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Homilies are posted no later than during the week
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Trinity
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Trinity Sunday - Cycle B - Matthew 28:16-20
A couple received by mail two tickets for a first
class New York City Broadway show. They did not understand who sent
them, but they thankfully went. They returned home and found their home
stripped of cash, paintings, and jewels. On their table, they found a
note which read, "NOW YOU UNDERSTAND." We will never receive a similar
note about the Trinity.
The roots of today's solemn feast can be
traced back to
the early Church. Today we can say with my ancestor, the peerless St
Patrick, "I arise today, through a mighty strength, the invocation of
the Trinity, through belief in the threeness, through confession of the
oneness of the Creator of Creation."
The story is told of a priest sitting in an
airport waiting for his flight. A fellow killing time struck up a
conversation. Said he, "Father, I believe only what I can understand.
So, I can't buy your Trinity. Perhaps you can explain it to me." The
priest reluctantly put down The New York Times. "Do you see the sun out
there?" "Yup." "OK, it's 80 million miles away from us right now. The
rays coming through the window," said the priest, "are coming from the
sun. The delightful heat we are enjoying on our bodies right now come
from a combination of the sun and its rays. Do you understand that?"
The fellow answered, "Sure, padre." "The Trinity," the priest
went on, "is like that. God the Father is that blazing sun. The Son is
the rays He sends down to
us. Then both combine to send us the Holy Spirit who is the heat. If
you understand the workings of the sun, its rays, and heat, why do you
have difficulty believing the Trinity?" The man said something about
catching a flight and was off.
The priest, a physics professor, picked up the
Times with a broad smile. He doubted whether his recent guest
understood the workings of the sun. He knew no one would ever
comprehend the mystery of the Trinity this side of the grave. After
all, why does God have to tell us everything? In his experience,
He tells us only on a need to know basis.
His favorite line from the Book of Job popped into
his mind.
"Can anyone penetrate the deep designs of God?" (11:7) As a
scientist and a Catholic, he knew the answer to that question.
Try to understand the Trinity and you become like a person
staring, as someone said, into the noonday sun to better understand it.
All you get is a serious headache requiring extra strength Tylenol and
a resolve to buy good sunglasses.
Finally he put down the Times and recalled
fondly his late Dogma professor in the seminary. When he came to the
section on the Trinity in the textbook, he turned the pages quickly.
The Dogma prof said, "Professor Thomas Aquinas, late of the
University of Paris and the Albert Einstein of his day, didn't
understand the Trinity. So, it is most unlikely that you blockheads
will either. Just remember St Paul mentions the Trinity 30 times in his
letters. Take it on faith and you'll muddle through somehow." He
trusted that the professor and Thomas both now understood the Trinity
perfectly.
He himself never had difficulty buying into a
God who is passionately in love with us, a Son who was willing to die
for us, and a Holy Spirit whose job it is to help us become saints like
Thomas of Aquin and Paris.
He recalled the husband, who said when he became a
father, he better understood the Trinity. When he and his wife had
their son, they had evidence of their love for each other. There was
the lover, the beloved, and the love, each distinct and yet one.
I enjoy the playful description of Daniel
Durken of the
Trinity. The Father played creator and was overjoyed that the
world turned out so attractively. The Son played redeemer and
put everything right again in the wounded world by stretching
out His arms on a cross. The Spirit played sanctifier. He made room in
the heart of each of us for the Trinity. "Today," says Durken, "the
Trinity invites us to keep playing with them this delightful game of
life and love." And why not? We have nothing to lose but our
chains.
Dante Alighieri expressed his thoughts on the triune
God in verse. His Italian runs off the lips like music: "O trina luce,
che in unica stella..." And, for the benefit only of the very young
children reading these lines I translate, "O triune light, which in a
single star contents all upon whom it shineth..." |
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http://www.st.ignatius.net/pastor.html
Trinity
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The Trinity: Intimacy and Transcendence
Arians are all around us, and among us, and within us. They are the
intellectually arrogant in the academia. They attempt to rewrite
history. They declare that Jesus was just a man, a good man, yes, but
just a man. The Trinity is too much for them. Jesus is too
much for them.
Where did this word Arian come from? Well, in the fourth century
of the Church, Arius, a priest of Alexandria, Egypt, declared that
Jesus was not the Son of God. His heresy made Christianity easier
to accept. People did not have to suspend their rationality to accept
that which was beyond their abilities. The laws of Christianity
were now just a matter of advice, not the New Law of God.
