Reflection from Friar Nicholas

MONDAY, TWENTY FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Thess 1:1-5,8-10; Ps 149:1-6,9; Mt 23:13-22 The Idolatry in the Temple The prophet Isaiah proclaimed the will of Yahweh to send the survivors of the children of Israel to all nations and languages, bringing them into the family of God. Those who will function in that capacity as messengers of Yahweh would be purified of their own wills and desires, to be able to tell people of God’s will and bring them to conform to the divine will by their words and deeds. What Isaiah expresses has always been the noble role Israel was called to play as the people of God. God chose them to carry out his holy will, as a royal and priestly nation, dedicated to proclaiming the will of God to the nations and peoples. As priests of God, they were to give the holiest of things to all peoples and nations, that is, the word of God, enshrining his holy and immutable will. The sacred role is not reserved for Israel alone, but is the role anyone called and elect...

SUNDAY, TWENTY FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Isa 66:18-21; Ps 117; Heb 12:5-7,11-13; Lk 13:22-30 Entering through the Narrow Door Sin, death, and corruption found a place in the universe of God through the disobedience of man to God’s word, prompted by the ancient serpent, the evil one. They are perpetuated through man’s ignorance and continuing disobedience to the word of God. Every divine plan to address the situation of our world must address the problem of sin in the world and in man specifically. Hence, the Proto-Evangelium, the first promise of salvation to fallen man and woman, is about God sending his word anew to us. The whole universe obeys the word of God, for everything came to be, and continues to be, by the word of God. The only discordant tone comes from men doing their own wills, and not God’s. The salvation of man lies in coming back to the will of the Father. Thus, the Church looks up to God, who alone can bring this about, and prays in the opening prayer that God...

SAINT ROSE OF LIMA, VIRGIN Ruth 2:1-3,8-11,4:13-17; Ps 128:1-5; Mt 23:1-12 The Teachers of Heavenly Mysteries God, who is our heaven, commingles with the earth at every moment in time, as time mixes with eternity. But we reach or perceive the mysteries of heaven only through faith in the word of God. In a similar manner, we experience time through the way we perceive things and relate to them on a daily basis. The one who is able to remove himself from relations among things to relations within himself catches a glimpse of eternity, for our minds and wills are spiritual faculties. Our Christian faith gives us a spiritual life. It originates from God and gives us a faculty to see God and cooperate with him. Thus, the scripture says that it is impossible to see or please God without faith. Since the word of God dwells within us by faith, a person of faith draws life from the word of God within and not from without. We are ruled from without when we focus our attention on the things...

OUR LADY, MOTHER AND QUEEN Ruth 1:1,3-6,14-16,22; Ps 146:5-10; Mt 22:34-40 Mother by Love and Queen by Faithfulness The Church’s celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary as our Mother and Queen is to set her before us as a model and refuge in times of need. In doing this, the Church is only following the example of God and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. God is the first to set the Blessed Virgin Mary before all the chosen people for their imitation and their succour in time of need; for from the beginning, he promised the fallen race of men the Woman and her Offspring. By that divine destiny, the Woman, who is to be in perpetual enmity with the devil, became the mother of all the elect of God. God chose her to be the mother of the Word Incarnate, and by that choice made her the bearer of the Eternal Word and all who are to be reborn of the Eternal Word. Since the word of God can live in us only by faith, none can contest that she excels in faith in the word of God. But only lo...

SAINT PIUS X, POPE Judges 11:29-39; Ps 40:5,7-10; Mt 22:1-14 Invitation to the Wedding Feast Our Lord puts another parable before his audience. Just as in the other parables, he intends to teach us about the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. The Gospel says he directed this parable to the chief priests and elders of the people. Thus, the first audience or target of the parable is the chief priest and the elders within the Jewish people. “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a feast for his son’s wedding. He sent his servants to call those who had been invited, but they would not come.” In support of our understanding of the one denarius given to the workers in the parable of yesterday as a gift and not a payment as such, the parable here presents the kingdom as what is given gratis. The chosen people were invited to the communion of God by God’s revelation of his word to them. Their refusal to obey the Commandments and follow God's word is a rejection of...

  SAINT BERNARD, ABBOT, DOCTOR Judges 9:6-15; Ps 21:2-7; Mt 20:1-16 The Impossible and God’s Generosity As we learned from our Lord himself, it is impossible for us to make heaven by our own devices or achievements. At the same time, he consoles us by saying that nothing is impossible for our God. Understanding that God made us for himself; he made us that we may know him, love him, and serve him in this temporal life, to be happy in his communion forever, is a consoling doctrine. God, who created us for himself, will bring us to himself if we cooperate with his grace. The source of all the graces of God is the Son of Man. Hence, it is necessary for us to walk in his company, for as Saint John wrote in his Gospel, the Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Grace is the presence of God offered to us for our salvation. By our faith in Jesus Christ, we enter the abundance of grace made available for us to attain communion with God. Jesus Christ is...

TUESDAY, TWENTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Judges 6:11-24; Ps 85:9,11-14; Mt 19:23-30 Impossible for Man to Follow Christ Every time we come to the statement of our Lord Jesus Christ on the impossibility of man entering the kingdom of heaven, we are struck with fear, confusion, and amazement. Reflecting on these solemn words of our Lord clears most of our doubts and strengthens our hope of possessing the communion of God. The Lord’s statement was a reaction to the sudden and sad departure of the man who desired communion with God. The Lord asked him to go sell everything he owned and give the money to the poor, then come join the company of his followers. The Lord made a just demand on him, and on each of us, who seek the life of God. In our first parents, Adam and Eve, we freely abandoned God and all he had to offer us for what is pleasurable to the senses and for the gratification of self. It is therefore a just demand on us to abandon all our external possessions and embrace the...

