In Your Presence

When we hear the words of Jesus who says Blessed are the poor in spirit , for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 5). in Latin as beati pauperes spiritu. Joseph was poor, but he was not among the poorest of society of the time. He was not among the totally abandoned, bedraggled, homeless, that lived from hand to mouth. These would have been in the lowest class of society. The Lord gave them hop...

Readings for Thursday of the First week of Lent Book of Esther 12, 14-16, 23-25 Psalm 138 Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me Matthew 7, 7-12: Everyone who asks, receives. A homily by Fr. Eric Nicolai in a streamed Mass from Ernescliff College, Toronto. Music: Adrian Berenguer, Fall (Singularity 2017)

St. Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947) was from Sudan, she was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000. She was sold as a slave and beaten frequently, but eventually she found her way to Venice where she discovered a new master, kind and forgiving, Christ, the true "paron", the "master" who knew her and loved her. She was able to make her scars into an opportunity to love. Today we call this reframing....

The Beatitudes Matt 5, 1-12: Today we want to enter and look at the foundations of our faith. What kind of woman does God want you to be? Let us go back to that hill, that mount, that grassy slope where our Lord stood, and transmitted to us what we have to be through the paradoxes of the beatitudes. The most noble words, the most magnetic and powerful words that our Lord proposed to these massive...

This month we celebrate February 14, the founding of the women’s branch of Opus Dei in 1930 and Priestly Society of the Holy Cross in 1943. The priestly society is an association for diocesan priests attached to Opus Dei.  We celebrate this day as a feast of our Lady, Mater Pulchrae Dilectionis , Mother of Fair Love. So what does this invocation mean? How can we deepen our understanding today...

Today, January 31, 2021, we start the seven Sundays of St. Joseph, that just and upright man that God entrusted Mary and Jesus to. We do this in the Year of St. Joseph. We meditate on the joys and sorrows of St. Joseph. Like when he saw Mary pregnant. He was going to divorce her privately to make it look like he was the problem. It was a difficult decision, but then he went to sleep. That’s when G...

Mark 4, 35-41: The account of the storm at sea. The whole time, during this storm, the Lord was asleep. Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said Be quiet! Be still…. The Holy Father Pope Francis used this account last year when the pandemic broke out and we saw the first signs of death and lockdown all around us in March of 2020. It seems as though...

Lk 14, 28: ”Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? Jesus said we are building tower. The daily building of that tower is also in our use of time. He says this to show that if mere human prudence means that a person should try to work out in advance the risks he may run, with all the more reason shoul...

January 23 is the anniversary of the election of the Prelate of Opus Dei, Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz which took place in Rome in 2017. He was elected, meaning chosen by his confreres. Simple ceremony. No big sudden changes. There is unity and continuity. Some changes that are really only cosmetic, that are changes with the times, and with the desire of the pope. He does not go and simply reverse everyt...

Today Fr. Eric Nicolai preaches about the first reading from the Second Sunday of ordinary time, the account of Samuel’s vocation (1 Sam 3, 3-10, 19.) We start with the back story of Hannah, who was childless. She went to Shiloh, to the temple. She prayed ardently. The priest there was Eli, who was pretty flaky, and he in turn had two sons who also became priests, and they were Hophni and Phinehas...

Fr. Eric Nicolai preaches about the empathy of Jesus, how he saw in the depth of the soul.  Matt 9, 35-36: Our Lord began to go to the towns and villages preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and curing the sick and the afflicted ... There two attitudes of the Lord that we too must have: empathy and urgency, both seem to fit together in a unique puzzle that gives us the loving face of Jesus. Mu...

Fr. Eric Nicolai gives one of the first meditations at a retreat at Ernescliff College, Dec 26, 2020. This is on the mystery of vocation. God chooses and calls everyone: He chose us in Christ, that we should be holy and blameless in his presence through love (Eph 1:4). He chose Abraham in Christ. He chose Sarai his wife. He chose Jacob, changed his very name to Israel, and then saved Moses from su...

