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Showing posts from June, 2025

THE PERMITTED WILL OF GOD

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TUESDAY, THIRTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Gen 19: 15-29; Ps 26:2-3,9-12; Mt 8:23-27 Moral and Natural Disasters It is difficult for human minds to comprehend the goodness of God, His infinite power, and the occurrence of physical, natural, and moral evils. But our distinction between divine will and the permitted will of God is to attain greater clarity in the matter. The fact that God created all things for the sake of man forms the background for understanding the universe and its events. The whole physical order is for the training of man to be like God. It is a school where we learn the order in nature which flows from the Eternal Word of God. Without the original fall, the natural order is suited to lead man to a good understanding of the will of God, which would foster the incarnation of the Eternal Word. For as we have understood, God made us to be the dwelling place of His Word. The created wisdom is to prepare man to receive and habilitate the Eternal Wisdom. The decisio...

THE SON OF MAN HAS NOWHERE TO LAY HIS HEAD

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MONDAY, THIRTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Gen 18: 16-33; Ps 103:1-4,8-11; Mt 8:18-22 Sheltering the Word through Faith The building of the Church of God belongs to the Blessed Trinity, for the Church is the Church of God, who is the Trinity of Persons. The Father is the One who proposes the foundation of the Church within each of us and among us by sending or revealing His Word to us, collectively and individually. We saw this in the passage of the Gospel we read yesterday. When Saint Peter answered the question Jesus Christ asked about his identity, the Lord informed him that the Father revealed it to him. Now, the word of God is not received without the Holy Spirit, for the word is spirit and life. That we receive the Holy Spirit alongside the word is shown by the correct confession of faith by Peter. As Saint Paul asserted, no one can say Jesus Christ is Lord without the Holy Spirit. The reception of the word of God commences a new spiritual life in us, which is by the presence...

BUILT ON THE CONFESSION OF FAITH IN CHRIST

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SOLEMNITY OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL, APOSTLES Acts 12: 1-11; Ps 34:2-9; 2 Tim 4:6-8,17-18; Mt 16:13-19 Christ Dwells in Us through Our Faith We celebrate the two great apostles of the Lord, Saint Peter, who is the first Pope, and Saint Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. These two apostles contributed to the spread of the faith by their commitment to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter had an attachment to Jesus Christ from the moment of his conversion.  He attained a position of leadership in the Church through his faith and commitment to the Lord and his mission. His love for Jesus Christ and zeal in confessing faith in his divinity won him the primacy of position among the apostles of the Lamb. The Gospel contains the declaration of the Lord giving Peter the head of the Church. The position came to him due to his profession of faith in the identity of the Son of Man revealed to him by God. “‘But you,’ he said ‘who do you say I am?’ Then Simon Peter spoke up, ‘You are ...

MARY KEPT THE WORD IN HER HEART

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IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY, MEMORIAL  Gen 18:1-15; Lk 1:46-50,53-55; Lk 2:41-51 Mary Stored All in Her Heart We have celebrated the Solemn feast in honour of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, our Lord. It is fitting to associate the Immaculate Heart of Mary with the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, for the two are bound together in an everlasting love between the Mother and the Son. We consider the Sacred Heart to be the font of divine love because it is the human expression of the unfathomable love of the Eternal Word dwelling in our nature. While the love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is not divine in the sense of expressing the love of a divine person, we understand it to be the first and most capacious receptacle of the outpouring of divine love from the Sacred Heart. First, in the sense that the Immaculate Heart of Mary was the foundry in which God poured the flame of divine love to produce/mould the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. The Immaculate Heart of Mary is mo...

THE SACRED HEART REVEALS GOD'S LOVE

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SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS  Ezek 34:11-16; Ps 23; Rom 5: 5-11; Lk 15:3-7 The Sacred Heart for Repentant Sinners The Church celebrates the solemn feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. The heart is a symbol of love. Hence, by this celebration, the Church invites her children to meditate on the love of God poured out on us through the human heart of the Son of Man. The selected readings are for this purpose. John the Beloved Apostle gave a concise definition of God when he said that God is love. The love God has for us we have explained to be a Trinitarian love, for the three Persons of the Trinity are united in showing unbounded love to us, men. Since the revelation of God belongs to the Son, his Incarnation is the unprecedented outpouring or demonstration of the love of God for man. Found in human nature, God poured out his love on us through the Sacred Heart of the Son of Man. The reading from the prophet Ezekiel is replete with symbols pointing to ...

FAITH DOES THE WILL OF GOD

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THURSDAY, TWELFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Gen 16:1-12,15-16; Ps 106:1-5; Mt 7:21-29 What Divine Will Permits Without the aid of grace from God, our fallen nature cannot do the will of God. However, that does not mean that God's will is not being done on earth, for nothing happens without God's will. Based on this apparent contradiction, we distinguish between the divine will or plan and his permitted will. God wills the whole creation into existence. Each creature obeys divine will by following its nature, which represents the divine will that brought it into existence and governs its operations. While the nature of each thing is determined, the operations are not, for they depend on the operations of other things which may or may not occur. The interdependency of creatures is one of the beautiful features of the universe and a source of its flaws as a creature. Our wills, as the source of our human operations, are characterised by this indeterminacy. Our wills lost the nat...

SPIRITUAL FRUITS THROUGH THE WORD

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WEDNESDAY, TWELFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Gen 15:112,17-18; Ps 105:1-4,6-9; Mt 7:15-20 Bearing Spiritual Fruits Abram was a human being like each of us; he was prone to judge things by his senses and liable to doubt whatever was outside the perception of his senses. We have praised his faith in following the call of God to leave his family and people to a foreign land. In today’s passage, he voiced out his doubts and fears. He needed a sign from God to confirm his faith that what God had promised would be fulfilled. He could not reconcile his advancement in age and the word of God promising him a physical inheritance that he would soon abandon and go to his grave. Yahweh knew his fears and doubts; he therefore encouraged him. “Have no fear, Abram, I am your shield; your reward will be great.” To this, Abram replied: “My Lord, what do you intend to give me? I go childless. See, you have given me no descendants; some man of my household will be my heir.” Based on this interaction, w...

SANCTIFIED IN THE WOMB

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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...

FAITH SEES AND FOLLOWS GOD

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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...

THE SACRAMENT OF ETERNAL COMMUNION

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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...

THE FATHER'S STRENGTH IN OUR WEAKNESS

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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...

OUR HEAVENLY TREASURE

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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...

OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN

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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 ...

THE FATHER AS THE CENTRE OF FOCUS

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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...

GROWING IN THE AWARENESS OF THE TRINITY

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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...