Reflection from Friar Nicholas

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT Jer 33:14-16; Ps 25:4-5,8-9,10,14; 1 Thess 3:12-4:2; Lk 21:25-28,34-36 Making Progress in Holiness of Life It is the first week of Advent. In the season of Advent, the Church leads her children again through the prophecies of the first coming of the Messiah to Israel and the world in general. The purpose of this holy season is to awaken our faith anew and re-ignite our desire for the second coming of Jesus Christ. This desire for the coming of the Messiah in glory and power is what makes the Bride of Christ. The Church will not be the Bride of Jesus Christ if she is not aflame with this desire for her heavenly Groom. Just as in the olden days, the desire for the Messiah was what characterised the people of Israel as the People of God, for they longed and waited for God’s fulfilment of the promise of the Messiah to save the House of Israel and the House of Judah, just as he did when he sent Moses to rescue them from their bondage in the land of Egypt. The Lo...

FEAST OF ST. ANDREW, APOSTLE  Rom 10:9-18; Ps 19:2-5; Mt 4:18-22 Follow Me and I will make you fishers of Men The feast of the Apostle Saint Andrew brings our liturgical year to an end. The celebration makes a beautiful and calculated reminder of all the central themes of our reflections throughout the year; it is about the word of God and the faith we require to receive Jesus Christ through his words. St. Paul’s letter to the Romans captures what is necessary for our salvation. “If your lips confess that Jesus is Lord and if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. By believing from the heart, you are made righteous; by confessing with your lips you are saved.” We have explained this principle as making the word of God a door into the communion of the Blessed Trinity of divine Persons. Because the Incarnate Word presents the word of God in a concrete way to us, the statement presents the humanity of Jesus Christ as the principle of...

  FRIDAY, THIRTY-FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Apoc 20:1-4,11-21:2; Ps 84:3-6,8; Lk 21:29-33 My Word shall not Pass Away Our Lord ended his prophetic instructions to his disciples with a statement about his words that points to his divinity and immutability. “I tell you solemnly, before this generation has passed away all will have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” The statement is the foundation on which every other thing rests; it demonstrates that the words he has spoken carry the immutable will of the Father. Whatever his words have pronounced is already in being by that fact, for the word of God is creative. But everything will manifest to the world in its own time and as planned by the Father. Hence, he bid us to pay attention to the gradual evolution of God’s plan for the world. By paying attention to the words spoken by Jesus Christ, we enter into the plan of God and live in communion with him. The presence of God remains...

THURSDAY, THIRTY-FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Apoc 18:1-2,21-23,19:1-3,9; Ps 100:2-5; Lk 21:20-28 Happy those invited to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb In his speech to his disciples in the Gospel, the Lord switches from talking about Jerusalem in particular to the world in general. As we noted yesterday, by this seamless switch from the specific events of Jerusalem to the general and cosmic events of the world, the Lord intends us to take a lesson from the case of Jerusalem to keep reminding ourselves that whatever the Lord said must come to pass. God chose Jerusalem to be his dwelling place and bride, but she was fascinated by her wealth and fame. She removed her attention from Yahweh to herself, her riches, and the fame that came to her because of the blessings of God. Her lack of attention caused her to miss the opportunity of her visitation from God. She rejected and mistreated the Holy One that came in her midst. The vengeance the Lord exerted on her for mistreating the Savi...

WEDNESDAY, THIRTY-FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Apoc 15:1-4; Ps 98:1-3,7-9; Lk 21:12-19 Enduring the Tribulations in the world In the Gospel, our Lord speaks of tribulations that will come to Christians after speaking of the tribulations that will befall Jerusalem in particular and the world in general. The cause of tribulation for Jerusalem was her ignorance of the presence of God and the salvation given to her in Jesus Christ. The same rejection of the salvation God sends to the world through Christian preaching of the Gospel would bring about tribulations and cosmic upheavals. Just as the rejection of the Son of Man in Jerusalem caused his passion and death in Jerusalem, a rejection that continued in the hatred and persecution of his followers, the rejection of the Gospel proclaimed to the world by Christians would also lead to the hatred and persecution of Christians in the world. Our Lord speaks of these separate events in Jerusalem and the world as if they are the same. “Men...

