Reflection from Friar Nicholas

SOLEMNITY OF MARY, THE MOTHER OF GOD Numb 6:22-27; Ps 67:2-3,5-6,8; Gal 4:4-7; Lk 2:16-21 Mary Treasured All These in Her Heart We celebrate the solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, with the universal Church. This is the greatest title we can ever give to a human being. Properly speaking, God has no mother, for God is the supreme Spirit that exists of himself alone. But this lofty title is given to the Blessed Virgin Mary to invite us to a deeper appreciation of the mystery of our salvation. The Church fittingly celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Mother of God at the beginning of the year, for this mystery marks the beginning of human salvation and the year of the Lord. The year the scriptures call the year favourable or acceptable to the Lord our God. It is a spiritual year reckoned differently from the way we understand the physical year. It is a new spiritual year in which the Lord our God commenced the recreation of the new heaven and earth. It is a year that began with ...

7TH DAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CHRISTMAS 1 Jn 2:18-21; Ps 96:11-13; Jn 1:1-18 The Incarnation causes our Love for God Many biblical scholars agree that Saint John gave us a summary of his Gospel in the Prologue. We cannot fully understand or comprehend the depth of the mystery or the theology that the Evangelist embedded in the Prologue to his Gospel. We have presented love as the means or path that would lead a soul to grasp the impossible and commune with the One who existed from the beginning. We have also come to understand that our human nature has a natural affinity or facility for love. We have seen two species of love, one genuine and the other counterfeit. The difference between the two species of love is their causes. God, our Creator and Redeemer, is the only one who can call forth a love that is genuinely human and connatural to our nature; creatures, outside or without God, call forth a mimicry of love, which is a sprouting of the seed of evil sown in us by the ancient...

6TH DAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CHRISTMAS 1 Jn 2:12-17; Ps 96:7-10; Lk 2:36-40 The Love for God and love for the World As we mentioned on the feast day of John the Evangelist, John offers us the impossible and provides us with the means of accomplishing it. He gradually leads us through the means or way to the impossible end. We considered lowliness or humility as a common feature of those who received the revelation of God’s Son in human nature first. John gives us even a more fundamental feature common to these people. Their common love for God is also a condition for seeing what cannot be seen but exists from the beginning. Our love and its accompanying expression in our desires colour and motivate everything we do. Hence, Saint John divides the people into two sets or groups based on their love. From his awesome statement that God is love, which is the bedrock of his theology and the interpretative framework for his Gospel and epistles, we have already understood the natural fou...

5TH DAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CHRISTMAS 1 Jn 2:3-11; Ps 96:1-3,5-6; Lk 2:22-35 My Eyes have seen the Salvation for the Nations The birth of Jesus Christ is the revelation of the greatest thing that has ever happened to humanity. We say it is the revelation of it because the actual event is his conception, which happened at the annunciation, when the Blessed Virgin Mary assented to become the mother of the Son of God. The secret and mysterious event of the Incarnation of the Eternal Word was revealed to ordinary men on Christmas Day. The revelation of this mystery to men was by the angels who came to the lowly shepherd watching their flock by night to announce the Good News of the birth of the Saviour for us. They bid the shepherds to go witness the great and unique event for themselves. We read of the great event at the vigil Mass of Christmas. It is amazing and interesting that the lowly shepherds were the ones to receive the first notification of the greatest event in human hist...

  THE  HOLY FAMILY, CHRISTMAS OCTAVE Eccl 3:2-6,12-14; Ps 128:1-5; Col 3:12-17; Mt 2:13-15,19-23 Family as the Place of Love and Sanctification Our Christian homes or families are cradles of heavenly love and joy. We realise this to the extent that we believe the word of God we hear or receive every day and put it into practice. Our vocation as Christians is to receive and carry the Good News, which we are required to witness through our thoughts, words, and deeds daily. Although we receive the word of God in the Church, when we come together to celebrate and commune with the Lord as part of the big family of God, the family is nevertheless a unit of the Church where God requires us to practice what we have heard, seen, and received in the Church. The efficacy of the graces we receive in the Sacraments of the Church is tested in family life. The family interactions reveal how well we have listened to the word of God and attended to the presence of God in the Liturgical c...

