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INVITATION TO BANQUET OF LIFE

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SAINT BERNARD, ABBOT, DOCTOR Ezek 36:23-28; Ps 51:12-15,18-19; Mt 22:1-14 Attendance at the Divine Wedding Human life on earth is a struggle we must engage in; it is a journey we must make; it is a battle we must fight; it is also a death we must die. Our life is all these and even more. But what makes our mortal life worth living is the end for which we live it. The true end of human life is linked to its origin. If we understand the purpose of life on earth, then we must have grasped our origin. Similarly, understanding the origin of our lives is to receive illumination into the purpose of our existence. Because of the importance of knowledge of these two, God revealed his word to us. God had to do this because the knowledge of these principles or pillars of our existence, which are supposed to come to us naturally from creation, became recondite or hidden due to the darkness and distortion caused by sin. The word of God, which is meant to illuminate our understanding, was neve...
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BECOMING A LABOURER AND SHEPHERD

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WEDNESDAY, TWENTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Ezek 34:1-11; Ps 23; Mt 20:1-16 Shepherds of God’s Flock We falter many times, mainly because we have failed to understand our relationship with God. We belong to God, and everything we have comes from him. If we all belong to God and he cares for everyone as his own, then we must also care for ourselves and for each other. From these relations, we have come to understand our natural need for communion with God and with each other. The wisdom that comes from awareness of God and our relationship with him enlightens our minds to understand that we come from God and are returning to him. The desire for unlimited life is the natural witness to our going back to God. Our ability to know or acquire knowledge of the universe is a testimony that we come from God, for intelligence, which is the operation of rational light within us, points to the presence of the divine image in us. Hence, by creating us, God continues to work in us through knowl...
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RESTING ON DELUSIONAL SUPPORTS

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TUESDAY, TWENTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Ezek 28:1-10; Deut 32:26-28,30,35-36; Mt 19:23-30 Danger of Self Sufficiency Studies have shown that humans are naturally social beings. No one is made to be an island or to live in isolation. This conclusion is supported by the fact that our needs are many and we can never satisfy them in isolation. So, communities arise naturally as means of satisfying various human needs. If our nature demands we live in communion with one another, even more does it demand that we stay in communion with God. Human experience and studies have also shown that people tend to isolate themselves from others when they acquire material riches, which give them a false or mistaken sense of self-sufficiency. We call it false because material wealth and riches can never take the place of people in our lives. If wealth and riches can not satisfy our need for communion with people, how can they ever take the place of God in our lives? It is delusional and grossly si...
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GROWTH IN COMMUNION WITH GOD

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SAINT HYACINTH OF POLAND, PRIEST Ezek 24:15-24; Deut 32:18-21; Mt 19:16-22 Demands of Divine Communion When we speak of divine communion as the goal of our lives here on earth, we should not consider it an event that will happen only at the end of our lives, but rather an ongoing process. It is a process of participation in God’s life. Understanding God as the Supreme Spirit and the Father of spirits, we see our growth in divine communion as through our spirits. The communion is non-existent when we are spiritually dead. When that is our case, we need to be raised to spiritual life again. Only God does such a supernatural feat. All lives begin at the will of the Father, most importantly, the spiritual life. All lives commence in the presence of the Son as the expression of the Father’s will. The Holy Spirit makes each life real and active. Because spiritual death is due to sin or abandonment of God’s holy will, we must come to the Son of Man to receive a new spiritual life. He is the o...
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THE HOLY MOUNTAIN OF GOD

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SUNDAY, TWENTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Isa 55:1,6-7; Ps 67:2-3,5-6,8; Rom 11:13-15,29-32; Mt 15:21-28 A House of Prayer for All Peoples We touched on the deep compassion of Saint Paul for his people, the Jews, in last Sunday's reflection. We noted that such self-sacrificing compassion demonstrates a deep transformation of Paul into Jesus Christ. His willingness and eagerness to be cut off or deny his heavenly inheritance in Jesus Christ for the sake of the salvation of his people, the Jewish people, shows the presence of the heart and mind of Jesus Christ in him. For as Saint Paul wrote in Phil 2:5, urging us to let the same mind that was in Christ Jesus be within us; who, being in the form of God, abandoned his Godhead to become a slave for the sake of his brothers and sisters, even to accept death on the cross. Jesus Christ accepted to be cursed to liberate us from our slavery to sin and evil and restore us to the kingdom of his Father in heaven. Hence, in offering to be c...
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MOTHER ASSUMED INTO HEAVEN

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  SOLEMNITY OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Rev 11:19,12:1-6,10; Ps 45:10-12,16; 1 Cor 15:20-26; Lk 1:39-56 The Appearance of a Great Sign We celebrate the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven today. It is one of the great celebrations of the Church, for we observe it as a day of obligation; we observe it with observances equivalent to those of a Sunday, the day of the Lord. Such a celebration is the greatest honour the Church can accord to a mere mortal. But the importance attached to the celebration centres on the salvation of man, for the great honour accorded to the Blessed Virgin Mary stems from her unique role in human salvation. The unique importance and honour are what the Church learnt from God himself, through the Scripture. According to Scripture, God had us in mind and planned our salvation even before the foundation of the world. The Blessed Virgin Mary and her Son had a prominent and central place in the divine plan of ...
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COMMANDMENTS AND COUNSELS

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SAINT MAXIMILIAN KOLBE, PRIEST, MARTYR Ezek 16:59-63; Isa 12; Mt 19:3-12 Freedom to Accept or Reject In our Christian vocation, some things are commanded, and others are given as counsel for those who can take on an extra burden for the love of God and their neighbours. Those things that are commanded are given in the Law of Moses and reinforced by the Prophets. About the things that God has commanded us, there is no negotiation, for they come directly from the nature of God. They constitute the foundation for our communion with him. To go against the Commandments of God is to reject the life he invites us to enjoy through the Law and the Prophets. Our Lord and Saviour made it clear that he did not come to abolish or mitigate the demands of the Law and the Prophets, but to reinforce and fulfil them. Obedience to the Law of God forms the structure of divine life in us. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ gives us a spiritual life and structure to live the Commandments with ease. In...
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