Reflection from Friar Nicholas

OUR LADY, QUEEN AND PATRONESS OF NIGERIA Isa 11:1-10; Ps 72:1-2,7-8,12-13,17; Eph 2:13-18, Mt 2:13-15,19-23 In His Day, Justice Shall Flourish The Church in Nigeria celebrates Our Lady, Queen and Patroness of Nigeria, to mark our purported Independence from the colonial masters. In celebrating this solemnity today, the Church understands that human beings can be genuinely free only when we overcome the forces of sin, darkness, and evil within and around us. The Church wants us to understand that only God can truly set us free from oppressive forces that are within and about us. God is not tardy in sending his word for our liberation. What delays our freedom is our poor reception of his word; we must do so wholeheartedly and with faith. Historically, we got our independence from colonial forces on 1st of October, 1960. But time has shown it was a change from foreign exploitative forces to local exploitative forces. We have come to understand that our real enemies are within us, th...

SAINT JEROME, PRIEST, DOCTOR Job 9:1-13,14-16; Ps 88:10-15; Lk 9:57-62 No Accommodation for the Son of Man The Word of God is with God from the beginning and is God. He bears and expresses the Father's will in all things and sustains all things by divine power. He remains in all that he made through their different natures, but distinct from all his creatures because of his infinite power and perfections. We always understand the material creation as expressions of the divine will and attributes proportionate to us, mortal men. Hence, the whole of creation is a divine school for our education in divine knowledge. The limited nature of the divine attributes in creatures continuously draws and guides our minds and hearts to the invisible, infinite divine qualities that are spiritually discerned. We can climb these visible staircases of creatures to invisible divine attributes by our spiritual nature. But the advent of sin incapacitated our nature in this most essential task; it...

SAINTS MICHAEL, GABRIEL AND RAPHAEL, ARCHANGELS Apoc 12:7-12; Ps 138:1-5; Jn 1:47-51 Descending and Ascending of Angels on the Son of Man We celebrate the archangels today. By this celebration, the Church brings us to consider, thank, and glorify God for the wonders of his love for us, poor sinners. The Scriptures make abundant references to the ministry of the angels in our salvation history. These make us aware of the existence of these spiritual creatures of God. He created them as spiritual or heavenly beings to praise and glorify his name and wonderful works of nature and grace. We have no clear idea of when they were created, but the Fathers of the Church hold that the reference to God’s creation of heaven in the beginning refers to the angelic beings. Saint Augustine considers the alternation of evening and day in the creation story as referring to the participation of angelic beings in the creation of the earth. Evening refers to initial confusion and gradual illumination...

MONDAY, TWENTY SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Job 1:6-22; Ps 17:1-3,6-7; Lk 9:46-50 Anyone who welcomes Me welcomes the Father The book of Job gives us a glimpse into the inner workings of God's justice as it applies to our lives here on earth. Many Christians are ignorant of the fact that we have a formidable enemy who fights dirty; the devil is the enemy of our salvation. Since we are not to be afraid of the devil because of the precious blood of Jesus Christ that has ransomed us from the bondage of the devil, we must not be ignorant of his existence and continuous battle for the ruin of our souls. The devil's ultimate weapon against us is falsehood, or lies. Through delusions and manipulation of our senses and imagination, he attempts to lure us away from believing and living the word of God. When that fails because of our constant reading and meditations on the word of God, he goes after our attachments to created things. He uses our attachment to creatures to try to swa...

SUNDAY, TWENTY SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Ezek 18:25-28; Ps 25:4-9; Phil 2:1-11; Mt 21:28-32 Doing the Will of the Father Our sins and sinful habits cause us to dwell in darkness. They make us remain ignorant of the will of God, our Father. To begin our journey toward the light, we must think deeply and understand what sin is. Sin is basically the abandonment of God’s holy will to do our own will. From the moment of the fall of Adam and Eve, the will of God that was clear to them became obscure, for they chose to do their own will at the instigation of the devil. Since the doing of our own will is always at the instigation of the devil, we not only sin against God by doing what we want instead of what God wants of us, but we become evil and share in the communion of evil doers. On this understanding, we see that God did not totally abandon us at the fall; he gave us his word about a future redemption of our race in the promise of the woman and her Offspring. That was a prophetic...