Arianism grew so popular that, according to some historians, over two
thirds of Christians went over to this heresy. But the Power of
God, the Holy Spirit, prevailed and through various councils of the
Church, the belief in the Trinity was codified into the formula we
continue to use: “There is one God, who has three persons, Father, Son
and Holy Spirit. Each person is God, yet there is still only one
God.”
Belief in the Trinity was not created by the early councils of the
Church. It was given to us by God himself. It is in the
Bible. The Old Testament points to the Trinity speaking about the
Eternal Son who will come and suffer for the forgiveness of sins,
Isaiah, and who will judge the world, Daniel, and whose Spirit will
rest upon us, Ezekiel. Look at the New Testament. Start with the
records of Christmas. We call these the Infancy Narratives. The
Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are written to
emphasize that Jesus is the Son of God and Son of Mary. Joseph
was his foster father. An even deeper understanding of the
mystery of Jesus presented in the Gospel of John. The theme
of this gospel is John 3:16: God so loved the world that he gave his
only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but
might have eternal life. The beginning of the Gospel of John,
usually called the Prologue, tells us about the Eternal Word of God who
became flesh and dwelt among us. The existence and the power of
the Holy Spirit are also experienced throughout the New Testament,
particularly in the Gospels of Luke and John and the writings of St.
Paul. The Holy Spirit continues to be experienced in the
Church.
Belief in the Trinity demands acknowledging God’s infinite superiority
in all areas including our rationality. Adam and Eve refused to
do that. They pushed God aside, turned away from life and gave us
death. The Arians, including the modern day arians of the
academia, do not have the humility to admit that man’s knowledge of the
Divine is limited by the finite capability of the human mind. They do
not have the humility to enter into mystery, the mystery of God.
I like to consider it this way: an eight year old cannot understand
calculus. He or she is incapable of that form of
understanding. But calculus still exists. Most of our top
high school students could not come to the theory of relativity, but it
is a valid theory. Because some knowledge is beyond us does not
mean that it doesn’t exist. What does exist is the pride and
arrogance we all have to refuse to go beyond the limits of our minds
and accept God’s mysteries. The trouble is that we humans are
proud. We would like to determine who God is, what He should be
like, etc. We try to fit him into our mental constructs. In
doing so, we are refusing to enter into mystery.
Dom
Julian, a Benedictine monk, wrote, “All that matters is that God is
God, and I, I am only I.”
Within the Mystery of the Trinity dells the wonderful belief that God
is both close to us and beyond us, Intimate and
Transcendent. The Eternal Creator of the universe shocked
us by establishing an intimate relationship with us. At baptism
we receive His Life. Our bodies are sacred, holy, because we are
the dwelling place of God. My favorite verse in Scripture is the
concluding verse of the Gospel of Matthew and of our Gospel for this
Sunday: “Know that I am with you always until the end of time.”
He is always there. We can pray to Him within us, and in times of
crisis ask Him for that power that is beyond us. So we pray for
miracles of healing, we pray for miracles of forgiveness, we pray for
the miracle of His Body and Blood.
We
are made in the image and likeness of God, the Book of Genesis tells
us. That means that we share in His Closeness and His Beyond.
This is how we make God present in our society. We are given His
Presence so that others can find Him in us, and ultimately, enjoy His
presence in themselves. At the same time, our focus in life must be
transcendent, on things above, on God. Yes, we work hard to
provide for ourselves and our children, but only so we can better serve
God. After all, the goal of all Christian parents is to allow
their children to reach their spiritual potential. The goal of
Christian parents is to all their children to live forever as children
of God. That is why people have children, correct? Children
are created for Love, His Love.
The
intimacy and transcendence necessary for Christian life is summarized
in a remarkable way in a letter to a Greek official, Diognetus, dating
back to the third or fourth century. The life of the Christians is the
same life that we live. I want to read a little sections of it:
Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality,
language or customs. Yet, there is something extraordinary about
their lives. They live in their own countries as if they were
only passing through. They live in the flesh, but they are not
governed by the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they
are citizens of heaven. The are obedient to the law, but they
live on a level that transcends the law.
How
are we to translate this intimacy and transcendence into our modern
context? We can do this by focusing on the One who is intimate
and transcendent, Jesus Christ. He is one of us, with us
always. He is the eternal Son of the Father, present at the dawn
of Creation, sitting at the Right Hand of the Father judging the living
and the dead.
