Reflection from Friar Nicholas

SUNDAY, SEVENTH WEEK OF EASTER Act 7:55-60; Ps 97:1-2,6-7,9; Rev 22:12-14,16-17,20; Jn 17:20-26 The Holy Spirit of Unity and Communion On this third of day of the novena we reflect on the Holy Spirit as the source of unity. The unity which we reflect on and pray for is of the essence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the love of the Father and the Son and the bond of eternal communion of love between them. He is the life of the Father and the Son, for God is love; he lives and creates all things in love. It is beyond our understanding that the Son would ask the Father to give us the same Holy Spirit to dwell in us and bring us into the same communion with the Father and the Son. “Holy Father, I pray not only for these, but for those also who through their words will believe in me. May they all be one. Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.” By the gift of the Holy Spirit, we can convince the worl...

THE VISITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Zeph 3:14-18; Isa 12; Lk 1:39-56 The Holy Spirit of Good Inspirations Today is the second day of our novena to the Holy Spirit and the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Following our consideration of the spiritual joy and consolation that comes to us when the Holy Spirit gives us a new birth in Jesus Christ, we consider the inspirations which are subsequent and consequent on the new spiritual birth we have received. We know a distinct life by a different centre of vital activities. Vital in the sense that all the activities emanating from the centre and coordinated by it serve the sustenance of an individual life. The same applies to our spiritual life, gained through our profession of faith in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit generates a new spirit in us, which becomes the centre for the reception of spiritual effects or graces and coordination of spiritual activities for the sustenance, growth, and development of our spir...

  FRIDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF EASTER Act 18:9-18; Ps 47:2-7; Jn 16:20-23 The Holy Spirit of Consolation and Joy With the ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Church commences the novena to the Holy Spirit in obedience to the injunction of Our Lord to the disciples that they were to remain in Jerusalem for the fulfilment of what the Father promised them. The Father pledged to, and the Lord also promised to send the power from heaven. That the promises are from the Father and the Son is understandable, for the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and the Son. The coming of the Holy Spirit will bring them joy and console them for the departure of the Son of Man. The death of the Son of Man on the cross shattered the hope of the disciples. His resurrection and communion with them for forty days rekindled and strengthened their faith and hope. But his new communion with them was quite different from what they enjoyed before the crucifixion, for he was no longer accessible to the public ...

THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD Act 1:1-11; Ps 47:2-3,6-9; Eph 1:17-23; Lk 24:46-53 The Ascension of the Lord into Heaven According to Saint Leo the Great in his homily, the forty days that passed between the resurrection of the Lord and his ascension into heaven were moments of enactment of the mysteries of Jesus Christ in the minds of the apostles and disciples of the Lord. At his various appearances to them, he blessed and opened their minds to understand the mysteries as the scriptures foretold them. The understanding of these mysteries or faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for the reception of the Holy Spirit and their incorporation into the mystical body of Christ. The risen Lord merely laid the foundation of these mysteries, for their depth is profound, and promised that the Holy Spirit will guide them into complete knowledge. The question they put to him as he was about to ascend to heaven showed they were still far from understanding the import of the mysteries and what they s...

WEDNESDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF EASTER Act 17:15,22-18:1; Ps 148:1-2,11-14; Jn 16:12-15 In Him We Live, Move, and Exist The resurrection of Jesus Christ opened a new way of attending or approaching God. It is a new way and an ancient way at the same time, for God, who made us in his image, intended us to walk the spiritual way of the word of God to the knowledge of God. By the original fall, men turned away from the sacred way to God by disbelieving God and disregarding his word. By the original sin of Adam and Eve, the human race turned away from the way from the beginning and chose the tortious way of death and darkness. “And the Lord God commanded the man saying, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’” With the human race turned away from the path of the word of God, which is a spiritual path, the only way left for us is the physical way, which is fraught w...

  TUESDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF EASTER Act 16:22-34; Ps 138:1-3,7-8; Jn 16:5-11 Sharing in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ In the opening prayer, the Church prays to God for us to share in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But we know we must die to have a share in the resurrection. Saint Paul writes about this when he informs us that the death of Jesus Christ was at work in his life as the life of Jesus was also at work in him. The ritual of our baptism presented this understanding clearly to us. We die in our profession of faith in Jesus Christ, for we profess faith in his death and resurrection at our baptism. Our immersion in the water showed our belief in his death for us. The death he died for us, that we may no longer live for ourselves, but for him who died for us and came back to life. Hence, our coming out of the water signifies our readiness to embrace the new life of resurrection, a heavenly life that commences with the coming of the Holy Spirit into our souls. So, what...

  ST PHILIP NERI, PRIEST Act 16:15-15; Ps 149:1-6,9; Jn 15:26-16:4 Familiarity with the Truth Our Lord Jesus Christ states that the Father is the one who draws anyone who comes to believe in him. We have also explained how the Father draws us through the human nature he gave us. By nature, we have a propensity for the word of God, for God made us the temple of the Eternal Word. The Father gave us a rational nature that can know natural truths and live them out. He draws us by this natural propensity for the truth of the word of God and other natural truths commensurate to our nature. Hence, our coming to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, does not start on the day we hear the Gospel but happens daily as we receive the truths in our daily living and live faithful to what we know to be true. The daily openness to the truth makes us disciples of the Eternal Word even before we encounter him in the Gospel. Our faithfulness in little things prepares us to be faithful in higher thin...

SUNDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF EASTER Act 15:1-2,22-29; Ps 67:2-3,5-6,8; Rev 21:10-14,22-23; Jn 14:23-29 Paying Attention to the Resurrection The resurrection of the Son of Man launched our participation in the life of God. What the Incarnation of the Eternal Word started was opened to the general human race at the resurrection. Because God sacrificed the Lamb for us, God has taken away our sins, which was the hindrance to our participation in the life of the Trinity. Subsequently, we see men become the dwelling place of God through the Holy Spirit. The work of salvation of the human race was accomplished solely by God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Our point of entrance into the communion of the Trinity is the Son of Man. Faith in his life, death, and resurrection brings each person into the membership of his body. His humanity is our way to this communion. Hence, those closest to him during his ministry in the flesh whom he appointed as his apostles have the primacy of place....

SATURDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER Act 16:1-10; Ps 100:1-3,5; Jn 15:18-21 Christ’s Love separates us from the World As we read yesterday from Acts of Apostles, the decision of the Council of the Church held in Jerusalem aimed at reminding the Christians of their consecration to God through Jesus Christ. So, all the Council asked them to abstain from were things or behaviours capable of lessening their consecration or their consciousness of that fact. Our consecration to God through the Son of Man is the core message of the Gospel that we must not compromise. Nevertheless, Saint Paul’s action in the passage today shows that a good understanding of the Law of Moses does not remove from the Christian consecration to God in Jesus Christ. The law of circumcision, as a sacrament of the promise made to Abraham, leads to Jesus Christ as the fulfilment of the promise. Hence, we see Paul circumcise Timothy at Lystra to avoid causing unnecessary squabble with the Jews, which would prevent him f...

FRIDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER Act 15:22-31; Ps 57:8-12; Jn 15:12-17 Salvific Power in the Mysteries of Christ The resolutions from the first Council of the Church held in Jerusalem reaffirmed the truth of the Christian faith proclaimed by the apostles and received by the Jews and Gentiles alike. The Council excluded additions coming from lack of focus, misinformation, and misunderstanding of some Jewish Christians. As we have noted in the previous reflections, the misinformation originated from the lack of focus of some Jewish Christians on the mysteries of the Son of Man. Their tradition and incomplete attention on the Law of Moses removed or reduced their attention on the One who has established his presence among us as the Son of Man. The origin of the misinformation is their love for the traditions of their fathers more than their actual paying attention to the Law of Moses, which is a pointer and a guide to the Saviour, Jesus Christ. Thus, their attention was more to the word...

THURSDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER Act 15:7-21; Ps 96:1-3,10; Jn 15:9-11 Keeping the Commandment of Love There is no other way of discerning and coming to the knowledge of someone’s love for us apart from paying steady attention to the person’s words, actions, gestures, and facial expressions. All these are necessary to learn the other’s love language. When we do not devote time to learn the other’s love language, we will fail to understand the loving communication from the person. The same applies to our relationship with God. However, there is a bit of a difference arising from the fact that God is not physically present to us, which makes it a bit difficult to understand the loving communications of God. The difficulty is less when we know the real presence of God with us in all things and at all times. We must conceive and understand God to be the supreme Spirit, who alone exists of himself and is infinite in all perfections. He has gifted us with material and spiritual creations...

WEDNESDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER Act 15:1-6; Ps 122:1-5; Jn 15:1-8 From Unbelief to Faith in God The Psalmist reminiscences on his experience of Jerusalem, saying: “I rejoiced when I heard them say: ‘Let us go to God’s house.’ And now our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.” He speaks of the physical Temple of God in Jerusalem, in the land of Judaea here. His enthusiasm is mainly directed towards the physical beauty and the compactness of the Temple, for he adds, “Jerusalem is built as a city strongly compact. It is there that the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord.” This psalm of ascent to the Temple of Jerusalem has more mystical meaning than physical, for while its physical meaning praises the physical form and beauty of the Temple in Jerusalem built by human hands, the mystical meaning applies to the mystical Jerusalem that is a spiritual reality accessible to all faithful souls. The physical Temple and the mystical Temple are not the same, though they were con...

TUESDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER Act 14:19-28; Ps 145:10-13,21; Jn 14:27-31 Constancy in Faith and Hope The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the creation of a new heaven and earth. Saint Gregory of Nyssa explained in his sermon that the new heaven is the firmament of faith in Jesus Christ, and the new earth is a good heart that drinks up the rain of the word of God and yields a rich harvest of good and spiritual works. Faith in the risen Lord is, therefore, the firmament from which the rain of the word of God distils to our believing hearts. Just as the physical firmament is a constant covering and horizon for the physical earth, our faith in the risen Lord must form our mindset and horizon of our spiritual life. We do not live our spiritual lives in isolation from the physical daily life, but the spiritual enters and transforms our daily living. We are to imbue the daily living with our faith in the resurrection of the Lord and his enduring presence with us. Saint Paul explains this...

MONDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER Act 14:5-18; Ps 115:1-4,15-16; Jn 14:21-26 Defended by the Resurrection of the Lord Our faith in the resurrection of the Son of Man is the hallmark of the Christian people and the source of our spiritual life. The resurrection of Jesus Christ proved three things. The first is that he is the Just One. The second is that he is the Son of God. The third is that the Father has forgiven our sins through his sacrificial death. The faith justifies us and enables us to receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Paul’s experience of the risen Lord consolidated his Christian faith and established a firm foundation for the mission the Lord called him to fulfil. We must build up our faith in the resurrection of the Son of Man, for the strength of our faith in the resurrection of the Lord would determine the height of the Christian life we can support. Without a solid foundation, God cannot erect a solid Christian life on us. There is very little the Lord can achi...

SUNDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER Act 14:21-27; Ps 145:8-13; Rev 21:1-5; Jn 13:31-33,34-35 Glorifying God in our Mortal Body The Christian vocation is to become Jesus Christ in our situation of life. God called us to undergo a spiritual rebirth and transformation into the Son of Man, which the sacrament of baptism initiates in us. In this sense, we understand the sacrament as initiation into the membership of Jesus Christ or the Church. To be incorporated into the body of the Son of Man, we must be familiar with the mysteries of the Son of Man, for each of us must go through these mysteries in our respective lives and become like him in all things. Hence, the ritual of baptism is only the introduction to the baptism which is the life of a Christian. The Son of Man longed to go through this baptism because it was the Father’s will for him. We must also long to go through the reality of our baptism, which produces real fruits of holiness and the life of the Son of Man in us. The gospel ...