SATURDAY, TWENTY FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccles 11:9-12:8; Ps 90:3-6,12-14,17; Lk 9:43-45 The Death of the Son of Man Growing up, none of us gave a thought to death. This is understandable, given that youth is a time when life is at its fullest and most ripe. All human senses and faculties are at their best and fully functional in youths. It is rare for a youth to think of death or the end of life, when life is at its fullest. To overcome the temptations of prime, the preacher bids youths to think of God and the requirement of judgment. “Rejoice in your youth, you who are young; let your heart give you joy in your young days. Follow the promptings of your heart and the desires of your eyes. But this you must know: for all these things God will bring you to judgement.” The excess energy of young age should not be wasted on useless amusements and pastimes but directed to disciplining of our passions and acquiring knowledge, which is a rigorous enterprise. The overflowing ener...

FRIDAY, TWENTY FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccles 3:1-11; Ps 144:1-4; Lk 9:18-22 Knowing the Christ of God We have a very short time to live on earth. But the shortness of our mortal life is not the original plan of God but a consequence of the original fall of our first parents and our sins. The Scriptures testify that death is a consequence of sin. God made us to be like him; to share his communion in eternity. God's original intention for us was not abrogated but is now a matter of choice. Our temporal life is a time given to us to choose to be with God and work for its realisation with the grace he provides for us in Jesus Christ. Though death is a consequence of our sins, God offers us eternal life in his Son, Jesus Christ. The grace to understand the opportunity our mortal life offers us and use it is not a common grace from God. The difficulty surrounding our coming to wisdom and salvation is not God’s doing, but due to the multiplication of sins and darkness. Both in ...

THURSDAY, TWENTY FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccles 1:2-11; Ps 90:3-6,12-14,17; Lk 9:7-9 The Vanity of Life outside the Vineyard Many of us are familiar with the frustration of not having the right instrument or equipment for a particular task. Consider, for example, attempting to loosen a nut without the right spanner. One can injure oneself or destroy the bolt and nut in the attempt. The same applies when we live to pursue earthly things and passing amusements and pleasure. These engagements may provide momentary pleasures or amusement, but these do not last because our lives are not made for creatures. The life we have received is a mystery and something beyond our comprehension. But to sound its depth, we must acquire the right key or access code to unlock the door of life and its meaning. As we have noted previously in our reflections, we are the vineyard of God, the inheritance of his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can unlock the meaning of our lives and give us ...

SAINT PIUS OF PIETRELCINA (PADRE PIO), PRIEST Prov 30:5-9; Ps 119:28,72,89,101,104,163; Lk 9:1-6 The Vineyard of the Son of God The vineyard of the God of the hosts is the Son’s inheritance. The Son is one with the Father and knows the Father’s will. Thus, he cultivates the vineyard to the Father’s taste. The vineyard is his inheritance, for all that the Father has belongs to the Son. The Son is the Word, and the Word was with God from the beginning; through him all things were made. Since all things were made through him, all things will be restored to the Father through him. John tells us that the Word enlightens all men who come into the world. Therefore, the Son calls and instructs all who are employed to work in the vineyard. We are the vineyard of the Lord; the work to be done in us must be carried out with the Son’s specification. To be unwilling to work in the vineyard is to attempt to usurp what is not ours, but the Son’s inheritance. To put it simply, our temporal lives...

TUESDAY, TWENTY FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Prov 21:1-67,10-13; Ps 119:1,27,30,34-35,44; Lk 8:19-21 Our Employment in the Vineyard We are the vineyard of the God of Hosts. God seeks out all who are willing and eager to earn the day’s wage and employs them in the divine vineyard. God employs all who are employable and willing to work in his vineyard. Being part of God's vineyard implies that our primary work is within us, cooperating with God's grace to become members of Jesus Christ, the true vine. God employs us, as cooperators, to do his work within us and to work with us round and about us. Hence, God requires all who enter his service to die to self ritually and intentionally through the sacrament of baptism. Without this sacramental initiation, we cannot gain access to the Lord’s vineyard and take part in the work therein. This is the initial contract God agrees with us. We give ourselves in his vineyard, and God remunerates us with a denarius, the wage for a day’s l...