Every action of our lives must be grounded in our union with Jesus
Christ. We do not worship to experience an emotional release, such as
we might experience on Christmas and Easter. We do not worship to keep
other people happy. We worship because we need the Lord in our
lives and in the lives of our families. Parents worship to ask
God to help them make Him real for their children. We all worship
to experience His Presence in others and to provide others with an
experience of His Presence. We worship to ask God to help us draw
closer to Him every day of life that we have left. We worship
because we have all absorbing desire to live for God.
After all, we are an intimate part of the Mystery of God. We are part
of the Eternal Plan of God for His Creation. We pray today for the
humility to accept His Mystery into our lives. We pray today for
the courage to live His Mystery. May we be in the world,
intimate, yet not of the world, transcendent. May the Lord give
us the strength to live in His Image and Likeness.
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http://www.geocities.com/seapadre_1999/
* available in Spanish - see
Spanish homilies
Trinity
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Purpose
of Our Existence
(June 7, 2009)
Bottom line: Mary can help us realize the purpose of our existence: to
enter an eternal relationship with God - the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit.
Recently I had the privilege of praying for a dear friend in the final
hours of her life. Words do not come easy at that moment. Fortunately
the Church gives us wonderful words. The traditional Prayer of
Commendation for a dying person has great beauty and power. I would
like to quote it this Sunday, not only to honor my friend, Esperanza,
but for what it says about our relationship to the Blessed Trinity -
the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here are the opening lines of the
Prayer of Commendation:
Go forth, Christian soul, from this world,
in the name of God, the Father Almighty,
who created you;
in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God,
who suffered for you;
in the name of the Holy Spirit,
who was poured out upon you,
go forth, faithful Christian.
When you and I go forth from this world, how beautiful to do so in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit! The goal, the
purpose of our lives is to have an eternal relationship with Blessed
Trinity - the beginning and end of our existence. We see it in today's
Gospel. Before ascending into heaven, Jesus instructed us to make
disciples of all nations, "baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
To help understand our relationship to the Trinity, I would like to
recommend a new book. Written by Catholic lay evangelist, Mark Shea, it
is titled "Mary, Mother of the Son." Don't let the title mislead you.
It is much more than a devotional book on the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mark
has a unique ability to situate devotion to Mary in the context of the
entire Christian life. His book is like opening a side door called
"Mary" and finding oneself in an enormous banquet hall. The tables are
set with an astonishing variety of food. As you look around you see
familiar faces, but also others you have heard about, but do not know
well. A gracious lady takes your hand and begins to show you around.
Above all she wants you to know her Son, his Father and the One who
overshadowed her.
In Mary Mother of the Son, Mark Shea introduces (or re-introduces) us
to Mary. And through her we understand the reason for the Bible and the
Church: to guide us to a relationship with the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit - the One God who is all in all. The book comes as a trilogy:
three volumes. Each volume is a manageable length (from 150 to 195
pages). Once you start reading, Mark's logic and apt comparisons will
carry you forward. These books are not inexpensive, but they are worth
the investment. If you have any hesitation, just purchase volume one.
You will agree, I know, that Mark's explanation of the Trinity is worth
the entire price.
Mark Shea is with us this Sunday. At the end of the Mass, he will say a
few words about Mary Mother of the Son. He will be available after Mass
to sign your copy.
Jesus has given us Mary, his mother as our mother. In baptism we not
only become children of God, but children of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
She can help us realize the purpose of our existence: to enter an
eternal relationship with God - the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit.
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Intercessions for Trinity Sunday (from Priests for Life)
Spanish Version
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http://www.agreeley.com/homilies.html
Trinity
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June
7th 2009 A.D
Trinity Sunday Mt 25/16-20
Background:
Unquestionably this a mission Sunday. The followers of Jesus are
deputed to go forth to pass on the good news that Jesus had shown them
of God’s overwhelming and forgiving love. A lot of time and energy has
been poured into that challenge through the ensuing centuries. Often we
made a terrible mess of it. We have forced people to be baptized
whether they wanted to be or not. Once in Seville Spain, forty thousand
Jews were baptized (under pain of leaving the country by priests who
strode through cathedral plaza sprinkling water on them. Other times we
have forced them to abandon their native cultures and become Europeans
like us. Still other times we bribed them (with rice when they
were hungry) to join us. Sometimes we got the point, particularly in
very early days and attracted them to the church by the kinds of people
we were and by the love we had for one another and for them.
