Reflection from Friar Nicholas

SATURDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 17:1-13; Ps 103:13-18; Mk 10:13-16 Spiritual Awakening of a Child of God Sirach beautifully summarised many issues we have touched on in our reflection on God’s creation and the purpose of the material universe. We have read about God’s fashioning of man from the earth and the reason for sending him back to dust. The body he made for us, which was to be our earthly paradise, turned into a prison when we disobeyed God and chose to walk outside his company, away from the light of his word. But the prison term was correctional for all who repent and turn back to God our creator and benefactor. The time of our earthly life is determined to teach us the meaning of life through the wisdom God made present in our world of sensible things. Sirach lists all the gifts he gave to us. “He shaped for them a mouth and tongue, eyes and ears, and gave them a heart to think with. He filled them with knowledge and understanding and revealed to them good...

FRIDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 6:5-17; Ps 119:12,16,18,27,34-35; Mk 10:1-12 Making and being a Good Friend The usefulness of a faithful friend is the subject discussed in the passage of Sirach we are considering. From the qualities that make a good friend, we understand that faithfulness depends on the perfection we attain in the formative school of wisdom. The first lesson we learn in nature is faithfulness. The quality of faithfulness is so closely aligned with nature that we consider nature and faithfulness synonyms. The faithfulness of nature, and subsequently of wisdom, is hinted at when we read that wisdom stands at her post/gate daily to beckon the passers-by to turn in and partake of her table. Everything that God made participates in this faithfulness of wisdom in the sense that each remains faithful to his will without failing or leading our minds astray. First, Sirach admonishes us on friendliness to people in general: “A kindly turn of speech multiplies a ...

THURSDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 5:1-10; Ps 1:1-4,6; Mk 9:41-50 The Harmony between God and Nature We have harped that nature bears us like a mother and trains us to live in the House of God. Nature is our mother concerning our natural or material makeup, for as we have read and reflected on the creation accounts in Genesis, we are taken from the dust and shall return to the dust. The same holds for our intelligible makeup, for we are using nature here to refer to the wisdom with which God created and governs the material universe, which is the light he made first and separated from darkness; she bears us and home-trains us before she enrols us in the school of divine law, to whom she hands us over for our higher education. The basic education we receive from nature on generosity, meekness, courage, moderation, etc., is reinforced by the law of the Lord in our relationship with God. The words of Sirach confirm this graduation from nature to the Commandments. “Do not g...

WEDNESDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 4:12-22; Ps 119:165,168,171-172,174-175; Mk 9:38-40 The Dividends of following Wisdom Sirach uses the feminine pronoun for the created wisdom. He already informed us that his referent is the wisdom seen in all God’s creation. Since we have been following his consideration of the created wisdom of God that is supposed to lead and guide man back to God, we consider this wisdom with which God created the material universe as the light he made first and separated from darkness. The light refers to every intelligible form of material creatures. Sirach confirms this understanding in the opening verses: “The Lord himself created wisdom; he saw her and apportioned her, he poured her out upon all his works.” The created wisdom visible in everything God made is rightly considered with feminine gender to distinguish her from the uncreated wisdom, the Eternal Word of God. As we stated yesterday, the ever-present wisdom in creation is the first tu...

TUESDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 2:1-11; Ps 37:3-4,18-19,27-28,39-40; Mk 9:30-37 Wisdom purifies the Just Man The fear of the Lord, Proverbs says, is the beginning of wisdom. The created nature begins the instruction of the human mind on the fear of the Lord. As we read from Sirach yesterday, the contemplation of the awe-inspiring creatures of God, animate and inanimate, fills our minds with deep respect for the Creator of them all. Anthropological research has confirmed the wonders of created nature to be the foundation of many of our traditional religions and practices. Men end up with idols when nature strikes them with amazement because they have lost the original light to guide their minds to the true God at the fall of Adam and Eve. Thus, walking the dialectical path of knowledge of evil and good, we are all exposed to the pitfalls along the way and the difficulty of making out the nature of the true God with our weakened rational light and human will. Consequent...

MONDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 1:1-10; Ps 93:1-2,5; Mk 9:14-29 Wisdom in God’s Creation We commence reading the book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus. He praises the wisdom of God, which is displayed everywhere in creation. Since God is the source of wisdom, wisdom characterises all his works, made to guide the minds of men to the contemplation of the greatness of God. As Saint Paul expresses in his letter to the Romans, we see God's invisible qualities in creation. Sirach gives some of these wonders that lift the human mind to ponder about the Creator of the universe. “The sand of the sea and the raindrops, and the days of eternity, who can assess them? The height of the sky and the breadth of the earth, and the depth of the abyss, who can probe them?” If these simple material numerical qualities are difficult for the human mind, how can we fathom the source of wisdom with which these creatures were articulated and brought into existence? “For whom has the root of wis...

SUNDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Sam 26:2,7-9,11-13,22-23; Ps 103:1-4,8,10,12-13; 1 Cor 15:45-49; Lk 6:27-38 Contemplating Spiritual Things The Church led us through the creation stories and how the man and woman God created in his image and intends to make into his likeness fell short of the glory God planned for them by exercising their free will in disobedience to God. By choosing to disobey God, they entered the path of pain, suffering, and death. These characterise the path of knowledge of good and evil. The loss of God’s assisting grace with them in the Garden set them on the path that would reveal the weakness of human nature without God. The weak and corrupted human nature is what they passed on to us, their children. The orientation to the earth, which their sin inculcated in the common nature, is what Paul affirms we all participate in. “The first man, Adam, as scripture says, became a living soul; but the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit. That is, first...

FEAST OF THE CHAIR OF SAINT PETER 1 Pet 5:1-4; Ps 23; Mt 16:13-19 On this Rock I will build my Church We celebrate the Chair of Saint Peter today. According to history, the feast began in Rome during the fourth century. The purpose of the celebration is to foster the unity of the Church founded on the Apostles. The celebration offers a good ending for the theme of the Church’s prayer and reflections this week: God made us in his image and is fashioning us into a dwelling worthy of His Majesty. Just as our perception and understanding of the material universe, God created for us, help us to contain the universe in ourselves and recapitulate and direct our purpose of going back to God through our self-awareness and intentions; likewise, faith enables us to see God and contain him in ourselves. Faith is the proof of the existence of unseen realities; without it, it is impossible to go to God or please him. Hence, the gift of faith is the commencement of God’s dwelling within us. T...

FRIDAY, SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Gen 11:1-9; Ps 33:10-15; Mk 8:34-9:1 God as the Only Goal of Man The sacred author proceeds next to the cause of many languages, cultures, and peoples. The reason he presents to us is in accord with the intention of God for making man, namely, to be in perpetual communion with God. The project God started in the Garden of Eden but was truncated by man’s disobedience to divine will. We chose to exercise the free will God gave us by choosing to walk the path of knowledge of good and evil. But, as we have seen, our freedom is not absolute; we are not to do whatever we want but to freely choose to do the will of God. Thus, the basis for our continuing freedom of will is to continually choose, without reservation, the absolute freedom we call God. We can exercise our freedom only in the company of God and communion with him. Anything outside of this is to enter the path of slavery to evil, darkness, and death. Every good that comes to us is from God...

THURSDAY, SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Gen 9:1-13; Ps 102:16-21,29,22-23; Mk 8:27-33 God’s Covenant with Men and Creation The failure of the natural system through the destructive flood reaffirmed the faith of the good and faithful men in God’s total control of the natural order and other subordinated orders. Their belief in God was reaffirmed when they witnessed the deliverance God worked for them from the forces of nature. The sacrifice offered by Noah and his sons was an act of worship, rededication, and thanksgiving to God for their lives, for by delivering them from the supposed natural calamity, the occurrence of which God revealed, warned, and spared their lives. The events convinced them of the Lordship of God over the whole creation. Their new mindset established a new starting point for the dialectical journey with Yahweh, the God of heaven and earth. Thus, he blessed them as he blessed Adam and Eve after their creation. “God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘B...

