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Earthly and Heavenly Values

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MONDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME 1 Kings 21:1-16; Ps 5:2-3,5-7; Mt 5:38-42 The Christian Value System Just as the Christian virtues have a different origin or principle from the natural virtues, the Christian system of values differs from the natural or the world’s value system. A natural person instinctively and naturally seeks to preserve his life and whatever makes it flourish. On the other hand, our vocation to follow Jesus Christ to death and the spiritual life that the Holy Spirit gives us at the moment of our profession of faith in Christ gives us a different orientation in life. As we mentioned in yesterday’s reflection, the new life we have received from Jesus Christ is oriented towards death to self and being present to God to fulfil His holy will. This is why the life of a Christian can never be comprehended by a worldly-minded person. What a man of the world wants is opposed to what a Christian wants. As Christians, we live no longer to satisfy our desires, bu...
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RECEIVING AND GIVING WITHOUT CHARGE

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SUNDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME Exod 19:2-6; Ps 100:2-3,5; Rom 5:6-11; Mt 9:36-10:8 The Kingdom of Priests The difficulty of our Christian life does not consist so much in what we are to do, but in what we are not to do. Another way of putting this is that we are saved by grace and not by our own deeds. We have been nurtured in a world corrupted by sin and evil, where the self is exalted above God. Our conversion to the Lord involves unlearning the ways of the world and replacing them with the way of grace. The process is not easy, and was never meant to be easy, because it involves dying to self and living unto God. Christian virtues, as we reflected on last week, have a different principle from the natural virtues of this world. In the world, the strong man is praised and exalted because he can elevate himself while putting others down; he wields influence to win the admiration and adulation of others. But such is not the spiritual way of the Christian. We are rather c...
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IMMACULATE HEART OF LOVE

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IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY   1 Kings 19:19-21; Ps 16:1-2,5,7-10; Lk 2:41-51 A Fitting Dwelling for the Holy Spirit It is the custom of the Church to celebrate the Immaculate Heart of Mary immediately after the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. The Church celebrates it as a memorial. The custom follows our understanding of the deep connection between the two hearts of love: our Saviour Jesus Christ and His beloved mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. No other human heart shares and participates in the mystery of love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ more than the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Her loving links to the Sacred Heart are on different levels. She loves him as her dear and only son, to whom she dedicated her whole life and efforts; She loves him as the Eternal Word of God made flesh for our salvation; She loves him with the love of the disciple for her master, for she is the first disciple of the Lord; She loves him as her God, for ...
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GOD IS LOVE

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SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS   Deut 7:6-11; Ps 103:1-4,6-8,10; 1 Jn 4:7-16; Mt 11:25-30 Great Things hidden from the Wise We celebrate the solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. The Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ is a mystery, as coming from the mystery of the Son of Man. The human heart of Jesus Christ is a symbol and reality of the love of the Son of Man for his brothers and sisters. It is a human representation of the heart or love of the Son of God for us, his own people and creatures. As he revealed in Heb 2:14, that he took on our nature, that he may share everything in common with us. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death.” The Father brought us into existence to be the inheritance and the companions of His Beloved Son. The love of the Son for his own could not let him be, but made him take on our nature and appear among ...
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A VIRTUOUS CHRISTAN MAN

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SAINT BARNABAS, APOSTLE  Acts 11:21-26,13:1-3; Ps 98:1-6; Mt 5:20-26 Acquisition of Heavenly Virtues The essence of the Sermon on the Mount is to lay a solid foundation for Christian spirituality. Because it ought to be a spirituality based on the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, as the Saviour of humankind, the Mosaic Law does not satisfy the requirements. So, obedience to the Law and the Prophets is not sufficient, though it is necessary. Salvation flows from the redemptive work of the Son of Man and not from individual works of each of us. There must be an essential connection, on the three levels of body, soul, spirit, of each person to Christ, for the salvation or grace to flow in full capacity. On this basis, we have understood and explained the necessity of receiving a new birth different from our natural birth by human parents. The old Law makes reference to Moses and his deliverance of the people of Israel from physical and psychological bondage in Egypt. The Gospel of grac...
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LIVING ABOVE THE LAW

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WEDNESDAY, TENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME  1 Kings 18:20-39; Ps 16:1-2,4-5,8,11; Mt 5:17-19 The Demand of God’s Justice We often miss the point of the need to habituate our minds to the word of God. We fail to understand that ignorance of the word of God and his loving presence will not spare us from the manipulations of demons and evil people. That is, if our lamps are not lit and placed on the lampstand or on a tub, forces of darkness will invade our space and force their way in. If we light our lamps and hide them under the tub or basket, then we are only useful to ourselves as individuals and not to our neighbours. When these are enveloped in darkness, they will profess their darkness in such a way that the darkness will overwhelm and extinguish our single light. God wants us to be lit and burning brightly, and also to shine forth our light to everyone around us. Hence, he called his disciples a city built on the mountain top. Maintaining the brightness of our light requires...
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HUNGER FOR GOD'S WILL

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TUESDAY, TENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME  1 Kings 17:7-16; Ps 4:2-5,7-8; Mt 5:13-16 Salted by Communion with God Without a constant communion with God, it is impossible to please God always or to be like him. As we have previously noted, God sends His word, which is our daily bread, to establish this daily communion with us and gradually transform us into His likeness. The belief that we become what we eat is true, not only with regard to physical food, but also for spiritual food. Our spiritual food consists of what we fill our minds and set our hearts on daily. The Eternal Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us for this purpose, that the bread of angels may become the bread of men on earth. But it is one thing to serve someone a delicious food, and another thing for the person to have a relish or hunger for the food. By sending His Son in human flesh, God has set a heavenly, delicious, and enriching food and drink before us. Cf. Isa 25:6. We have to work on ourselves to de...
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