Story:
How many of you would like to go to a baseball game with me, the
enthusiastic parish priest, said to a bunch of teens. I have twenty
tickets to a Sox game tomorrow afternoon (Cubs fans will tell you that
free tickets for Sox games are easy to find). About twenty five
kids, even some girl kids, put up their hands. Well, said the priest,
we can’t take everyone. He almost said girls can’t come because they
don’t understand baseball. But his guardian angel intervened and shut
his mouth. Instead he said I tell you what, how many of you are Cubs
fans? More than half the kids put up their hands, some would say
because they had excellent taste, others would say because of genetic
programming. Cubs fans, the priest said (thinking he had a way out)
can’t go. Sorry. Nine hard core Sox fans approached him with their
hands out. He still had eleven tickets. I tell you what, he said, how
many of you Cub fans want to convert and be Sox fans for this afternoon
only. Well, you know what Cub fans are like? So the priest when to the
game with the nine hardcore Sox fans. That night when he explained what
happened, the wise old monsignor said, you might have flipped a coin. I
never thought of that said the young priest. It’s not evil to ask
people to convert to the other team for an afternoon. Alas, how often
we have used methods like that against those who are not Catholic, even
against those who marry into our families.
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http://www.saintvincentarchabbey.org/homilies/index.lasso
Trinity
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Jun, 07, 2009
Matthew 28:16-20
Campion P. Gavaler, O.S.B.
Trinity Sunday
Gospel Summary
This carefully crafted passage is the climactic summary of the
essential themes of Matthew's gospel. Jesus, now Risen Lord, reveals
that all power in heaven and on earth has been given to him, and thus
he has authority to commission his disciples to continue and to extend
his mission to all the nations of the earth.
Jesus' epiphany and commission to the eleven take place on a mountain,
the symbolic place where humans encounter the divine presence. The
mountains of encounter unite in a single narrative the biblical
covenants, and make all history a sacred history. These awesome places
of the divine presence evoke the memory of crucial turning points of
human history: Ararat, Moriah, Sinai, Zion, Carmel. Matthew, fully in
harmony with this tradition, brings the narrative of the divine plan to
its climax. He tells of Jesus' trial of temptations, his sermon, and
his transfiguration on a mountain. From the severe testing of faith on
the Mount of Olives, Jesus descends to suffer and die in obedience to
his Father's will.
Now on a mountain, Jesus with divine authority commissions the eleven
to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. God's promise to
Abraham after the testing of faith on Mount Moriah will at last be
fulfilled. Through Jesus, son of Abraham, "all the nations of the earth
shall find blessing" (Gn 22:1-18). All nations will hear the good news,
and be taught to observe what the Lord has commanded. Matthew concludes
his gospel and begins the era of the church with the promise of Jesus:
"And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."
Life Implications
The good news we hear proclaimed on Trinity Sunday is that Jesus the
Risen Lord wants us to share divine life with him in the oneness of
intimate, familial love with his Father and Holy Spirit. Through the
gift of baptism we belong to God, and God belongs to us. With Jesus we
can say Our Father. We are at home in God.
To be certain that we do not imagine the era of the church to be an
illusory Utopia above the ambiguities of the human condition, Matthew
interjects a surprising note of realism. He tells us that though the
eleven disciples recognize Jesus as Risen Lord and worship him, at the
same time they doubt. He uses the same Greek verb for "doubt" as he did
when Jesus stretched out his hand to Peter, frightened and sinking in
the stormy water: "O you of little faith, why did you doubt" (Mt
14:22-33)?
A theme of Matthew's gospel is the contrast between the total,
single-minded faith of Jesus and the double-minded, little faith of his
disciples. Jesus tells the disciples that because of their little faith
they do not understand him, and for the same reason they are unable to
cast out a demon (Mt 16:8 and 17:20).
The disciples, except for one of the original twelve, are willing to
follow Jesus and listen to his commands; but at the same time their
"common sense" tells them that what Jesus expects is way beyond their
capacity to accomplish. It is not difficult for us present-day
disciples to identify with the feeling of inadequacy and doubt in the
face of the powerful forces that oppose the fulfillment of the divine
promise of blessedness in our own circumstances. Like the first
disciples, we worship the Risen Lord; and we doubt. Yet we go on
because we trust with our little faith that all power in heaven and on
earth has been given to Jesus.
