Reflection from Friar Nicholas

TUESDAY, SEVENTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE    Acts 19:1-18; Ps 68:2-7; Jn 16:29-33 The Spirit of Fortitude The love of God the Father makes him give us his Son to save us from sin and evil, and his Holy Spirit to abide with us and bring us into communion with him. These gifts of the divine Persons are gifts beyond our imagination, through which we begin to estimate the love of the Father for us. Jesus especially referred to the Holy Spirit as the Gift from the Father. Cf. Lk 11:13. We have spiritual life when we receive the Holy Spirit, thanks to our Lord’s salvific works. The Holy Spirit, in order to properly strengthen and coordinate our spiritual life, which ought to overflow and oversee our natural life, gives us the seven gifts aiding our sanctification. We reflected on the gift of piety yesterday. Fortitude is the next gift of the Holy Spirit by which he solidifies our spiritual life. Through the gift of fortitude, the Holy Spirit gives us firmness in difficulties an...

MONDAY, SEVENTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE    Acts 19:1-18; Ps 68:2-7; Jn 16:29-33 The Spirit of Piety One of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit is piety. The gift of piety is not irrelevant in our spiritual life and walk, for it is a virtue that deepens and strengthens our religious commitment to God. It usually arises from a deep knowledge of God gained through faith. Naturally, we do not know God. We do not understand his essence, which is beyond our comprehension. The little we know of God is usually through analogy, as in the use of metaphors by our Lord. We are made in the image of God, which is within us. But the image is dark without divine light. It is only in Jesus Christ that we see the divine image most illuminated by the divine light. Hence, the Son of Man is a mystery to our human gaze. The image is not what is outwardly given, but inwardly seen with the spiritual sight. None of us has his spiritual sight untarnished by sin. Hence, we need the Holy Spirit to give u...

SUNDAY, SEVENTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE    Acts 1:12-14; Ps 27:1,4,7-8; 1 Pet 4:13-16; Jn 17:1-11 The Prayer of Our Lord Jesus Christ The readings express the yearning of the earth for the spiritual regeneration that the Father planned to accomplish for us. The deep yearning expressed by creatures is already a preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes to material creation that he brought into existence and sustains as a new beginning of a spiritual life for human beings. We lost our spiritual life with God when our first parents disobeyed the injunction of God not to eat of the forbidden fruit. Their disobedience, which denied them participation in the banquet of the Lord, served by his word, made them participants in the sinful communion of demons. That is what sin makes us, communicants in the cup of the devil. In his infinite mercy and compassion, God the Father promised us redemption through his Son, when He promised to bring forth another woman...

SATURDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE    Acts 18:23-28; Ps 47:2-3,8-10; Jn 16:23-28 The Spiritual Nativity of a Christian The important role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian cannot even be imagined by our natural mind, because a natural man cannot comprehend spiritual matters. This was the topic and the cause of Nicodemus's bewilderment when he came to discuss with Jesus Christ at night. As we already know, the descent of the Holy Spirit into a person's soul marks the spiritual birth of that person in God. Without this new birth, discerning and comprehending spiritual matters is like discerning the direction of the wind, according to the Son of Man. Because the unregenerated mind cannot easily receive the unction of the Holy Spirit, he may succeed in knowing material reality well after much effort, and some part of the spiritual reality in a confused and disorderly manner through the visible creation. When the Holy Spirit gives a repentant soul spiritual life t...

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...

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...