Reflection from Friar Nicholas

ST. ANTHONY, ABBOT Heb 4:1-5,11; Ps 78:3-4,6-8; Mk 2:1-12 Seeking and Entering God’s Rest The author of the letter to the Hebrews talks about the place of rest for God’s people. He refers to the Israelites and their journey to the Promised Land God gave them. Employing the text Psalm 95, where God swore that the disobedient children of Israel would not enter his land of rest, he argues that the promise of entering God’s presence still stands for all believers. “Be careful: the promise of reaching the place of rest that God had for the Israelites still holds good, and none of you must think that he has come too late for it.” Understanding that Hebrews was a letter to Hebrew Christians excluded from their traditional worship in the Temple of Jerusalem because of their faith in Jesus Christ, the explanation becomes even more meaningful. These early Jewish Christians felt so distraught and alienated from their root that they were tempted to abandon their Christian faith and return to...

THURSDAY, FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Heb 3:7-14; Ps 95:6-11; Mk 1:40-45 Safety in the use of God’s Gifts We have reflected on the authority and power of God that flow into our nature through the Incarnation of the Eternal Word and how the same authority and power become ours when we profess faith in the Son of Man and follow him attentively in his life and teaching. The authority and power from Jesus Christ grow in us as we grow in our faith and conformity to his life and teaching, for by so doing, he comes to live in us through his Spirit from whom we draw spiritual life and inspiration. There is also a complementary means through which we receive and exercise the power of God; this is through the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to us gratuitously. Every gift of God is free, for we can never merit the heavenly gifts he gives us; above all, the salvation he gives us in his Son Jesus Christ. The charismatic gifts that God gives us through the Holy Spirit are comparable to the pote...

WEDNESDAY, FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Heb 2:14-18; Ps 105:1-4,6-9; Mk 1:29-39 The Authority from God The author of the letter to the Hebrews explains the dynamics of dominion or authority we receive from God. Since every power or authority comes from God, who is the source of existence and life, to know and work in harmony with the immutable will of God is to have the authority of God. So, the possession of authority is not self-originated or self-directed by a rational creature, for it is only a mediated authority. We own the authority to the extent we own or appropriate the will of God for his creation. The authority the Son of Man exercises comes from his total conformity with the will of the Father. Psalm 40 puts this consecration in the mouth of the Son when coming into the world. The power of the blood of the Lamb flows from this consecration of the Lamb to the will of the Father; it is, therefore, the same power of God the Father as directed toward our salvation from sin ...

TUESDAY, FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Heb 2:5-12; Ps 8:2,5-9; Mk 1:21-28 God placed all Things under Man’s Care Scriptures make us understand that it was the will of the Father to place all his creatures under the dominion of man he made in his image. The divine will was expressed in Genesis when he created Adam and Eve and put them in charge of his creation as stewards. Man's role as steward of God’s creation would attain perfect ion when he is made like God. The disruption caused by the original sin of Adam and Eve affected their relationship with God, and the divine project on man was halted. Man could not exercise his role as the steward of God’s creation well because he deviated from God’s will and could not be made in the likeness of God as God intended. Though the rational nature of man still kept him at the top of God’s material creation, the dominion God intended for man to have over all his creation was not attained yet. The devil and the fallen angels usurped man’s ...

MONDAY, FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Heb 1:1-6; Ps 97:1-2,6-7,9; Mk 1:14-20 Learning what We must Do from Christ Jesus Christ is now born in mystery, which we celebrated in his baptism yesterday, and the Father’s declaration that the Son of Man is his beloved Son is a direct presentation of him for our imitation. The Father’s testimony is given to us to instruct us on what we must do to have eternal life or be well pleasing to him. To say that the Father gave Jesus Christ to us in mystery as his beloved Son is to say that all that Jesus Christ will say or do are divine truths that are deeper than the human mind; we cannot understand them ordinarily, but we must believe them because they are revelations of the Father’s will. Mysteries are divine truths that are beyond the comprehension of unaided human minds. Thus, the Father’s voice strengthened our faith in the divinity of the Son of Man, given to our human experience by his Incarnation, whose origin is in God the Father. In this...

BAPTISM OF THE LORD Isa 40:1-5,9-11; Ps 29:1-4,9-10; Tit 2:11-14,3:4-7; Lk 3:15-16,21-22 Our Immersion into the Mystery of God The Church's celebration of the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ brings the Christmas season to an end. The story of the nativity and infancy changes to that of the Man, Jesus Christ, who comes to the River Jordan to be baptised by John the Baptist. During the celebration of his nativity, many people were presented to us as witnesses to his prophetic birth as the Messiah, beginning with the host of angels who summoned the shepherds to the Manger where Mary laid him. The Church celebrates the event of his baptism as a special moment of his birth in mystery, for his appearance at the River Jordan marks the commencement of his institution of the mysteries of the Church’s faith. Three great witnesses are present at this great event: John the Baptist, the greatest and the last of all the prophets, the Eternal Father whose voice we hear from above, and the ...

SATURDAY AFTER EPIPHANY SUNDAY 1 Jn 5:14-21; Ps 149:1-6,9; Jn 3:22-30 The Son of Man must Increase in Us The new self we conceive through faith in the mystery of the Incarnation is in the likeness of the Son of Man. Since the new self lives in communion with the Holy Spirit, our spiritual life develops by the will of the Father. Because prayer is a spiritual activity in union with the Holy Spirit, it extends the prayer of the Son of Man, our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, Saint Paul says in his letter to the Romans that prayer is our acknowledgment of God as our Father in union with the Holy Spirit. Saint John talks about our confidence in prayer given this understanding. “We are quite confident that if we ask the Son of God for anything, and it is in accordance with his will, he will hear us; and, knowing that whatever we may ask, he hears us, we know that we have already been granted what we asked of him.” This confidence in prayer is always commensurate with the purity of our conver...