Reflection from Friar Nicholas

SAINT CECILIA, MARTYR   1 Maccabees 6:1-13; Ps 9:2-4,6,16,19; Lk 20:27-40 The Indestructible House of God The work of God is indestructible in its origin, for they are from God who knows all things and can do all things. Every one of God’s works was conceived in wisdom and truth and willed into existence by Him. In considering the works of God, we must make a distinction between the existence of things as willed by God and their existence in matter and time. As the scriptures testify, God has prepared a kingdom for us before the foundation of the world, implying that He called and chose us even before we gained our material existence. Therefore, God’s infinite power endows spiritual existence to everything He wills. But their material existence, for those things which are to be material, must also follow the time and season set by His divine Majesty. Among these are those things that need the cooperation of man to come into existence. Most promises or blessings contained in t...

PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY   1 Maccabees 4:36-37,52-59; 1 Chron 29:10-12; Lk 19:45-48 The True House of God As we celebrate the memorial of the presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple, we reflect on our own presentation to the Lord. In the process of baptism, we were all presented to the Lord in the Church, whether as infants or as adults. For the infants, the parents have the duty of bringing their children to present them to the Lord, in thanksgiving for the gift they are from God, and as an act of consecration of them to the Lord. As adults, those who have influenced the candidates’ lives positively, whose lives preached or presented the Gospel to them, act as parents. They are truly the spiritual parents of these candidates, for the testimonies of their lives have made them conceive the new life of Christ. Usually, one or two of these come with the candidate to present him to God for baptism in the Church. What the Church asks of those presentin...

THURSDAY, THIRTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME   1 Maccabees 2:15-29; Ps 50:1-2,5-6,14-15; Lk 19:41-44 The Lord’s Tears over Jerusalem When it comes to the salvation of the human person, it is impossible by any human devices. Only God can save us. But God cannot save us without us. This is because of the free will God gave to us, by which we are to choose whether to be saved or not. Though we cannot save ourselves without God, God cannot save us without us. We have emphasised the abundance of grace for our salvation; however, we must still cooperate with this abundant grace in order to be saved. It is the Father’s ultimate will to save us from sin and damnation, for he did not create us to be lost, but to be his holy temple while on earth and to enjoy an eternal communion with him forever in the next world. God does not spare anything to fulfil his holy design for our salvation. He sent His Son in human nature to die for our redemption; He sent the Holy Spirit to be our lifelon...

WEDNESDAY, THIRTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME   2 Maccabees 7:1,20-31; Ps 17:1,5-6,8,15; Lk 19:11-28 The Returning of the Appointed King An admirable thing about virtue is that it enables us, as human persons, to produce the best result in whatever good endeavour we channel our energy. Virtue is an inner structure that we develop within our faculties to help them reach their respective goals or objects each time. The virtues are distinguished according to the faculty or power they modify. Those that modify the moral faculties are called moral virtues. Intellectual virtues modify the intellectual power in its different operations. The essence of virtue is a form of rationality living in each of the faculties of our souls. Thus, training in virtue is the practice of bringing the various powers of the soul to listen and obey reason at every instant of their operations. When we receive a new spiritual birth at our profession of faith in Jesus Christ, the virtues are renewed in th...

TUESDAY, THIRTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME   2 Maccabees 6:18-31; Ps 3:2-7; Lk 19:1-10 Embracing Salvation from God As Saint Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, justification comes to us when we believe with and in our hearts. By heart, he means the whole spiritual faculties: the mind, heart, and will. We receive a new spiritual life that is supported by these faculties when we make the assent of faith in the word of God or in Jesus Christ. The assent of faith is the foundation of a new life that gradually manifests in our members and revealed in our expressions. Thus, Paul concludes by saying that salvation comes with confession of our faith with our mouth. Here, the mouth stands for every way of expressing or revealing the conviction of our hearts. These two are connected as two aspects of the same reality, just as a building is essentially composed of its foundation and the external or visible structure. The visible structure cannot stand without the foundation, whil...

SAINT ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY, RELIGIOUS 1 Maccabees 1:10-15,41-43,54-57,62-46; Ps 119:53,61,134,150,155, 158; Lk 18:35-43 The Time of Trial All the prophecies of the end of the people of Israel as the type of the Church of Jesus Christ foretold a time of trial and difficulty, when the faith of the people would be tried and purified as if in a furnace. The cause of these trials is the laxity that the people develop with time in their worship of God and the observation of his commandments. Because time introduces lukewarmness into people’s religious observances, the worship they offer God falls short of His divine Majesty. The lukewarmness makes them drift gradually away from the presence of God and fall into idolatry without knowing it. The lack of attendance to God creates an opening for various demonic spirits to creep in and hijack the attention of the people. God, who is a jealous God, permits the trials and tribulations to reawaken the attention of the people to their religious...

SUNDAY, THIRTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Mal 3:19-20; Ps 98:5-9; 2 Thess 3:7-12; Lk 21:5-19 The Sign of the Coming of the Son of Man As we draw close to the end of the Church’s Liturgical year, the readings take on the aspect of Parousia or eschatology. The Church intends to remind us of the end of time, subjective and objective. The time allotted to each of us in this temporary life is limited. Therefore, we must be cautious about how we use the most limited resource on earth, namely, time. We are also reminded that time, in its objective understanding as a material phenomenon, will come to an end one day. Just as it started with the creation of the universe, like any other material creature, time would end and everything contained in it. If both individual and objective time have an end, we must live as conscientious stewards of God’s grace. Our entrance into eternity, which is the life that ought to belong to us, according to the plan of God, depends on our usage of the limi...