SAINT JOHN, APOSTLE, EVANGELIST 1 Jn 1:1-4; Ps 97:1-2,5-6,11-12; Jn 20:2-8 The Man who plumbed the Depth of God The most concise and connatural presentation of God to us in the scriptures is Saint John’s statement that God is love. As creatures of God, we are made of and fashioned in love. As we have presented in our reflections, man is designed and made by God to be a temple of God. If we follow John’s simple presentation of God as love, then it follows that we are made to contain love. So, we see that love is inherent to us and a language we all understand and easily relate to. From this background, we have considered the power of the Good News we have received this Christmas, concerning the Incarnation of the Son of God. His nativity in our nature speaks powerfully to us about his love for us; for there is no stronger way of communicating the spousal love than when a suitor presents himself or herself as being comfortable and at home with the living conditions of the spouse. T...

SAINT STEPHEN, THE FIRST MARTYR Acts 6:8-10,7:54-59; Ps 31:3-4,6,8,16-17; Mt 10:17-22 The Friendship Renewed in Love We celebrate the first Christian martyr, Saint Stephen. The Church celebrates this feast within the Christmas octave for a reason. The celebration confirms the efficacy of the largess of grace and heavenly blessings that became ours at the Incarnation of the Son of God. The mystery we celebrate at Christmas is real and bears real fruit in the lives of the people who believe in the Good News we have heard. Before the salvation of God was unveiled for us, scarcely could anyone be found who knew God; there was nobody in all the world who could bear convincing witness to the love of God for us, not to talk of laying down his life for the word of God. But the Incarnation of the Word of God has caused the knowledge of God to fill our land and earth as the water covers the sea. The Good News, which the multitude of angels were the first to proclaim to the shepherds, has c...

THE SOLEMNITY OF CHRISTMAS Isa 52:7-10; Ps 98:1-6; Heb 1:1-6; Jn 1:1-18 The Son of God has been given to Us Our reflection is on the readings of the Mass of the day. We celebrate the mystery of mysteries today, the human birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. We consider the wonder of God’s love for us men, which made him take our human nature and be born like one of us. The plan and purposes of God can never be thwarted by evil. His divine plan for us, from the beginning, is to have us dwell with him eternally. When our sinful choice made it impossible for us to dwell with God, He extended his plan to accommodate the Incarnation of his Son. The Incarnation of the Eternal Word is the greatest proof of God’s love for us, mortal men, whom he made in his image. Love unites the lover to the beloved inseparably. God’s love for us could not let him remain in heaven while we languish and waste in the darkness of sin and evil in this valley of tears. The Eternal Word, through whom the Father ma...

  24 DECEMBER 2 Sam 7:1-5,8-12m14,16; Ps 89:2-5,27,29; Lk 1:67-79 The Coming of the King of Glory We have come to the eve of the solemnity of Christmas. What we celebrate at Christmas is not a sudden realisation of God’s plan, but a well-planned, prepared, and announced coming of God to his people. We have understood, through the reflections, that the mystery we celebrate at Christmas has its origin in the time of creation. The Incarnation is a key component in God’s plan and operations to make us like himself. Because the original sin caused a rift in human trust in God due to the doubt and division planted by the evil one in human awareness, God planned to take our human nature to demonstrate his goodwill towards us and the plan he has for us from all eternity. The persistence of doubt in human minds about God and his will for us prompted God to proclaim his good intentions for us through the prophet Jeremiah. “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for w...

