Reflection from Friar Nicholas

SOLEMNITY OF ALL SAINTS Apoc 7:2-4,0-14; Ps 24:1-6; 1 Jn 3:1-3; Mt 5:1-12 The Joy and Happiness of the Blessed The Church celebrates the solemn feast of all the saints on the first day of November every year. It is an opportunity for the Church to celebrate all her children who have made their way to the heavenly hall to dwell with God forever. The idea of a multitude does not easily lend itself to our understanding of enjoyment and happiness, for in our mortal, physical life, multitude usually means a lack of space or room and other inconveniences we suffer in such gatherings. Our material life and understanding of things hinder our true grasp of the inconceivable multitude of the blessed standing before God. But familiarity with spiritual things reveals that the idea of number here poses no problem or hindrance because each saint has been perfected in the love of God. So each is a holy spirit relating directly to God and possessing him as if he is the only one made to enjoy God...

SATURDAY, THIRTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Phil 1:18-26; Ps 41:2-3,5; Lk 14:1,7-11 Our Mortal Life and Death in Christ Our fallen nature and nurture make it difficult to think of death or the end of our mortal life without trepidation or fear. Our long sojourn in the prison camp of the powers of darkness has distorted our understanding of life and death. We now fear what we should not fear and tremble before what we should never fear. All of this results from our long association with the father of lies and illusions. We have received new spiritual and eternal life by acceptance of Jesus Christ. But we are still unfamiliar with what we have received from the Father of love as an eternal inheritance in Jesus Christ. We rarely enter our spiritual selves to get familiar with the gift of life and the giver. We still enjoy the company of the dead in the land of the dead, and the silence of the spirit holds a foreboding fear for us. The Scripture and the Spirit keep inviting us to taste...

FRIDAY, THIRTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Phil 1:1-11; Ps 111:1-6; Lk 14:1-6 The Good Work of God on Us The Scripture says that God created us to display his good works in us. Hence, it pleases God to bless us always. Paul revealed that these blessings were established before the foundation of the earth, and that they include all the spiritual blessings in heaven. The revelation of these heavenly blessings continues in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, if we keep opening ourselves to receive him. The totality of these heavenly blessings is found in Jesus Christ, for the Father willed everything to be full in him. He is the fullness of everything. So, in him we find our own fullness and fulfilment. Turning away from Christ ends our desire for these blessings. The attacks of the forces of darkness are aimed at this goal; namely, to turn us away from Jesus Christ. Thus, every means we employ to battle these forces must make us present and open to receive the Father’s will from Jes...

THURSDAY, THIRTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eph 6:10-20; Ps 144:1-2,9-10; Lk 13:31-35 The Spiritual Armour for Daily Battle Our spiritual warfare is deeper and more subtle than many of us realise. Because confusion abounds in our understanding of spiritual reality, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and what salvation entails, a thousand and one false spiritualities also exist. As long as we remain in the dark about the Gospel of our Lord, we remain prone to the most subtle spiritual attacks. The major and most destructive weapon of Satan is deception. Our Lord called him the father of lies, for that is where his greatest power lies. With the power of delusion, he rules the whole world and leads myriads of souls and angels into hellish fire. The core revelation of Jesus Christ about himself for our salvation is the statement in Jn 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” In this revelation, Jesus sets himself up as the only weap...

SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE, APOSTLES Eph 2:19-22; Ps 19:2-5; Lk 6:12-19 Their Word goes forth through All the Earth We celebrate the holy Apostles, Saints Simon and Jude. Each apostle has an interesting background. Simon hailed from Canaan and is often called ‘the Zealot’ because of his political interest and involvement. He belonged to the Zealot party and opposed and fought against Roman rule. Tradition considers him the bridegroom at the wedding in Cana, where the Lord worked his first miracle of turning water into wine. The Lord transformed the zeal of the bridegroom of Canaan for the earthly kingdom of Judah and Israel into zeal for the heavenly kingdom. Saint Jude, on the other hand, was the relative of our Lord. He was usually called his brother, being the son of Mary the wife of Cleophas. He is also the brother of James the Less. So, James and Jude were children of Mary, the relative of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. Scripture gave a brief record of him, for he ...