The Risen Lord, who conquered even death, is with us as he promised.
When we do not understand what is going on, when the demons in us and
around us seem invincible, when we begin to sink in the stormy water,
when the task at hand seems too much for us, Jesus stretches out his
hand and says: "O you of little faith, why do you doubt?" With our
little faith, we can only respond: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief."
Campion P. Gavaler, OSB
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http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/lowhome.html Meeting Christ in the Liturgy
Trinity
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YEAR
B
Deuteronomy 4, 32-34, 39-40; Psalm 33; Romans 8, 14-17; Matthew 28,
16-20
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Resurrection. Fact or fiction?
The Resurrection of the Lord, the only Son of God the Father, and the
coming of the Holy Spirit reveal the Trinity we celebrate today: three
persons in one God. Christ taught the Apostles that the Spirit
"proceeds from the Father and the Son" and so we profess this in the
Creed. The Resurrection of the Lord Jesus remains the cornerstone of
Christian faith and life for by his Resurrection Christ's divinity is
revealed and all his words and teachings are thereby guaranteed as
true. The whole edifice of Christian faith, all that we believe about
God fully revealed in Jesus Christ, stands or falls on the cornerstone
of Christ's Resurrection.
It is fashionable in the literary and academic world today to "doubt"
the Resurrection of the Lord, to revise and rephrase tradition, to
reinterpet scripture in order to call the real bodily Resurrection into
question. Knowing that men would call the truth into doubt, St. Paul
wrote: "If Christ has not risen, your faith is in vain."
Some Christians propose the Resurrection was experienced only in the
faith or credulity of the Apostles or first Christians, something they
simply made up out of thin air. It is possible today to hear even
Christian leaders say; "If they found the bones of Jesus, it would not
shake my faith." It is the lesson of the Ascension of the Lord in
scripture and the celebration of the liturgy of the Church that this is
completely out of the question! We are left with the testimony of
Scripture, and there we find record in several places that the Apostles
doubted Christ's Resurrection. "Now the eleven disciples went to
Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when
they saw him they worshipped him; but some doubted." (Mt 28; 16-17) Are
we to believe that the Evangelists recorded the doubt of some of their
number even while creating a fiction of their own imagination? The liar
is the first to recognize the stupidity of giving evidence
contradicitng his own falsehood!
"Even when faced with the reality of the risen Jesus the disciples are
still doubtful, so impossible did the thing seem: they thought they
were seeing a ghost. 'In their joy they were still disbelieving and
still wondering.' (Lk 24:38-41) Thomas will also experience the test of
doubt and St. Matthew relates that during the risen Lord's last
appearance in Galilee 'some doubted.' (Cf. Jn 20:24-27; Mt 28:17)
Therefore the hypothesis that the Resurrection was produced by the
apostles' faith (or credulity) will not hold up. On the contrary their
faith in the Resurrection was born, under the action of divine grace,
from their direct experience of the risen Jesus." (CCC 644)
We too experience doubts as part of our weak human condition. But we
also directly experience the Lord Jesus in the proclamation of the Word
and in his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. Christ Himself, then, by
these his works which give the grace of faith strengthens us to do the
humanly impossible and declare with supernatural joy: "Glory to the
Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the
beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Alleluia."
I look forward to meeting you here again next week as, together, we
"meet Christ in the liturgy", Father Cusick
(Publish with permission.) http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/
(For further reading on today's Gospel see also these paragraphs in the
Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2, 80, 189, 232, 849, 1122, 1223,
1276, 2156, 2743.)
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http://www.ctk-thornbury.org.uk/
Trinity
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Trinity Sunday, Year B—2006 Homily
The text of today’s Gospel is the most direct reference to the Holy
Trinity in the Bible. It is given on a mountain in Galilee where the
Apostles have been are instructed to go by Jesus. This mountain is not
without significance nor is its location.
There are many mountains in the Bible and in every case what takes
place on them is a special revelation of God. You can think of many
examples going from the Ark on Mount Ararat, through the Sacrifice of
Abraham on the mountain of Moriah, to the giving of the Ten
Commandments on Mount Sinai.
