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THE SECRET WORK AND REMUNERATION

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ASH WEDNESDAY   Joel 2:12-18; Ps 51:3-6,12-14,17; 2 Cor 5:20-6:2; Mt 6:1-6,16-18 The Father sees All Done in Secret The celebration of Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the holy season of Lent. It is a holy season for the Church, when we intensify our penitential practices which characterise the Christian life. Our life as Christians is characterised by a continuous repentance from our sins and recommitment to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance from sin marks the very beginning of Christianity or the following of Jesus Christ. The Gospels confirm this by starting the public ministry of Jesus Christ with his baptism at the river Jordan by John the Baptist. Though he had committed no sin, he nevertheless submitted himself to the ritual of baptism to emphasize its importance for us. By our baptism, we accepted to let our sinful life and lifestyle fall to the ground and die, which the baptismal ritual shows, for us to start a new spiritual life of commitment ...
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THE YEAST OF THE PHARISEES AND HEROD

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TUESDAY, SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME   James 1:12-18; Ps 94:12-15,18-19; Mk 8:14-21 Blindness caused by the Yeast of Pharisees The procedure for the acquisition of wisdom, which Saint Bernard of Clairvaux outlined for us, involves three components: The first is acknowledgement and confession of sins; the second is to give thanks and praise God for everything he is doing in our lives; the third is to profess the goodness of God in our words and actions. In summary, the path to acquiring wisdom involves confession of sins, gratitude for everything, and proclamation of divine goodness. The proper working of this algorithm produces holiness in us, which is the indwelling of Jesus Christ within us. These three constitute a single motion or process leading to our renewal in the image of Jesus Christ. Thus, the three-partite motion has the Son of Man as its cause. This is clear because the purpose for which the Son of God assumed our human nature is to redeem us from our sins. ...
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THE HIDDEN WISDOM OF THE SON OF MAN

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MONDAY, SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME   James 1:1-11; Ps 119:67-68,71-72,75-76; Mk 8:11-13 The Sign of the Son of Man The Pharisees, discussing with Jesus, demanded a sign from him to demonstrate that he was truly from God, the Messiah. Our Lord was troubled by such a request because it revealed that they were not genuinely interested in discovering the truth or receiving the answer to the demand they had made of Him. The demand betrayed their lack of interest and attention to the words and works of our Lord. He had done many wonderful and remarkable works and proclaimed the word of God to all who were with him, before they made the request. So, it was obvious that their request or demand was not born of genuine interest to know the Son of Man, but to test him and find something to hang on him, in order to condemn or attack him. The Evangelist remarked this. “The Pharisees came up and started a discussion with Jesus; they demanded of him a sign from heaven, to test him. An...
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HUMAN NATURE AND THE COMMANDMENTS

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SUNDAY, SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME   Eccles 15:16-21; Ps 119:1-2,4-5,17-18,33-34; 1 Cor 2:6-10; Mt 5:17-37 The Commandments of Wisdom Building on the subject of wisdom that featured prominently in last week's reflections and meditations, we proceed to the subject of Commandments. We note that the Commandments still encapsulate the theme of wisdom. Our approach, rooted in the framework of Commandments, tends toward the personalization of wisdom. The focus on the Commandments moves from what is naturally given to us to what we ought to do in response to the gift of God’s creation. Our consideration of wisdom was a reflection on what is connatural to us. As we noted, the image of God we bear is a natural predisposition to our reception of the Eternal Word of God, who is the Eternal Wisdom. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden was an objective presentation of the instruction to man on how to use the brand-new nature we received from God, which is...
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SELF-LOVE AND THE VIRTUE OF SELFLESSNESS

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SAINTS CYRIL, MONK, AND METHODIUS, BISHOP    1 Kings 12:26-32,13:33-34; Ps 106:6-7,19-22; Mk 8:31-10 Self Interest and Propagation of Division Our reflections through the week have focused on Solomon and how he prefigured the Son of Man and the Messiah of God’s people. His life confirms for us the fact that each of us stands only as long as we fix our gaze on the word of God in order to accomplish the good purposes of God in our lives and in the lives of his people. Before the Eternal Word manifested himself in our human nature, he remained with us as the word of God spoken through various means to us. The most basic of these speeches of God is the creation that came into existence through His spoken word. Anyone who pays close attention to God’s creation discovers the path of wisdom within creation. The wisdom of God in creation beckons us to pay attention to the divine works and learn the divine truth contained in creation. A basic lesson creation teaches us is the sel...
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SOLOMON AND JESUS CHRIST

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FRIDAY, FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME    1 Kings 11:29-32,12:19; Ps 81:10-15; Mk 7:31-37 Solomon and the Mystery of Christ King Solomon started off very well and ended not so well. We say not so well because he realised his mistakes and sins and confessed them before his death. As we noted earlier in the week, in the early part of his reign, Solomon was a type of Jesus Christ, the man of peace and the Son of David. He had the good examples of his father, David, and his mother, Beersheba; though nothing much is written about her, her son witnessed to her unsung virtues. King Solomon foreshadowed the life of Jesus Christ. He was the son of David and the one who inherited the Davidic dynasty directly from David himself. He ruled the people of God in wisdom and peace for the greater part of his reign. His rule brought so much wealth, fame, and visibility to Israel as a nation. A central role of his functioning as a type of the Son of Man is the construction of the Temple in Je...
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REMAINING CONNECTED TO GOD

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THURSDAY, FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME    1 Kings 11:4-13; Ps 106:3-4,35-37,40; Mk 7:24-30 Our Spiritual Connection to God Our connection with God can be compared to the connection between a power source and an appliance. The appliance functions as long as it is connected to the power source. Once the connection is severed, it ceases to function. The same applies to our spiritual connection with God; we must keep our focus on God to remain spiritually alive in God. We cease to live spiritually once our attention, especially our minds and hearts, is taken away from God, who is the source of our spiritual life. We can consider a more apt analogy by examining the fish's dependency on water. The water is the life of the fish; the fish must be inside the water always to survive. The fish dies when it leaves or is separated from the water. To live a spiritual life, we must take in God and remain connected to Him in our minds and hearts. When it comes to spiritual life, we ...
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