TUESDAY, THIRTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eph 5:25-33; Ps 128:1-5; Lk 13:18-21 The Spiritual Leavening of Our Bodies Through the life, passion, death, and resurrection of the Son of Man, we have been given a new life through the enduring Word of God. The life we have received is spiritual, for the Word of God is spirit and life. Our faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, has given us a new spirit. This new life is a spirit, which exists as an orientation within our body. We know this spirit's presence by the new awareness and orientation toward the Father we feel within, at the centre of our being. The spiritual awareness and orientation give birth to the babyish cry, ‘Abba, Father!’, we utter in union with the Holy Spirit. So, in this deep and overwhelming interior operation of prayer, we become aware of the Holy Spirit and a new life through the orientation and hunger for the Being we call ‘Father.’ As spiritual babies, we must keep this interior awareness and mak...

MONDAY, THIRTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eph 4:32-5:8; Ps 1:1-4,6; Lk 13:10-17 Our Vocation to imitate God Saint Paul admonishes us, as he did to the Christians at Ephesus, to imitate God’s love. Can we imitate God’s love? Our answer is the same answer our Lord gave Peter when he wondered about the difficulty of our salvation. If we consider the question with human eyes, as Peter did with human salvation, it would be impossible. Hence, the Lord answered him: “For man it is impossible, but not for God, for everything is possible for God. The same response applies to imitating God’s love. Paul gave them the admonition because of his familiarity with the grace of Jesus Christ. The Son of God became man to reveal the incomprehensible love of God the Father for us. He revealed God’s love practically to us by cleansing us of every defilement. By the same act with which he revealed the Father’s love for us, he washed away our sins. The death of the Son of God on the Cross of Calvary reve...

SUNDAY, THIRTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Exod 22:20-26; Ps 18:2-4,47, 51; 1 Thess 1:5-10; Mt 22:34-40 The Commandments of Love The Law of God came to its foundation when grace appeared on earth. Without grace, the Law was as fruitless as a barren fig tree. But we must understand that God’s Law is perfect, as Psalm 19:7 says: “The Law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.” The Law of God revives our souls by revealing our souls' weakness and keeping us alert for the coming of grace, through which we receive spiritual life. The Law of God is perfect because it reveals God’s mind for us; for God’s will is perfect and the source of every perfection. By fostering the proper orientation to God, away from self in our souls, the Law prepares us to receive God’s life and perfection. The Law renews the image of God, who is a sacrifice, within our souls by dissuading us from trusting in ourselves in the worship of God, guiding us to entrust ourselves to him. A true worshipper of God...

SATURDAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eph 4:7-16; Ps 122:1-5; Lk 13:1-9 Bearing Fruit in the face of Evil Sad events make us ask questions concerning fate and what it really entails. We have stated that God created the whole universe and orders everything within it for his own good purpose. Does our belief in the divine ordering of things and events on earth exclude negative outcomes or events from the operation of different natures created by God? Certainly not. God created every nature; he also acts through each nature’s operation to realise his good purpose. Unfavourable outcomes from operations of natural things, which we call material evils in distinction from moral evils, are part of divine foreknowledge and ordering of natural events. Hence, the faithful who pray to God for deliverance from evil, moral and material, ask for divine grace to uphold our weak wills, to always choose what is truly good and not seemingly evil. With grace, we act according to the Father’s ...

FRIDAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eph 4:1-6; Ps 24:1-6; Lk 12:54-59 Spiritual Signs of Our God Communication usually happens between two people or parties who understand the meaning of the signs used. God is the Supreme Spirit and the origin or father of spirits. He always communicates spiritually to us in various languages. Cf. Heb 1:1. But because most of us are spiritually dead or unresponsive, we hardly receive or understand the communication from God, our Father. God is no stranger to our spiritual paucity; he also employs physical signs and means within our understanding and operations. But because these physical means and signs are far removed from the spiritual realm, we cannot easily make spiritual meaning from them. We need a spiritual medium to interpret God’s will as coded in the physical signs. The Son of man is the chief medium of the Father’s mind for us. He came among us to reveal the will of God the Father, to enable us to acquire a spiritual life and co...

THURSDAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eph 3:14-21; Ps 33:1-2,4-5,11-12,18-19; Lk 12:49-53 God’s Unfathomable Love for Us God is love, and those who believe in God and have received the Spirit of regeneration as his sons and daughters, witness to God's love through their lives. God is far from a soul when it lacks love. A soul lacks God’s love, which we are supposed to reflect like a mirror reflects light, not because God is not shining on it, but due to the soul’s spiritual corruption. When a mirror’s surface is rusted, it cannot reflect the rays of light that fall on it. Sin does the same thing to us; sinful carnal and worldly pleasures tarnish our souls’ ability to receive and reflect divine light and love. Often, what the world and proud worldlings peddle as love is corrupted and filthy, a very poor and sinful imitation of God’s love.  Hence, John 2:15-16 tells us not to love the world or desire the world’s pleasures. “Do not love the world or the things in the worl...

WEDNESDAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eph 3:2-12; Isa 12; Lk 12:39-48 The Unexpected Coming of Jesus Christ In the Gospel, Jesus used the terms householder and servant to refer to us, his disciples. Both words emphasise different roles we are called to play as Christians. Both point to the role we have been called to play in the economy of human salvation. As we noted in yesterday’s reflection, the Son of Man is the builder of the House of God, as Nathan the prophet prophesied to David. He builds both the Church and each member of the Church, for we are God’s House, as individuals and as a community of believers in Jesus Christ. As long as the Son of Man is physically absent, each of us is the householder of the house of God within us. We are also householders in the communal sense to the extent we share in the ministries of Jesus Christ. All the baptised share in the ministries of the Son of Man as priest, prophet, and king. The Holy Spirit, who dwells in each of us, is ...

TUESDAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIMEE Eph 2:12-22; Ps 85:9-14; Lk 12:35-38 Faithful Servants of Jesus Christ We try to understand Saint Paul’s words in the first reading. He paints the lot of all of us, Gentiles, who were outside the Jewish race and therefore without faith, hope, and charity. If we remove our faith in Jesus Christ, which gives us access to divine promise and a new birth, what is left of this life? We are left with only the temporality of this present life. Without the divine word to guide our minds, we would sink into the sea of dissipation, as the whole world is; we would suffer the blindness we see afflicting people around us without faith. These are people who put all their hope in the passing things of the world and give all they have got to make themselves happy in this world of illusions. Paul revealed that such people are under the domination of demonic spirits. Those without faith walk in the darkness of error and disbelief. We see people who put i...

MONDAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIMEE Eph 2:1-10; Ps 100; Lk 12:13-21 We are Accountable to God We are unaware of God’s many investments in us and for our salvation. From the beginning of creation, God already made his plan for our good and made all things for the good of man and woman. God’s wonderful provisions for the well-being of the human person prompt the psalmist to ask why God has a vested interest in man. Divine provision for us spans both the physical and spiritual realms. God made us for himself and has spared nothing for the good and well-being of man and woman, whom he made in his own image. We must pay careful attention to the arrangement of things in the universe to comprehend universal divine providence. Psalm 24 notes how great the name of God is exalted in all the earth. Evidence of God’s greatness and his wonderful providence for us abounds in all the earth. But they are visible only to the eyes of the faithful. The Psalmist invites us to joyfully cry ou...

SUNDAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIMEE Isa 45:1,4-6; Ps 96:1,3-5,7-10; 1 Thess 1:4-5; Mt 22:15-21 Give to God what belongs to God Our lives and everything we possess belong to God, for he made us for his own good purposes. We do not judge the goodness of that purpose by our own ends, but by God’s. But because the goodness is from a divine end, it will ultimately be for our greatest good. The conclusion is that God’s love for us is immeasurable and beyond our human comprehension. Only in Jesus Christ, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, do we begin to understand God's divine love for us. Divine love is the basis of every plan and work of God in our lives. God plans for our good even when we do not know him. He created and cared for us without our knowledge. The plan he made for Cyrus, the king of Persia, without his knowledge is the subject of the prophecy in the book of Isaiah. “Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whom he has taken by his right hand to subdue ...