  SAINT ALBERT THE GREAT, BISHOP, DOCTOR   Wis 18:14-16,19:6-9; Ps 105:2-3,36-37,42-43; Lk 18:1-8 The House of God is for Prayer The implication that God made us to be a temple for him is that we are supposed to be a house of prayer. The purpose of being the temple of God is that we may continually offer God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise. Our Lord revealed this when he cleansed the Temple of Jerusalem of those who were using it as a marketplace. His words were: “My house is to be a house of prayer for all peoples.” So, God made us that we may be a house of prayer. We are recapitulating these themes that we have already explored in our reflections throughout the week. By default of our creation, prayer ought to be our major preoccupation, for through it we are able to realise the end of our creation. God made us to know him, to love and serve him, in this world; to be happy with him in the eternal communion with him. Prayer is the means to these ends; throug...

FRIDAY, THIRTY SECOND WEEK IN ORDINATRY TIME   Wis 13:1-9; Ps 19:2-5; Lk 17:26-37 The Day of Revelation of the Son of Man God is always present to us as the ground or foundation of existence, but in a way that is incomprehensible to the human mind. But by creating the universe of material things, God organised or provided a framework within which we can easily relate to the divine reality. Since God is existence, he cannot remove himself from anything or anywhere that exists. It is one thing to be, and another thing entirely to be visible to creatures. In other words, God is with us always, which makes it possible for us to exist. But the way he is in us as our ground of existence is not the sense in which we are to be his temple. In the former, he is in us without us, while he intends to be in us with us in the latter. To be his temple and dwelling place, we need to know him and love him as our God and all. Thus, God created the earth as a suitable environment for human...

THURSDAY, THIRTY SECOND WEEK IN ORDINATRY TIME   Wis 7:22-8:1; Ps 119:89-91,130,135,175; Lk 17:20-25 God dwells in His Temple God is identical with His word. God and His holy, immutable will are the same. He is only willing for things to come into existence, for all things obey his divine will. The things God wills in communion with us, which depend on our cooperation to be realised for us, are already in existence spiritually, waiting for our reception of the gift of faith and cooperation with God to be given concrete existence for our sake. Thus, that we are God’s temple is already a spiritual reality, waiting for our assent of faith in Jesus Christ and humble cooperation with God, so that it may be made manifest in our lives and for our salvation. Because of this, the scripture defines faith as the assurance of things we hope for and the conviction of things we do not see. Cf. Rom 11:1. Since the realisation of the temple of God within us is through faith in Jesus Christ, ...

SAINT JOSEPHAT, BISHOP, MARTYR Wis 6:1-11; Ps 82:3-4,6-7; Lk 17:11-19 Thanksgiving as Acceptable Sacrifice The reason God proposed to make us in his image and likeness is to be able to work with us to order and govern the terrestrial paradise. He gave us rational faculties that we may be able to reason along with Him and cooperate with His word to order all things to God. Just as the Son of Man stated that he is working along with his Father in heaven in the Gospel, we are supposed to work along with God, as the Son shows us in his humanity. His intention for making us his dwelling place is that he may rule and govern the kingdoms of the earth through us. By dwelling in us, God would share our life on earth, and by participation in God through our likeness to him achieved through our faithful and reasonable cooperation with his will in all things, we would attain union with God. We see the same lesson in the prayer that the Lord taught us. We are to pray and desire that his will ...

SAINT MARTIN OF TOURS, BISHOP Wis 13:23-3:9; Ps 34:2-3,16-19; Lk 17:17-10 Servants in the Temple Continuing from the comment we made in our reflection yesterday, the knowledge or revelation that God made us to be His dwelling place ought to swell our heads, for it is no mean thing to contain His divine Majesty. God is exceedingly holy and incomprehensible, and that he made us to be his dwelling place points to the mystery that we are. But the mystery of our human nature is not a stand-alone mystery, for it is a mystery only in relation to the mystery of God. Our nature is a mystery as a container of the great mystery of the Godhead. Our relationship with God is defined by God’s intention or will to make us like Him, meaning our nature can contain any creature and still remain unknown and unfulfilled. Our insatiable desire for vice and sinful pleasure stems from the mystery of our nature as a temple of God. Because our souls are thrones of God, no demon can fulfil the aspirations ...

SAINT LEO THE GREAT, POPE, DOCTOR Wis 1:1-7; Ps 139:1-10; Lk 17:1-6 Keeping the Temple Clean The dedication of the Lateran Basilica has set the theme for our reflections this week, which is the glory of God's dwelling place. To consider the fact that God made us to be his dwelling place, as revealed in the scriptures, is something beyond our imagination. We do not know or realise the nobility that belongs to our nature from this revelation because we do not know the glory of the divine Majesty. Only the angelic beings stand in awe of this mystery of God dwelling in human nature; hence, they worship the Son of Man, who is the foundation and realisation of this mystery. As many of the Fathers have asserted, this mystery of the indwelling of God in human nature is the cause or the provocation of the fall of Lucifer and others who followed him to refuse the worship of God in man. Their refusal to worship or serve could not have been to the Godhead in the Trinity, because the myst...

FEAST OF DEDICATION OF THE LATERAN BASILICA Ezek 47:1-2,8-9,12; Ps 46:2-3,5-6,8-9; 1 Cor 3:9-11,16-17; Jn 2:13-22 Destroy this Temple of God The construction of temples for different gods people worship is a human tradition that can be traced to the very beginning. In other words, building temples for God is something inherent or innate in human beings themselves. The reason for this is clear from the story of creation. We continually return to the creation story to understand God's will for us. The depth and layers of the book of Genesis on creation make us consider it a deeply theological and mystical writing. God’s expression of intention to make man in his image and likeness already gives us a foundation for understanding that the idea of a temple for God is innate in man. Image and likeness both denote the idea of indwelling. The image of God will have to be in man for him to image God; and to be like God, we must have the form of God dwelling and operative in us. The wo...