23 DECEMBER 1 Mal 3:1-4,23-24; Ps 25:4-5,8-9,10,14; Lk 1:57-66 Jesus, Immanuel, God with Us The Church praises and invokes the coming Messiah as Immanuel, the prophetic name given to us by God through the prophet Isaiah. It is a name that denotes the messianic city of God and the relationship between God and the inhabitants or citizens of the city. Isaiah the prophet gave us the literal meaning of the name as ‘God-is-with-us.’ The prelude to the giving of the name connects it to the ancient sign of salvation of the woman and her offspring. What God revealed about the woman and her offspring implies that the city where God-is-with-us will be characterised by the divinely established enmity between the woman and the serpent, between her Offspring and its offspring. Thus, the city of Immanuel will be free of sin and every corruption of evil and works of darkness. This is made possible by the characterising awareness of the citizens, namely, that God is with us. This awareness is gen...

22 DECEMBER 1 Sam 1:24-28; 1 Sam 2:1,4-6; Lk 1:46-56 Jesus, the King desired by the People Human nature is incomplete without God, for God made us for himself, to live in communion with him. Only our communion with God will bring us to be like God. If we are created to be like God, we are therefore made to be ruled by God's word. When Adam and Eve failed to take God's word as the rule of their lives from the beginning due to the serpent's deception, God proposed another means to represent His word to us for our redemption and glory. We see through the history of salvation that God has taken pains to prepare a people to receive his word in faith and live in communion with him. In so doing, all the peoples and nations would learn to do the same, thereby entering into the planned communion of God and men. In the divinely planned communion, the Eternal Word of God will be our King, and we will be his loved and cherished subjects, worshipping God and sharing his dominion o...

  SUNDAY, FOURTH WEEK OF ADVENT Isa 7:10-14; Ps 24:1-6; Rom 1:1-7; Mt 1:18-24 Jesus, the Rising Sun The readings for the fourth Sunday of Advent include some of the readings for 20 December. This is because the readings of 21 December are replaced with the Sunday readings. Hence, it would seem we are taking the same readings as those of yesterday. But the second reading and the Gospel are different. But the novena theme is that of the 21 December. We consider Jesus as the Rising Sun of God with healing rays. Just as the sun rises to dispel the darkness of the night, bringing in the day when people rise with new hope, joy, and aspiration for a new day, Jesus Christ is coming as a new dawn of divine revelation and spiritual energy. He brings new spiritual life, strength, and hope for eternity to men who live subdued by the forces of evil, sin, and death. Because he comes with spiritual light, we need faith to connect to him and receive the light that he brings. At his birth mor...

20 DECEMBER Isa 7:10-14; Ps 24:1-6; Lk 1:26-38 Jesus, Key of David and Sceptre of Israel The Church invokes and praises the Saviour as the Key of David and Sceptre of Israel. We understand the former title from different perspectives. As the Key of David, the Son of Man is the access to the promised House that God is to build for David. David's desire and intention were to build a house for God. But God made him understand through Nathan the prophet that it is not man who builds a house for God, but rather the reverse is the case; God builds an everlasting house for Himself and for man. In the first instance, we understand man to be the original house God is constructing for himself. In the second instance, in the house that man is, each of us learn to live in the house of God, in communion with him. So, God is building us into a house where he will dwell with us in communion. In this latter sense, David was already being constructed into a house for God by his faith in the w...

19 DECEMBER Judges 13:2-7,24-25; Ps 71:3-6,16-17; Lk 1:5-25 Jesus, the Stock of Jesse The Church venerates and adores the Eternal Word as the Stock or Root of Jesse. As we explained yesterday, God’s revelation of His Word is the foundation of our existence and well-being. Thus, after the fall of Adam and Eve, which happened as a result of their disobedience to the word given to them, God did not abandon man and woman, whom he made in his own image to be a temple for his Son. He upheld the human race by his promise of salvation. In due time, he called Abraham and revealed his word to him. The Word that God gave to Abraham is the foundation or root of human salvation history. The word of God is the infallible foundation of all things, for the Word is God. To be the foundation of our salvation, we need to believe in the Word. Therefore, all the patriarchs are built on a firm foundation of the word of God through their faith, for without faith, it is impossible to please God. By ca...