SAINT MATTHEW, APOSTLE, EVANGELIST Eph 4:1-7,11-13; Ps 19:2-5; Mt 9:9-13 The Physician for the Weak and the Sick Celebrating the feast of Saint Matthew the Evangelist, a former tax collector, allows us to delve deeper into the meaning of our Lord’s parable of the workers in the vineyard. As we noted in yesterday’s reflection, as the landowner, God goes about in search of willing and ready labourers to employ in his vineyard. To work in the vineyard of the Lord, the Church, means to cooperate with God’s grace in building the Church. Thus, God does the fundamental work within our souls, for we make up the vineyard of the Lord as members of the Church. Being in the marketplace, the world, makes us all weak and sick because of sins. The Lord himself seeks and finds us to bring us into his vineyard. Saint Augustine distinguished between the weak and the sick in his sermon on pastors. “Weak men are those who appear to be zealous in doing good works but are unwilling or unable to endure...

SUNDAY, TWENTY FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Isa 55:6-9; Ps 145:2-3,8-9,17-18; Phil 1:20-24,27; Mt 20:1-16 The Reward of Eternal Life God made us in his image and willed from all eternity to bless us with his own life. The divine gift would make us like God. This was the decision of the Triune God from the very beginning, when he said in Genesis 1:26: “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” Making man in divine image means giving him free will, which arises from the rationality of our nature. Our rationality demands that we freely choose to be like God. To be truly free to make the decision, man needs the enlightenment of knowledge of God, which comes from the Word of God. Man’s knowledge of God requires time to engage with the Word. But the Word is God. Man needs to be guided to divine knowledge through creation, which manifests God’s glory and his divine attributes. For this reason, man needs to work in God’s vineyard to discover himself through knowledge of creatures and be...

SATURDAY, TWENTY FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Cor 15:35-37,42-49; Ps 56:10-14; Lk 8:4-15 Making Profit from the Gospel Our Eucharistic celebration, which we understand as a ritual presentation of the Gospel of salvation, mediates the coming together of the Gospel as revealed divine truth and our human life on earth. The revealed truth, the Gospel, is spiritual life; our human life on earth is death because of the corruption of sin. The Eucharistic liturgy provides the occasion for the mingling of the two, so that life will gradually swallow death, and light will chase away darkness. The Eucharistic celebration is comparable to a seed nursery where the seed of the Gospel is first sown and nurtured in us in a controlled spiritual ambiance before we carry it to our different life situations. In the Eucharistic liturgy, we are supercharged with divine grace conducive to the growth of spiritual life. The liturgical ambiance, replete with divine words, gestures, sacramental signs, an...

SAINT JUAN MACIAS, RELIGIOUS 1 Cor 15:12-20; Ps 17:1,6-8,15; Lk 8:1-3 The Church and the Gospel In our previous reflection, we highlighted the relationship between the Gospel and the Church. We consider the Church as the Gospel believed and lived. We enrich our membership in the Church through a deeper understanding of the Gospel, and we understand the Gospel more through a better participation in the life of the Church. The core of the Church’s life is the Eucharistic celebration. The Eucharist is the font of the Church’s spirituality and life. As we noted yesterday, the Eucharistic celebration outlines our redemptive process, which is contained in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The very commencement of the Eucharistic celebration, with the invocation of the Trinity and the sign of the cross, offers a summary of what will happen through the celebration. The Gospel is the initiative of the Triune God, who willed to redeem us from our sin, death, and evil by restoring us to ...

THURSDAY, TWENTY FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Cor 15:1-11; Ps 118:1-2,15-17; Lk 7:36-50 Our Knowledge of God’s Love We cannot love God without God first coming to our help in love. The fact that we are sinners means that we are bereft of God’s life. Living in sin, we lack the knowledge of God and are unable to love him. God willed to bring us to spiritual life again by sending his Only Begotten Son to reveal his loving will to us. This is the content of the Gospel we have received. We cannot love God without getting acquainted with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The preaching of the Gospel is therefore the revelation of God’s love for us, for all peoples and nations. God invites everyone to his divine life through the proclamation of the Gospel. Hence, our ignorance of the Gospel causes our lack of repentance from our sins and sinful lifestyle. Our ignorance of the Gospel is ignorance of Jesus Christ; and the ignorance of Jesus Christ is ignorance of God and his loving pr...