Reflection from Friar Nicholas

THE BIRTHDAY OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST, SOLEMNITY Isa 49:1-6; Ps 139:1-3,13-15; Acts 13:22-26; Lk 1:57-66,80 The Forerunner of the Way We celebrate the birth of John the Baptist as a solemnity. John is one of the few who enjoy the privilege of a solemn birthday celebration. It is a privilege shared with our Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary. The honour is given to him because he was sanctified in the womb of his mother, Elizabeth, and born without sin like Jesus Christ our Lord and his mother, Mary. The honour is not a merit award but rather a show of God’s munificent blessings and love for man. God created man to share in the glory of the Godhead. The agreement of the Holy Trinity to make man in the image of God and his likeness implies this honour. To be like God, we need to know the truth and choose the good in freedom and love. The ability to choose freely defines the divine image in us; as rational creatures, it is necessary to come to the knowledge of truth to be able to ope...

MONDAY, TWELFTH OF WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Gen 12:1-9; Ps 33:12-13,18-20,22; Mt 7:1-5 Vocation to the Light The Church puts before us the call of Abram to the light of faith. The first reading of yesterday was about the blessing of Abram by Melchizedek, the priest of God Most High. The passage today shows why Melchizedek came to meet Abram and why he blessed him. God called Abram away from his people and family, and he responded in faith and followed Yahweh. The scripture did not inform us of any prior relationship existing between Yahweh and Abram or any of his relatives, which formed a background for his answering the vocation of God. “The Lord said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your family, and your father’s house, for the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name so famous that it will be used as a blessing.” The invitation was not just a migration from one place to another, but most importantly, an invitation from the darkness o...

SOLEMNITY OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST Gen 14:18-20; Ps 110:1-4; 1 Cor 11:23-26; Lk 9:11-17 Our Communion in the Body of Christ It is most fitting that the Church celebrates this Most Holy Sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus after the celebration of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, for in this august Sacrament, we celebrate our consecration in Jesus Christ to the Blessed Trinity. In the communion of the body of Jesus Christ, all the faithful are united in the one Spirit to mirror the communion of the Holy Trinity. The Sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus Christ is a symbol of the consecration of the Son of Man to the will of the heavenly Father. It is in that consecration that the Son of Man becomes our bread of eternal life. The consecration, as we hinted in yesterday’s reflection, is the meaning of religion and the worship of God. We see this as the idea the first reading from Genesis presents to us for meditation. The mysterious priest, Melchizedek, offe...

SAINT ALOYSIUS GONZAGA, RELIGIOUS 2 Cor 12:1-10; Ps 34:8-13; Mt 6:24-34 The Strength of Weakness Throughout the week, we have meditated on the spirituality corresponding to the revelation of the Trinity by Jesus Christ. We have come to understand that the foundation for Trinitarian spirituality is the establishment of the consciousness of the heavenly Father within us. It cannot be otherwise because Jesus Christ reveals himself to us as the Son of God in human nature. Since his consciousness among us remained that of the Son, he carried and established the force field of his love for the Father through his life and ministry on earth. Every thought, word, and action of the Son of Man relates us to the heavenly Father whose love he demonstrated to us through his life, death, and resurrection. His total submission to the will of the Father in heaven outlined the highway of salvation for us sinners. The highway defines for us the essence of religion, sacrifice, and worship of God. It...

FRIDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 11:1-11; Ps 111:1-4,7-8; Mt 6:7-15 The Father as Our Heavenly Treasure Life and everything good come to us from the heavenly Father, whom Jesus Christ revealed as the origin of all things and every good. We have understood this truth to be the core message of the Gospel. The simple truth is sown in our hearts as we receive the gift of the Son of God in his human nature in faith. As the heavenly seed germinates in our hearts as a new spirit, it becomes the centre of spiritual life in communion with the Holy Spirit. The spirit is the instance of the life of the Son of God in us. It cannot exist without the Holy Spirit, who causes it to germinate, nurturing and tending it to maturity with our faith and cooperation. Our Lord’s parable of the sower contains the foregoing understanding. Also, in this regard, Saint Paul referred to the Father as the one who provides the seed for the sower and the bread for the eater. As sowers, we cooperate w...

THURSDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 11:1-11; Ps 111:1-4,7-8; Mt 6:7-15 Our Prayer to the Father The core of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God in human nature, is the revelation of the Father in heaven, who is the giver of life and all good gifts. Understanding the central message of the Gospel and growing in the corresponding consciousness of the Son is crucial for us as Christians. To miss this all-important message of the Gospel is to lack the necessary foundation that would carry the Christian spirituality. Our understanding of the Trinity is rooted in the revelation of the Father. Once we focus our minds on the heavenly Father, we easily conceive the revealing of the Son of God as a clear and distinct Person proceeding from the Father as the origin of all things. The Son is not well conceived and understood without the Person of the Father from whom he proceeds, for the Father precedes the Son. Though our shared experience is of the Son of God in ...

WEDNESDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 9:6-11; Ps 112:1-4,9; Mt 6:1-6,16-18 Our Relationship with the Father We have dwelt on the significant fact that our spiritual life is the life of the Son within us. What guides the development of our spiritual life, therefore, is our relationship with the Father. We noted that the Father has special care for the life of his Son in us and sends us our daily bread for that purpose. Our Lord himself taught us to pray, calling God our Father. The constant and frequent repetition of the prayer of our Lord establishes and reinforces the Father-Son relationship within us. God is called Father for the life and consciousness of the Son to grow and develop within us. Just as the love of the Father in heaven defined the mission of the Son of Man on earth, as Jesus Christ testified himself, saying, ‘I have come, not to do my own will, but the will of the One who sent me,’ the knowledge and love of the Father defines our mission as Christians a...

TUESDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 8:1-9; Ps 146:2,5-9; Mt 5:43-48 Our Growth in the Awareness of the Trinity Through seeing the will of God the Father in everything, we exercise our faith in him by accepting every condition and event as coming from his loving hand. The insight gained in this exercise of faith brings us to the mystery of the Father as the origin of all things, visible and invisible. The salvific insight has its source in the paschal mysteries of Jesus Christ. His paschal mysteries are the source of divine light that illuminates every darkness in the world and our individual lives and experiences. We understand that he is the way, the truth, and the life in this sense. Everything in existence: entities, events, and processes are from the Father, who is the unoriginated origin of all creatures. Everything comes to be by his will, which we comprehend only through his word. Hence, the exercise of faith in the Son of Man is the admittance of divine light th...

MONDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 6:1-10; Ps 98:1-4; Mt 5:38-42 Our Faith Shines in Obedience and Submission Our reflection throughout the week will deepen our meditation on the Trinity, the three Persons of the Godhead. Since our original fall has weakened our natural capacity to know God in creation and through the events of our daily lives, our profession of faith in Jesus Christ as the Only Begotten Son of God in our human nature furnishes us a spiritual faculty and adequate grace to see God and discern his holy will in our daily lives. The Church asks for the grace for us to form a habit of following the will of the Father in all things. The needed grace comes to us through following the unction of the Holy Spirit, as he reveals the will of the Father in the daily course of our lives. Jesus Christ makes the grace abundant as part of the spiritual nutrients we receive from eating our daily bread, the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and the reality of his real presence ...

SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY Prov.   8:22-31; Ps 8:4-9; Rom 5:1-5; Jn 16:12-15 The Trinity of Our Salvation The celebration of the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity of Persons in God brings us to the core mystery of our salvation. It is the heart of the Christian revelation and the meaning of our salvation. The choice of readings for the celebration indicates the Church’s desire to guide us through the path of our experience in the meditation on this holiest of subjects. The Holy Trinity is our salvation because we are saved to the degree we understand and relate well to the three Persons in God. The doctrine of the Trinity was so obscure before the coming of the Son of God in human flesh. But after the Incarnation, the Son of Man opened our eyes to the reality of the Trinity everywhere, within and without. The foundational nature of this most holy doctrine is made evident in the fact that the Church, as the people of God, is founded and built on the Trinity. As the Sa...

