Reflection from Friar Nicholas

TUESDAY, SECOND WEEK OF LENT    Isa 1:10,16-20; Ps 50:8-9,16-17,21,23; Mt 23:1-12 The Sole Teacher of Man The two readings we have today confirm that our path to being like God is a path of dialogue and learning. We have conceived the whole universe as the school of man, where we learn the rudiments of God’s truth and the rule of harmonious existence. The whole creation coming from the Father and Creator of all things is loud in proclaiming the eternal and infinite qualities of God. Everything bears the imprint of the Eternal Wisdom through whom the Father created all things. With our God-given rationality, we are supposed to follow the imprint of Wisdom in creation to the presence of God, just as a train runs on its tracks. The corruption of our rational light by the serpent through the original sin derailed man from the natural path of wisdom in creation. The nature of created things shows an intelligible track of wisdom in creation through which we can attain to God. E...

MONDAY, SECOND WEEK OF LENT    Dan 9:4-10; Ps 79:8-9,11,13; Lk 6:36-38 Learning to Act Like God Recall that the project the Trinity of Persons in God set out to accomplish in creating man is to make man in the image of God and to be like God. As we have come to know, the first part of the project did not pose any difficulty for God, whose infinite power can accomplish all things. But the aspect of making man to be like God involves the free will of man, which the infinite goodness of God has endowed man with. In His divine integrity, God respects the free will of man; He can only guide man through the inner light of his rational nature to act like God. We are already familiar with the story of Adam and Eve and how the serpent deceived them from the path of rationality, leading to their likeness to God. He made them desire to be like God without God’s help and grace. The story is not just a story, but the experience of each human person; for in each of us lives Adam and E...

SUNDAY, SECOND WEEK OF LENT    Gen 12:1-4; Ps 33:4-5,18-20,22; 2 Tim 1:8-10; Mt 17:1-9 The Transfiguration of the Son of Man We commence the second week of Lent with our attention drawn to the word of God. The word of God is everything for us in our worship of God, for the word of God is God communicated to us. Attention paid to the word of God is the core of our religious worship and relationship with God. As we have noted, the season of Lent is a fitting time to deepen our awareness of God's revelation to us, as contained in His words as recorded in the Scriptures. Our position that God created man to be His temple rests on the fact that our whole being is well illuminated only by the Eternal Word of God. In this sense, the scripture understands Jacob or the people of Israel to be the inheritance of the Word of God. “For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.” Deuteronomy 32:9. Jacob became the Lord’s inheritance when he received the revela...

SATURDAY, FIRST WEEK OF LENT    Deutero 26:16-19; Ps 119:1-2,4-5,7-8; Mt 5:43-48 Our Consecration to the Word In his sermon on the mount, Our Lord edited the Law of Moses, making it stricter by removing all the human considerations Moses allowed in his administration of the Law to the people of Israel. He carried out these editions on his own authority. His action came across to the Pharisees and scribes as a clear proclamation of his Godhead. The Law of Moses was held sacrosanct as expressing the mind of God; no one has the authority to change or alter any aspect of it with impunity. Our Lord’s proclamation of a new Law that supersedes the Law of Moses calls attention to his divinity. If he is divine, then we have a duty to listen and obey his words. As we have noted earlier this week, his edition of the Law is stricter and evidently impossible for our fallen nature to keep. But we must not make any mistake on the nature of the word of God; both in the Old Testament and...

FRIDAY, FIRST WEEK OF LENT    Ezek 18:21-28; Ps 130; Mt 5:20-26 The Choice of Life over Death The word of God is the gift of God to us. The gift remains a gift inasmuch as we receive it as the gift of God. If we fail or refuse to receive the word of God as a divine gift, then it is no longer a gift to us, but rather a curse. Just as God informed the Israelites through Moses, in Deuteronomy 30:19, that the words spoken to them constitute life or death before them. The words would give them life if they obey, and death if they disobey. Thus, both life and death come from Yahweh as his divine will, though not as life and death, but as divine goodwill for his creatures. The divine will evoke death only in the one who rejects the blessing of communion with God. God made us for Himself, that we may dwell with him always. The attainment of this end is the fullness of life for us. Our spiritual death is to miss this desired communion with God, both in this temporal life and...

THURSDAY, FIRST WEEK OF LENT    Esther 4:17; Ps 138:1-3,7-8; Mt 7:7-12 Asking, Searching, and Knocking We are back on the subject of prayer, for concerning the practice of prayer, we can never say enough. The reason is that prayer in itself is the essential or defining operation of a Christian. Every entity that has life has vital operations that support its life and the end or purpose for which that life is lived. For a Christian, the spiritual life is essentially the sanctifying grace which the presence of the Holy Spirit introduces in the soul. The central vital operation of the Christian is prayer, which he does or carries out in union with the Holy Spirit. So, the departure of the Holy Spirit marks the spiritual death of the soul, because the spiritual life cannot be solely sustained by self-operations. Our spiritual life is a participation in the life of God and not something solely belonging to us. The purpose of our spiritual life is the attainment of commun...