A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai to a group of diocesan priests at Cedarcrest Conference Centre in Belfountain, Ontario, on November 7, 2025.

John 5:2: We can picture the scene of the pool at Bethsaida, where the paralytic lay for 38 years. He had no one to help him enter the water when it was stirred. He was lying on his mat, waiting with a large crowd of other sick people, but had given up hope that he could be healed through the pool. Jesus, after asking if he wanted to be well, commanded the man to "Rise, take up your mat, and walk," and he was instantly cured, picking up his mat and walking away.

Jesus is inviting us to have hope, he's giving us the grace to rise up, and take our responsibility seriously. To get up and embrace our call.

Music: Michael Lee of Toronto.

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai at Ernescliff College, October 31, 2025. We meditate of the lament of Jesus over the holy City of Jerusalem. What was this lament about? He wept over the city, feeling the pain of the souls that were hardened to God's appeals.

Luke 13, 33: ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you refused! So be it! Your house will be left to you. Yes, I promise you, you shall not see me till the time comes when you say:

‘Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord!’

Music: Michael Lee of Toronto

Thumbnail: Enrique Simonet, Dominus flevit, Prado, Madrid, 1892

A meditation by Fr. Eric Nicolai, preached in Lyncroft Centre in Toronto, October 26, 2025, on the parable of the Pharisee and the publican (Luke 18:9-14).

Music: Stephen Lee of Toronto

Thumbnail: Rembrandt, Etching of St. Jerome kneeling in prayer, 1635. From artnet

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai on October 15, 2025 at Kintore College, Toronto. Today we celebrate Theresa of Avila, this 16th century mystic, who died in 1582. Her conversion led her to reform her order, emphasizing poverty, prayer, and contemplative life. Juan Diego was her contemporary, thousands of kilometers away in Mexico. Both discovered the nature of confidence in God, gounded in the inside of the soul.

Music: Michael Lee of Toronto.

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai at Cedarcrest Conference Centre in Belfountain, Ontario, on October 10, 2025.

Today this has become a response for us in the Way of the Cross as we are introduced to each station. We are meant to look at the representation. Sometimes a picture, sometimes a painting. Sometimes just a simple cross.

V: We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You

R: Because, by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world. (Rise)

We will say it today. This idea of the 14 stations started by those who could not journey to Jerusalem to spiritually participate in Christ’s Passion. Pilgrims in Jerusalem would process to various locations, praying and reading scripture at each spot. Franciscans became the custodians of the Holy Land sites. They would start these virtual representations in churches in Europe. They became standardized to 14 stations. 

Luke 9, 57: ..they met a man on the road who said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.

This expression of willingness, this desire to follow the Lord, no matter what he asks, no matter where the Lord takes our life, no matter the pain I experience, no matter what city you want me to go, is a deeply felt disposition that the Lord blesses. We see it particularly with Therese of Lisieux, and today with the beginnings of St. Josemaria’s call, on October 2, 1928, the feast of the Guardina Angels.

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai on October 2, 2025 in Lyncroft centre 2025.

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai on Septemebr 29, 2025 at Lyncroft Centre, Toronto.

John 1, 49-51: Jesus replied, ‘You believe that just because I said: I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.’ And then he added ‘I tell you most solemnly, you will see heaven laid open and, above the Son of Man, the angels of God ascending and descending.’

The three archangels, Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, all have their role in the history of salvation. They are also present in the history and apostolates of Opus Dei. Here's how.

Music: Michael Lee of Toronto.

Thumbnail: Ivory panel at the British Museum of St. Michael, dating to the 6th Century.

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai at Cedarcrest Conference Centre in Belfountain, Ontario on September 25, 2025.

Luke 8:4-15: With a large crowd gathering and people from every town finding their way to him, Jesus used this parable: ‘A sower went out to sow his seed.

We are the crowd that the Lord is now addressing, as we see him now with eyes of faith. You see him as he speaks there in the Gospel.

Music: Michael Lee of Toronto

Thumbnail: Jean-Francois Millet, The Sower, 1851.

Fr. Eric Nicolai preached this meditation on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows at Roseaire Conference center in Delray Beach, Florida.

Stabat mater dolorósa
juxta Crucem lacrimósa,
dum pendébat Fílius.

At the Cross her station keeping,
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Close to Jesus to the last

It is these tears and this sorrow that she embraced heroically today. But she did this as she co-redeemed with her son. Let us ask the light today to understand and deeply integrate in truth, what this all means for us, this start, this dolorosa, this lacrimosa. 

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai, at Roseaire Conference Centre in Delray Beach,Florida, September 13, 2025.

In his encyclical, Spe Salvi, Pope Benedict XVI explained that hope can be performative not merely informative. Christian hope is not just knowledge or belief about the future. There is more:  There is dynamic power that changes how people live and act in the present. Hope does something. It can make us bold and daring in approaching apostolic challenges.

Music: Michel Lee, Toronto.