MONDAY, TWENTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Judges 2:11-19; Ps 106:34-37,39-40,43-44; Mt 19:16-22 Come Follow Me The invitation: Come follow me, is the expression of the original and tacit invitation man received from God from creation. The intention of God to make man in his image and likeness implies this invitation. God does not require anything from us to make us in his image; only his will is sufficient to accomplish that. To make us in his likeness requires that we follow his holy will every day; for this end, he gave man his word in the Garden of Eden. God gave the original invitation for higher communion with him to man in the Garden of Eden.  The prescription of what to eat and what not to eat encompasses both material and spiritual aspects, enabling us to enter into a higher or deeper communion with God. The invitation is to a higher communion because our creation is already a communion with God. The word of God is the path leading to divine communion, and the communion...

SUNDAY, TWENTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Jer 38:4-6,8-10; Ps 40:2-4,18; Heb 12:1-4; Lk 12:49-53 Receiving the Baptism of Jesus Christ The Church prays on this twentieth Sunday that God will fill our hearts with the warmth of His love, making us eager to attain the promises of good things beyond human perception that He has made to us. Saint Augustine explains that the promise of God to man is beyond human understanding because it has never been comprehended by any human mind. The reason is that no ear has heard, no eye has seen, for it is beyond human sensory perception. Again, it has not entered any human heart because human hearts will enter therein. The authority of the Lord’s teaching on the last judgment lends credence to this, for he says that the good and faithful servants would be invited to enter into the joy of the Lord. Cf. Mt 25:21. The joy of the Lord is unknown to anyone who is outside the communion of God. If, as we noted already, our daily life is an invitation to ...

SATURDAY, NINETEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Josh 24:14-29; Ps 16:1-25,7-8,11; Mt 19:13-15 Choose for yourselves whom to Serve The Lord, our God and creator, presents himself to us every day, at every turn of our lives. He presents himself not only to believers, but to unbelievers alike; for as Jesus Christ stated in the Gospel, God gives his sun and rain to good and bad, deserving and undeserving of his goodness. The fact that God willed us into existence is already an express invitation to His communion. We accept the invitation every day, knowing the truth in any way, and live by the truth we know. To refuse to accept the truth is to refuse to enter into communion with God. The scriptures bear witness to the presence of wisdom among men, beckoning to everyone who cares to come to her banquet of life. Prov 9:1-6. The ever-present wisdom represents the word of God that is present and active everywhere in the world. If we listen and follow the word of God, we enter into the communi...

THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, SOLEMNITY  Rev 11:19,12:1-6,10; Ps 45:10-12,16; 1 Cor 15:20-26; Lk 1:39-56 The Almighty has done Great Things for Me As we celebrate the solemn feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we deepen our understanding of the greatness of God, which He shares with His creatures. In no other creature has God so displayed his greatness as in the Woman he promised us at the fall of Adam and Eve. God, in the making of the Woman, perfected his work on our human nature he willed to be his dwelling place from the beginning. By this inbuilt perfection, he fulfilled his promise to put enmity between the Woman and the serpent, between her offspring and its offspring. Since the word of God stands true from eternity and for all time, there is nothing of the evil one that is in the Blessed Virgin Mary. The sacrament of this reality is the vision the Lord gave to John. “The sanctuary of God in heaven opened and the ark of the covenant could b...

SAINT MAXIMILIAN KOLBE, PRIEST, MARTYR Josh 3:7-11,13-17; Ps 114:1-6; Mt 18:21-19:1 Grasping the Greatness of Our God The readings lead us to contemplate the greatness of God, who made us and called us to a communion with him. The greatness of God is beyond our understanding, for to understand it is to understand the essence of God. He alone is being; everything shares in his being by his holy will. Hence, everything exists at the will of God and ceases to be at his will. By bringing things into existence, he makes them share in his greatness. The being of everything and its operations show forth the greatness of God. Faith gradually introduces us to the knowledge of God's greatness and also enables us to share in the greatness of God in a unique way. Joshua, whom God called to lead the people of Israel into the Promised Land, was no stranger to the greatness of God as an adjutant to Moses. Moses, by believing the word of God, shared his greatness and demonstrated it before t...

WEDNESDAY, NINETEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Deut 34:1-12; Ps 66:1-3,5,16-17; Mt 18:15-20 The Power of Life and Death In our reflection on the readings today, we consider two types of death we experience as human beings and the power of God over these types of death. The reading from Deuteronomy relates how Moses, the servant of Yahweh, died. The death in focus here is the natural death, which we have all inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve. The return of our bodies to dust is the just sentence of God following the original sin of Adam and Eve. God permitted the corruption of their bodies following their choice to experience or know death. They made this choice when they disobeyed the word of God and ate of the fruit they were told not to taste under the pain of death. God, who is merciful and just, respected the free will he gave to man by permitting them to die. Though it came as a just sentence of God, it was the consequence of their choice. All men, born of Adam and...

TUESDAY, NINETEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Deut 31:1-8; Deut 32:3-4,7-9; Mt 18:1-5,10,12-14 The Path to Spiritual Greatness We should always keep in mind that the measure or standard of the world is not commensurate with the heavenly or spiritual standard. There are two sources of this incommensurability. The first is that we judge the standard of this world by the senses, unlike the spiritual standard that is spiritually discerned and judged. The second is that the judgment or discernment of the standard is relative to us because the standards are materially composed. In contrast, the spiritual standard and the judgment of it are relative to God, who is the Father of spirits and the centre of the spiritual world. We understand the nonmeasurability of faith based on this distinction. Hence, our Lord, addressing the disciples’ plea for an increase in faith, corrected their notion of faith by urging them to exercise their faith, which is nonquantifiable, since it is a spiritual real...