Preached Christmas Eve at Kintore College: Psalm 88: 2-5: I will sing for ever of your love, O Lord. I will sing for ever of your love, O Lord; through all ages my mouth will proclaim your truth. Of this I am sure, that your love lasts for ever, that your truth is firmly established as the heavens. This is from this evening’s responsorial psalm. A beautiful exultation of who we will give praise th...

A frequent subject of 19th century paints was the land. There was a movement that came to be known as the Barbison school. Painters went out and painted it right there in the fields and along the forests. One subject that has always appealed to me is the sower who sows his seed . Jean-Francois Millet had a wonderful genre painting of this which he repeated over and over in between 1850 to 1870. It...

What does the word advent even mean? It comes from the Greek word parousia, which means presence, or arrival. Advent means the arrival of the Lord that has already begun but has only just begun. It has begun silently. John the Baptist ended up in prison. He was expecting Jesus to come with his winnowing chaff. Instead he came quietly, with only some miracles and healings. He sent his own disciples...

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai in Lyncroft centre, Toronto, in the early morning of December 8, 2020. In his eternal design for his Son to become man, God also chose Mary as the Mother of the Word Incarnate. This plan had an essential effect both in the manner in which the Word would become flesh—the Word not only became man; he became the descendent of Adam—and on the form of Mary’s mo...

Fr. Eric Nicolai preaches in Lyncroft centre on December 5, 2020: Advent, time for a new conversion. How is that going to happen? In this recollection this is not som much like ascending to a hight mountain, but imagine now that your task is to clear the ground for the helicopter to land (got that image from Bishop Robert Barron). Like the Vietnam scenes in a Francis Ford Coppola, with the wind bl...

Today, November 28, is the anniversary of the Apostolic Constitution “Ut Sit” from 1982, in which Pope John Paul II establish Opus Dei as a Personal Prelature. It was the definitive canonical suit that Opus Dei needed in order to have that new energy in the mission of the church. Fr. Eric Nicolai preaches on this 38th anniversary in Lyncroft centre and explains its significance. Music: FALL - Adri...

Catherine Labouré was a nun in the Congregation of the Daughters of Charity on Rue du Bac in Paris.  On November 27th, 1830 Our Lady appeared to her and entrusted Catherine with the task of forging of the Miraculous Medal . The Virgin said that the medal would be a sign of love, a pledge of protection and source of grace for those who would trust in it. The Virgin herself showed Catherine wha...

On Saturday November 21, 27 deacons we’re ordained in Rome for the Prelature of Opus Dei. Among them the first Lithuanian, a Croatian, a young Japanese and a Montrealer, Fadi Sarraf, originally fromSyria. It was a moment of joy, but with all the masks present, absence of families that couldn’t come, and the careful distancing, one could sense that they were taking advantage of the grace of the pan...

Fr. John Lopez Agundez preaches from Montreal about the challenge of becoming saints in our world, in our work. Music: Recordações do passado (Souvenirs from the Past) a Valsa for piano (1885) by Ernesto Nazareth arranged for guitar by Bert Alink non monetize. From https://musopen.org Thumbnail: pexels.com

Matt 25, 14-30: You have been faithful in small things: come and join in your master's happiness. In this 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, the last of the liturgical calendar before Christ the King, the Church presents us with the Gospel of the talents. The story of the master who settles his accounts with his servants. We all love to hear these words: ”well done, my good and faithful servant. Since...

Today’s Gospel is about the end times. Luke 17:26-37: ‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating and drinking, marrying wives and husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It will be the same as it was in Lot’s day: people were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, b...

Fr. Eric Nicolai reflects at Kintore College. In the 1650s a Spanish priest from province of Navarre, Pedro Auxular, wrote a book in Basque titled Gero , which means Later . A book about the practice of the Christian life. The title is striking: later. He warned his reader of the danger of leaving for later the most important aspects of life. So we want to speak today of that Later, but in a diffe...

Fr.  Luis de Moya passed away on November 9th, 2020 in Pamplona, Spain, as a result of complications due to an operation. He was in his late 60s. He was a numerary priest of Opus Dei, incarnated in the Prelature. He had studied medicine, then went to Rome to study theology and was ordained a priest. In 1990 after traffic accident in Madrid he ended up being a tetraplegic, and lived the rest o...