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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 C
John 16, 12-15
A story has it that the fifth century Augustine of Hippo was taking his
summer holiday along the North African seashore.
Walking along the water's edge on a delightful day, he was pondering
the mystery of the Trinity. All this genius was getting for his efforts
was a severe headache. Finally he thought he was coming close to
breaking the code of the mystery. He was about to shout, "Eureka!"
Suddenly at his feet was a boy of five The bishop asked him what he was
doing. The youngster replied, "I am pouring the whole ocean into this
small hole." Augustine said, "That's nonsense. No one can do that."
Unintimidated by the towering giant above him, the child replied,
"Well, neither can you, Bishop Augustine, unravel the mystery of the
Trinity." Then he disappeared.
Whether this account is apocryphal or not, I leave to your good
judgment. But I think we all get the point. The Trinity will remain a
mystery forever and then some.
This morning over instant decaffinated coffee and a toasted raisin
muffin, I read a highly favorable review of a book by Jack Miles in The
New York Times. Miles calls his tome God: a Biography. The review opens
with this paragraph, "You cannot plumb the depths of the human heart,"
reads a passage in the Apocrypha, "nor find out what a man is thinking.
How do you expect to search out God, who made all these things, and
find out His mind or comprehend His thoughts?" The youngster of the St
Augustine story would shake his head in approval of these lines.
Now you better understand I think what we are up against on this feast
in honor of three Persons in one God.
The early seventeenth century poet John Donne wrote breathlessly,
"Batter my heart, three person'd God; for you as yet but knock,
breathe, shine, and seek to mend." Having just as breathlessly repeated
that prayer, should we attempt to turn our backs on the Trinity and get
on with our lives?
Inasmuch as the Teacher spoke of God as Father an awesome forty-five
times at the Last Supper, we would be most unwise to do so. Recall this
famous line from John 17,11, "Holy Father, keep those you have given me
true to your name..." Nor can you disregard or neglect the Holy Spirit.
John 14,16 says, "I shall ask the Father, and He will give you another
Advocate...that Spirit of truth." Forget the Trinity and we do so at
our own peril and also serious loss. There is much spiritual richness
to be wrestled from a devotion to the Trinity.
Eg, we can know we are told a lot about Jesus but only through the
Spirit can we know Jesus. Would you want to pass that opportunity up?
I like the spin the Benedictine Daniel Durken puts on the triune God.
He quotes a poem by Sister Mary Ignatius that closes, "That God is not
up, but in!" Durken then argues we must remember the Father, Son, and
the Spirit are not up there somewhere in the heavens but rather in each
of our honorable selves.
The much-quoted Matthew 28,20 has the Master instructing His people to
baptize "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit." So Durken advises the Sacrament of Baptism drops us not only
into water but also into the Trinity. The Trinity in turn is delighted
to take up residence in us. So, just as the triune God is in us, so too
are we in the triune God. Or, as Durken puts it, "We have an `in' with
the Trinity."
People say of my hometown New York City, "It's sure a nice place to
visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." Happily the Trinity does not
say the same of us. Rather, Pere Durken says the Trinity with all
appropriate flourishes announces, "We're not just visiting. We're
staying." The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have pitched a four season
tent in each of us. They are in our spirits to be cultivated, called
upon, prayed to, messaged, you name it. If one understands that, then
the sky is literally the limit.
The fourteenth century German Dominican, Meister Eckhart, concluded our
subject best with amusing langauge. "God laughed and the Son was born.
Together they laughed and the Holy Spirit was born. From the laughter
of all three the universe was born."
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http://www.st.ignatius.net/pastor.html
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Trinity Sunday: The Way We Begin and End Our Prayers
There are many practices that we Catholics have which we do so often,
we forget the meaning of them. One of these practices is the way
that we begin and end our prayers. We hardly think about it, but
we begin all our prayers by invoking the Trinity and signing our bodies
with the sign of God’s eternal love for us, the Sign of the
Cross. Whether those prayers are the Mass, the central prayers of
the church, or simply grace before dinner, we always begin with, “In
the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” In
Church, we make the sign of the cross, even before we enter our
pews. We do that at the Holy Water Font, reminding us of how we
entered into God’s family, by being baptized in the name of the Holy
Trinity. In the same way, all our prayers conclude with our
invoking the Trinity. The Mass concludes with the people being
blessed in the name of the Trinity.
Why? Why this focus on the Trinity? We make the sign of the
cross as a statement of faith. We are open to the mystery of
God. Our belief in the Trinity encompasses who we are and what we
are about.
The
distinguishing characteristic of the ancient Hebrews was their belief
in one God. The rest of the world looked to stories about various
gods to explain their questions about life. We have copies
of the elaborate creation stories of the Romans, Greeks and even the
stories of Gilgamesh, the ancient Babylonians. The pagans also used
these stories to justify their own immorality, attributing their
immorality to this or that god, sort of like the Church of Marijuana
that began a while ago in Miami, or as I like to call it, the First
Church of the Wacky Weed.