TUESDAY, THIRTY-FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Apoc 14:14-19; Ps 96:10-13; Lk 21:5-11 The harvest of the Fruits of the Earth The vision of John given in today's passage is about the time of harvesting the fruits of the whole earth. God did not reveal when the complete harvest will be done to John, for nobody knows except the Father, as our Lord informed us. Harvesting of the righteous is done by the One like the Son of man with a gold crown. The descriptive name seen in Daniel and the Book of Revelation denotes a mystical figure. The figure could mean Jesus Christ as the Risen Lord or Jesus Christ with his members reigning with him. The summon of each soul, his judgment, and the world's judgment is reserved for the Son of Man. From the ahistorical nature of the vision, the earth's harvest is ongoing. The Lord harvests a soul when he summons him to judgment, that is, at the moment of death. It is foolhardy to wait for a general harvest time for the whole world before get...

  MONDAY, THIRTY FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Apoc 14:1-5; Ps 24:1-6; Lk 21:1-4 Becoming Associates of the Lamb The passage from the Book of Revelation is about the close associates of the Lamb, whom John describes as the first fruits harvested from the world for God and for the Lamb. “In my vision I, John, saw Mount Zion, and standing on it a Lamb who had with him a hundred and forty-four thousand people, all with his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.” Keeping in mind the symbolic nature of the Book of Revelation, we note that Mount Zion is a symbol of God’s dwelling among men; it is a place of the great theophany, God’s self-revelation to men. Thus, the situation of the vision of the Lamb and the forty-four thousand in his company points to the deep communion these people attained with God and the Lamb. There are various indicators of the uniqueness of their communion, different from the other redeemed. The new hymn they sing to God and the Lamb is know...

SOLEMNITY OF CHRIST THE KING Dan 7:13-14; Ps 93:1-2,5; Apoc 1:5-8; Jn 18:33-37 The Kingship of Jesus Christ The celebration of Christ the King brings the liturgical year of the Church to a close. The Church uses the opportunity afforded by this celebration to reflect on the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ at the end of time. The second coming promised by Jesus Christ will not be like the first one, hidden through a human conception in the secret town of Bethlehem. The second coming will be universal and full of power and splendour. Our Lord Jesus assumed his universal kingship through his incarnation, life, death, and resurrection. But the manifestation of this kingship would bring the age to an end to usher in the kingdom of everlasting peace and concord. The assumption of this universal kinship is what God showed to Daniel in the first reading. “I gazed into the visions of the night. And I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man. He came to the one of ...

SATURDAY, THIRTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Rev 11:4-12; Ps 144:1-2,9-10; Lk 20:27-40 He is the God of the Living The reading from the Book of Revelation is quite intriguing. It is the prophecy about two witnesses to the Gospel expected to appear before the end of time. It is difficult to ascertain whether they are actual men or a symbol of two distinct sets of people that would testify to the Gospel. “These, my two witnesses, are the two olive trees and the two lamps that stand before the Lord of the world. Fire can come from their mouths and consume their enemies if anyone tries to harm them; and if anybody does try to harm them, he will certainly be killed in this way.” The appearance and activities of these two witnesses are unique interventions from God for the salvation of many people who are walking the path of perdition. The signs and miracles they are permitted to work are the last graces to cause the conversion of sinners. The wonders they would work: preventing rain f...

  SAINT CECILIA, VIRGIN, MARTYR Apo 10:8-11; Ps 119:14,24,72,103,111,131; Lk 19:45-48 The importance of Eating the Word of God Away from the liturgical setting of the previous visions, John’s vision turns to our daily activities as Christians. These activities outside temples or churches of God also draw from the liturgical activities, during which we hear the word of God and consecrate ourselves to do his holy and immutable will. One of the roles we play as members of Jesus Christ is to help further or carry out his mission of proclamation of the will of the Father to everyone. The facility with which we accomplish this duty depends on how well we have received and chewed the word of God. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, that faith comes from hearing the word of God. Paying attention to the word of God read during our liturgical activities is of utmost importance, for the word of God feeds us spiritually and enables us to proclaim the will of God in words and deeds...

PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Apo 5:1-10; Ps 149:1-6,9; Lk 19:41-44 The Sacrifice of the Lamb The vision of the heavenly and mystical liturgy continues in today’s reading as John receives new aspects of the holy and immutable will of the Father. From yesterday’s reading, we received enlightenment on the sacredness and holiness of the One who sits on the everlasting throne and how the lightning, peals of thunder, and the accompanying voice give the holy will of God. The whole creation adores and worships the immutable will of the Father, enforced by the seven Spirits of God. The Eternal Word reveals the will of the Father, symbolically given in the strange four animals John described. He still enters the vision with the unique symbol of a sacrificed Lamb. The appearance of the Lamb enriches the liturgical interpretation of the whole vision, for the heavenly liturgy is incomplete without the Lamb, who is the High Priest and the Victim at our liturgical sacrifice. The symb...

WEDNESDAY, THIRTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Apo 4:1-11; Ps 150; Lk 19:11-28 The Man of Noble Birth and his Kingdom John gives us his vision of heaven in today’s reading. From his description of the eternal throne of God, it is tough to decipher the correct meaning of all that he presents to us, for the language is all in symbols. The images used must not be understood in a literal sense, for what he describes for us is the source and hub of eternal and spiritual realities. We attempt to decode some of the symbols in the following. A door opening in heaven implies spiritual access to John to understand things beyond human capacity. Recall that St. Paul once had similar access to heavenly realities, as he revealed in 2 Corinthians, where he saw and heard things impossible to capture in any human language, which remains secret even after God has revealed them. In the same understanding, John goes up according to the command of the voice he heard, not by transversing space and time...

TUESDAY, THIRTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Apo 3:1-6,14-22; Ps 15:2-5; Lk 19:1-10 Living and dinning with the Lord In the message given to the church in Sardis that we read today, the Lord starts again with his perfection in holiness and the knowledge of the truth. His abiding presence among us through the Holy Spirit he sends into the Church and within us gives him a first-hand witness about our spiritual and material constitutions. His words should make us afraid of our shortcomings: “Here is the message of the one who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: I know all about you: how you are reputed to be alive and yet are dead.” Through the Holy Spirit, who searches our deepest part and constitution, the Lord knows when we have abandoned the interior disposition in pursuit of external accolade; he knows all we have done for peoples’ praise and not for the love of God, our Saviour. The turning to creatures was the cause of the spiritual death of many of the Christi...

  MONDAY, THIRTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Apo 1:1-4,2:1-5; Ps 1:1-4,6; Lk 18:35-43 Winning the Victory in the Battle of Life St. John the Evangelist’s vision recorded in the Book of Revelation or Apocalypse is of things that are yet to happen. He said this in the introduction. “This is the revelation given by God to Jesus Christ so that he could tell his servants about the things which are now to take place very soon.” As an apocalyptic vision, the things seen and heard are about future events but not of a specific time, for they are of the general time frame. The particular time frame is understood and explained in the general time frame. Thus, the visions are true for every specific time in the future. The revelations are from God the Father, for he is the origin of all things. His divine will governs all events: past, present, and future. The Father gave them to Jesus Christ, the God-Man, who redeemed the world by his assumption of human nature, life, death, and resurre...

SUNDAY, THIRTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Dan 12:1-3; Ps 16:5,8-11; Heb 10:11-14,18; Mk 13:24-32 The Sanctification of the Perfect The year of the Church is gradually drawing to a close, and the readings are increasingly about eschatological events. The first thing we note about the apocalyptic books of the Scriptures is that the events they describe are not historical but meta-historical or ahistorical events. By this, we mean that though we can understand the historical events within the interpretative framework they offer, the prophecies are for all times. The first reading from the Book of Daniel discusses a time of great distress that will come upon the world. There have been many times of distress and various forms of distress that have befallen the world. Each event can be understood within the framework of the apocalyptic prophecies. “At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who mounts guard over your people. There would be a time of great distress, unparalle...