And in the New Testament there are other mountains and hills: Jesus is
Transfigured on Mount Tabor, he gives his most important teaching in
the Sermon on the Mount and gives his life for us on the Hill of
Calvary.
So what we are dealing with here is a moment of great significance, an
occasion of special revelation. And it is no mistake that it takes
place in Galilee as if to remind the Apostles that, while many
important events took place in Jerusalem, Jesus conducted most of his
public ministry in Galilee. Indeed that was where it was inaugurated
and now in this great event where it comes to its final conclusion.
The Apostles are given three tasks: 1) to make disciples of all the
nations 2) to Baptise them in the name of the Holy Trinity and 3) to
teach these new disciples to observe the commands of Jesus.
To become a disciple is the natural response to any extended encounter
with Jesus. It is the task of the Apostles to bring people into contact
with him, to enable those they meet to get to know the Lord.
This is our task too. When we meet others it should be as if they are
meeting Jesus. Now I know quite well that we are none of us up to
Jesus’ standards. We are much more tetchy, much more irritable and not
really as kind as we ought to be.
If you were to meet me on a Monday morning then it would be as far from
an encounter with Jesus as you could possibly get! But, whether we are
any good at it or not, that ought to be our aim.
We don’t need to go into long complicated explanations as to who Jesus
is; just as long as the people we meet know that we are one of his
disciples then that should be enough. From our behaviour they will be
easily able to deduce quite a lot about Jesus.
We might feel rather inadequate and be afraid to give the wrong
impression and think that what we say and do isn’t in line with what
Jesus would want. But this is to underestimate the sophistication of
other people; they are quite easily able to assess whether a person is
sincere or not and they know immediately what your true intentions are.
That’s the task of making disciples; it’s a big undertaking but get
used to it because it is our primary role as Christians. The other two
objects of the mission given by Jesus were to Baptise and to teach.
Baptism is the key to membership in the Church and teaching is one of
the most important activities in the Church. Its what we are doing now.
These both follow on from making disciples, from introducing people to
Jesus. And in a sense they are much easier because, as I said, once
people get to know Jesus the natural response is to follow him, seek
Baptism and wish to know more about him.
You might be wondering if I’m preaching the right sort of sermon for
this Sunday dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Well I think I am! We noted
that this text given for today was the clearest reference to the
Trinity in the scriptures and if you look it up you will find that the
scholars mostly say that this phrase must have been a Baptismal formula
that Matthew has inserted into the text.
Jesus didn’t explicitly teach us about the Trinity. The theology of the
Trinity comes out of the reflection of the early Church on the teaching
of Jesus. They thought over what he said and under the influence of the
Holy Spirit they began to understand the dynamics of the Trinity.
Jesus referred on many occasions to his Father and the closeness of his
relationship with him. Moreover he taught us to speak to the Father in
a very familiar and direct way.
Jesus also promises to send us his Spirit and refers even in this
particular passage that he will be with us always, until the end of
time. We understand that it is precisely through the Holy Spirit that
Jesus is present to us.
What we have here are examples of the other two tasks given to the
Apostles namely Baptising and teaching. By weaving into his text a
Baptismal formula we realise that Baptism was one of the most important
activities of the early Church.
And the very succinct formula that they used is a direct result of
their refection on the things that Jesus had told them during his
public ministry. This is the teaching role of the Apostles; like any
good teacher they had first to reflect on what it actually is that they
are to communicate and explain to others.
This final passage of Matthew’s Gospel is sometimes regarded as a brief
summary of the whole Gospel. It certainly is a very succinct summary of
the role of a true disciple of Christ and gives us a plan for the rest
of our lives.
But it also contains a promise; a promise that Christ will be with us
till the end of time. This is one of the great promises of God recorded
in the Bible. He will not abandon us, he will always be with us guiding
us and guarding us from the evil one through the power of his Holy
Spirit. And in time we will be taken up into him to share the life of
love that is the Trinity.
We might find the task of discipleship daunting but with this promise,
with this greatest of all guarantees, we know that we will be able to
fulfil the mandate of Christ and so give expression to our deepest
desire to be faithful followers of the Lord Jesus in the world of today.
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Father Bonar will not be posting homilies for Cycle B to allow himself
time for other projects. His collection of homilies (including homilies
for Cycle B) is available at www.clydebonar.com.
Trinity |
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These
homilies may be copied and adapted for your own use;
however, they may not be commercially published without permission of
the author. |
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