WEDNESDAY, SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Gen 8:6-13,20-22; Ps 116:12-15,18-19; Mk 8:22-26 Physical and Spiritual Blindness The flood came as threatened and allowed by God to cleanse the earth of evil people, their deeds, and their consequences. The sacred author presents the flood as God’s punishment for sinners. Still, to those who perished in the flood, it appeared as a natural disaster that we can explain through scientific inquiry and interpretation of natural facts. Our understanding of the word of God and its creative effects on earth helps us to see that the two explanations are not mutually exclusive. Everything scientifically explicable we can also understand by faith to be from God. Hence, the sinners who lack faith in the word of God, see accidents and natural disasters, which are physical evils seemingly outside human control. But the faithful know the hand of God in whatever happens and understand the result of every event, natural, human, social, or political, as divi...

TUESDAY, SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Gen 6:5-8,7:1-5,10; Ps 29:1-4,9-10; Mk 8:14-21 The Spread of Yeast of Sin The eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is the choice of our first parents to walk the dialectical path, produced its results or fruits with time. In this case, it resulted in the accumulation of evil on earth. The path proceeds with knowledge of evil first, then a decision to acquire the corresponding good that eliminates evil by illuminating it with the light of the word of God or choosing a greater evil to cover up the first evil. Either of these choices subsequently launches us into fuller beings by knowledge of the corresponding good or drags us deeper into the web of evil and darkness. The same process is repeated either way. As we read yesterday, Cain’s anger and ill disposition were an invitation to reconsider his ways in prayerful reflection before God and amend his ways, or to move from anger to hatred of his brother Abel and sh...

MONDAY, SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Gen 4:1-15,25; Ps 50:1,8,16-17,20-21; Mk 8:11-13 Walking the Dialectical Path of Good and Evil The story of the man and the woman outside the Garden of Eden takes a different tone. God remained with them nevertheless but removed a bit from their daily activities. By their disobedience of God’s word, he let them live their lives but never absent in and around the. Their choice demands that God allow them to know good and evil. It is a dialectical path they have chosen to travel henceforth. The path is different from what God planned for them in the Garden of Eden, the path of comprehension of goodness and the fullness of life in him. To experience evil, they had to walk without understanding and in the error of their daily choices, which would cause them pain, loneliness, and death sometimes. To acquire good and the knowledge of truth, they must suffer for it and reach out to God, who is the source of all goodness. Thus, ignorance or incomplete ...

SUNDAY, SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Jer 17:5-8; Ps 1:1-4,6; 1 Cor 15:12,16-20; Lk 6:17,20-26 Our Faith Makes us God’s dwelling Place Throughout last week, the Church led us through the creation stories and the fall of man in the book of Genesis. From the stories, the sacred authors enlightened our minds on the cause of man’s woes and God’s loving plan for his salvation. The manifold woes we experience in our present mortal life are due to our inadvertence or lack of attention to the word of God, which is our origin and eternal light. Our first parents brought these woes on themselves and subsequently on their progenies by their disobedience to the word of God. We perpetuate these conditions of curse on ourselves and our children by continuing on the same path of disobedience to the word of God. The Church by guiding us through the creation stories intended that we understand the word of God as our origin. If the word of God brought us into existence, only the word of God can sust...

SATURDAY, FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Gen 3:1-8; Ps 32:1-2,5-7; Mk 7:31-37 You are Dust and shall return to Dust With the fall of the man and woman, Yahweh lost the companionship of the man and woman he made for himself and spent so many resources to tend and care for. Let us recall that they are the sole work of his hand; he created the whole material heaven and earth for the sake of them. He planted the Garden Eden with all the beautiful trees and their fruits, the animals and birds, and the interpersonal relationship through which he introduced them to communion with him. Given these, what was in the mind of God when his own disobeyed his word and doubted his eternal goodwill? He came to his own, but they were no longer eager to receive him; they hid from his divine presence. “The Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden;’ he replied ‘I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.’” The man and woman hid themselves from God be...