SATURDAY, TENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 5:14-21; Ps 103:1-4,9-12; Mt 5:33-37 We are New Creation in Jesus Christ The Father gave birth to our spirits in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Since God is life, our spirits, which are instantiations of Jesus Christ within us, are also life. Our new birth was made possible by the death of the Son of Man in obedience to the Father. Jesus ransomed us by his death for God the Father, who brings us to birth through his Eternal Word. Thus, our new birth is at the instance of our profession of faith in the death and resurrection of the Son of Man. The Word of the Father is Life and Spirit. Hence, Jesus is our spiritual life guided and nourished by the Holy Spirit, who has made his home in us for that purpose. The principle by which we come to spiritual life is the same principle that nourishes and causes our growth and development in spiritual life. Since the Holy Spirit gave us life, he must also guide every aspect of the heavenly li...

SAINT ANTHONY OF PADUA, PRIEST, DOCTOR 2 Cor 4:7-15; Ps 116:10-11,15-18; Mt 5:27-32 Our Faith brings us to Physical Death Let us recall again the principle of our spiritual life. We gained our spiritual life through our profession of faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. By the faith we professed, the Holy Spirit gave us a new and spiritual life that is Christ in us. Because we believe that he died and rose again from the dead, he shares his spiritual and immortal life with us, just as he shared our mortal life, which he laid down at his death. The mortal life he shared with us, he laid down for the love of us and our salvation; the spiritual and immortal life he now has with the Father, he gives to us who believe in his resurrection. Since physical death was the gate through which the Son of man gained possession of the immortal life with the Father, the same death is the path of the increase of our participation in the spiritual and immortal life he shares with u...

THURSDAY, TENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 3:15-4:1,3-6; Ps 85:9-14; Mt 5:20-26 The Removal of Veil of Unbelief The new spiritual birth we have received from the Holy Spirit makes us able to see and interact with spiritual realities. Without the spiritual life and its faculties received from the Holy Spirit, a soul is dead to God and other spiritual things. We have this in the passage from Saint Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. He judged many Jews ignorant of the spiritual realities God has revealed through Jesus Christ due to their lack of faith in Jesus Christ. Their refusal to believe in the Son of Man resulted in their turning away from the Spirit of truth and heavenly life. They misunderstood the Old Testament, which was supposed to lead them to Jesus Christ. “Even today, whenever Moses is read, the veil is over their minds. It will not be removed until they turn to the Lord. Now this Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Their ...

SAINT BERNABAS, APOSTLE Acts 11:21-26,13:1-3; Ps 98:1-6; Mt 5:17-19 The Reward of Commitment to the Faith We celebrate the memorial of Saint Barnabas, the apostle. He was among the early converts to Christianity in Jerusalem. The scripture bears witness to his strong faith in the risen Lord, which is why the scripture describes him as filled with the Holy Spirit. As we have always noted, the Holy Spirit would be active in us to the extent we believe in Jesus Christ as the risen Lord. The faith of Barnabas was so great that he was one of the great people in the early Church in Jerusalem. We read that he sold his land and gave the entire proceeds to the apostles, who were in charge of the growing community. He is such a discerning man that he was sent to Antioch by the apostles to authenticate the many conversions of Gentiles to the Christian faith. “The church in Jerusalem heard about this and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. There he could see for himself that God had given grace, ...

T UESDAY, TENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 2 Cor 1:18-22; Ps 119:129-133,135; Mt 5:13-16 You are Light of the World With the celebration of the Pentecost, we end the Eastertide and come back to the ordinary time of the Church. We come back to the ordinary with the extraordinary gift we have received from God. We come back to our ordinary daily activities, not to continue in our ordinary life and strength, but to pick up the ordinary tasks with extraordinary vision and enthusiasm, for what we now live is not the ordinary human life but the heavenly life of God. The renewal and deepening of our understanding of the paschal mysteries and the rekindling of our spiritual life by the Holy Spirit transform our daily tasks into a mission for the kingdom of God. If we have the Holy Spirit then we have God’s life within us. If we are unsure of his presence, then we are uncertain of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who redeemed us and restored us to good standing with God as his child...