truth; for every truth echoes his voice, beckoning us to communion with him, and to a life in him. Every truth we know, embrace, and live out prepares us for his indwelling within us in spiritual life. Hence, the sheep of the Lord know him and recognise his voice even before they encounter him in the Gospel. The Son of Man made this declaration himself in ...
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TO LOVE IS TO LIVE IN GOD

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SUNDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE    Acts 8:5-8,14-17; Ps 66:1-7,16,20; 1 Pet 3:15-18; Jn 14:15-21 Necessity of Love for the Risen Lord The major gain we receive from the resurrection of the Lord from the dead and glorification is that he is now the Lord of all. Glorified, he is present through the glory of God to every soul who desires him. This was why he declared to the apostles and disciples that they would benefit more from him when he was gone from them and back to the Father. Another major gain is that he would take care of our sins, which prevent us from participating in the life of God. Because his going is through the passion he was set to undergo in Jerusalem, his suffering and death would bring to perfection his offering or sacrifice of his life to accomplish the Father’s will and make our human nature acceptable to God once more. With his resurrection from death, the Son of Man reconnected human nature to God as it was created to be. Henceforth, any huma...
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PROPAGATING GOOD AGAINST EVIL

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SATURDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER    Acts 15:22-31; Ps 57:8-12; Jn 15:12-17 Structure of Evil and Hatred We have acknowledged and described the presence of divine love in the created universe and in the human family that God instituted for the well-being of his children. The orderly structures in creation and in the family are a result of obedience to God’s word, which brings things into existence. Thus, the orderly structures propagate the presence of God through his word, upholding the structures and forming noble souls within and through them, both in creation and in the human family. Disobedience, on the other hand, which entered the universe through the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and became the seed of darkness and evil in them and their progenies, also produced its evil structures. The structures of sin, disobedience to divine will, emanating from man, work to obstruct the working of the divine structures or to obscure them by darkness and destroy man in the d...
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