Reflection from Friar Nicholas

SUNDAY, TWELVETH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME Jer 20:10-13; Ps 69:8-10,14,17,33-35; Rom 5:12-15; Mt 10:26-33 Our Declaration for Jesus Christ Our quest for God, for the kingdom of God where righteousness will be at home, is an uphill task for the obvious reasons. First is the weakness of our wills, which have been weakened by the original and actual sins. Second is the fact of our habituation to physical or sensible things; believing and sticking with unseen realities becomes very hard and difficult. Third is the gravitational pull of the throng of those who follow the way of the world, pursuing and sacrificing themselves for the riches and wealth of this temporal world or kingdom. Fourth is the presence and activities of principalities and powers, thrones and dominions of demonic spirits who rule over these throngs of people desiring temporal goods and wealth. Fifth is the difficulty of discerning the true spiritual path amidst so much confusion and confused preachers of the Gospel. ...

SATURDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME 2 Chron 24:17-25; Ps 89:4-5,29-34; Mt 6:24-34 The Assurance of Tomorrow A fundamental reason the Lord calls us to interior prayer is because of the constitution of the physical world or reality. Living through the senses instils inside us worry and anxiety because of the constant change with which physical things are characterised. The constant changes we witness in the external world are supposed to invite us to interior life, where we encounter the true and unchanging reality. The account of the creation of the world, which is the beginning of the Holy Scripture, tells us that the sources of what we see is the unchanging word of God. So, we are to seek clarity about them, not in their ever-changing form of existence, but in the word of God, which is their principle. Subsequently, living and interacting with a changing world daily leaves us drawn out at the end of the day. To remain genuine to ourselves and focused on the goal and purpo...

FRIDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME 2 Kings 11:1-4,9-18,20; Ps 132:11-14,17-18; Mt 6:19-23 The Treasure found Within God is the end of man in the sense that we are made to live in the communion of the Trinity of Persons in God. The communion is possible because of the will of the Triune God to make us in his image and likeness. We are able to live in communion with God, sharing the life of God, because we share in the image of God. The communion in faith will bring us to be like God. The difficulty we face on our journey through life is to achieve likeness with God through maintaining a spiritual communion. It is the project of God that needs our cooperation to achieve. We begin with the image of God, for that does not require our cooperation, but is given to us as a gift by God. This is not the case with likeness to God; each of us must personally cooperate with the Triune God to become God-like. The project would be impossible without our conscious interaction with God, wh...

THURSDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME Sirach 48:1-15; Ps 97:1-7; Mt 6:7-15 What Christian Prayer is About Prayer is the core of our life as Christians. To understand the essence of prayer and pray well is to live the Christian life well and be pleasing to God. Not to pray well is to miss out on the essentials of Christian life and our communion with God. We have understood the Christian life as a spiritual communion with God. Since God is the Supreme Spirit, our communion with Him is more interior and spiritual. Therefore, the prerequisite condition for a good prayer life is living a recollected or interior life. Because God is the foundation of our existence, we enter the path of prayer by conversing with our inner selves. Through self-awareness, we progress to the awareness of the Supreme Consciousness we call God, who reveals Himself to us in all things, but within us as our origin. On this basis, we present prayer as a rooting exercise; it is an exercise to renew our spi...

WEDNESDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME 2 Kings 2:1,6-14; Ps 31:20,21,24; Mt 6:1-6,16-18 Interior and Spiritual Communication Our sharing one life with God is an interior and a family thing, and not public. Family life and interactions are only known to the members of the family. The love each member has for the others is evident within the house or home, but it also motivates each member of the family in their external engagements. Once in a while, we witness an abnormality in family life, a member of a family hates another member, spouse, son or daughter, sibling, and makes a public show of loving them. Such hypocrisy is evil. Saint John informs us in his first letter, 1 Jn 3:15, that one who hates his brother or sister is a murderer. One who hates his brother or sister, or spouse, mother, or father, is indeed a murderer; such a one is not begotten of God and does not know God at all. Our Lord confirms this in Mt 5:23, where he directed us not to make an offering to God bea...

TUESDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME 1 Kings 21:17-29; Ps 51:3-6,11,16; Mt 5:43-48 Sons of the Heavenly Father The Christian vocation is to share the life of God forever. For us to share the life of God, we must be born of God. The Father sends the Holy Spirit into our souls for this purpose, that we may be born of God. The spiritual birth occurs at the moment of our baptism into the death of Jesus Christ and resurrection with Him to a new and spiritual life. The word of God is the seed of our spiritual life, as stated by Peter in his first letter 1:23, and also the means of its sustenance. It is necessary that we eat of the word in its uncontaminated form. If we contaminate the word of God in any way, then we will not have one life with the Triune God. The adulterated word of God is poison to our spiritual system and can cause serious damage to our nascent spiritual life. The contamination of the word can come from ourselves or from those we are listening to in an uncritica...