The
ancient Hebrews were distinct in their world. They were the only
ones who believed in one God, a God who was spiritual, a God who was
just, a God who created mankind in His image and likeness, the image
and likeness of love. This God gave mankind the ability to return
love to Him, but that meant that mankind had the ability to reject
Him. Mankind’s rejection of God resulted in disaster, in lives
without love. So the first aspect of the Sign of the Cross is
that we believe in the God who created us and loves us, the Father.
We
make the sign of the cross as an affirmation that we have been saved by
the One who was crucified. We believe that God’s love for us was
so intense that He became one of us while remaining One with the
Father. Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. Perhaps we use
that term Savior too freely. Perhaps it has lost its meaning for
us. Without Jesus Christ we would be in the grips of hatred, sin
and death. With Jesus Christ, we are engulfed in love and
life. When we say “He frees us from sin,” we mean that he frees
us from the misery that makes existence intolerable. With Jesus
Christ, there is no situation in life that cannot lead us to his Peace,
Presence and Happiness.
He
became one of us, Christmas–(actually the Annuciation). He died
for us, Good Friday. He conquered death and restored eternal life
for us, Easter. He ascended to the Father, but His Spirit and the
Spirit of the Father, the Holy Spirit, was given to us on Pentecost and
remains with each of us. We each have the Presence and Power of
God within us. We can make God Present to others.
And
so we begin our prayers in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit. We begin our prayers in the name of the
Father who loves us unconditionally, and of the Son who made this love
concrete by becoming one of us and dying for us and bringing God’s
forgiveness to us, and the name of the Holy Spirit, who is God dwelling
within us, empowering us. The sign of the cross is an affirmation
of our faith. It is a declaration of whom we are: people God
loves, forgives and empowers.
As
we grow in the knowledge that God loves us, as we experience His Love
more and more in our lives, we are transformed by His Love. We
want nothing more than to nurture this Love. We want to spread
this Love.
When
we recognize that God forgives us, we realize that His Love is
infinitely greater than our sins. We need to stop beating ourselves up
and let His forgiveness into our lives. So many people in the
world, so many of us, give up on life because we have given up on
ourselves. When that happens we get into a downward cycle.
We continue to do things that lead to spiritual disaster because we
think God will not forgive us. Jesus Christ is our Savior, He
saves us from ourselves. He forgives us. He calls us to
spread the Good News, the Gospel to others. He challenges us to let all
know that if they are committed to God, He will forgive them
also.
He
gives us the Power to lead others to Christ. Every one of us has
a unique ability to reflect God’s love in the world. Every one of
us is capable of instilling the seed of God’s love in others. We
can change other people. We can lead them from a meaningless life
to a life of eternal fulfillment. We have the Power of God within
us. We possess the Holy Spirit.
And
so we begin and end our prayers with a statement of whom we are and
what we are about. We are people who are loved, forgiven and
empowered. We find our meaning in life in the name of the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit.
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http://www.geocities.com/seapadre_1999/
* available in Spanish - see
Spanish homilies
Trinity
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I
Have Much More to Tell You
(May 30, 2010)
Bottom line: Jesus - who has always existed as the Wisdom at the
Father's side - has much more to tell us. He alone can satisfy our
desire to know - by bestowing the Spirit of truth that makes possible
an eternal relation with the Trinity.
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. What I will
argue this Sunday is that the Trinity - an eternal relationship with
the Triune God - is the one thing that will make you or me happy. We
have a lot of misconceptions about what will make us happy. To
illustrate misconceptions about happiness in heaven, I begin with a
humorous story.
It happened that a cat died and since it was a good cat, it went to
heaven. Now, St. Martin de Porres takes care of animal heaven - at
least the section for cats and mice. Being very kind to small
creatures, St. Martin asked the cat if he had any special requests. The
cat replied, "All my life I slept on hard surfaces. I want a nice
fluffy blanket."
After the cat came a group of mice. St. Martin asked them what they
wanted. The head mouse replied immediately. "We had tough lives on
earth," he said, "everyone was always chasing us. We want roller
skates." So St. Martin outfitted them with tiny skates.
A few weeks passed and St. Martin checked up on the cat. The cat was
the picture of happiness. "My blanket is so comfortable," he said,
"that I never want to leave it." Then he added, "By the way, thanks for
the Meals on Wheels!"
Well, as this story illustrates, it is easy to have misconceptions
about what will make us happy in heaven. Unlike those mice, we probably
don't imagine speedy roller skates, but we might think of other things:
nice food, comfortable surroundings, good friends, beautiful music.*
Those things are great and in some way they might be part of heaven,
but this Sunday Jesus tells us what we really need to be happy.
To survive we need things like food, clothes and shelter, but to really
be happy we need something more. Jesus says to us, "I have much more to
tell you." To be happy you and I need knowledge, truth. Let me explain.
Aristotle - who is considered the world's greatest philosopher - began
his study of human psychology with this statement, "All men by nature
desire to know." We delight, he said, in the knowledge that comes to us
through our senses - sight, hearing, taste, touch.
To illustrate this desire for knowledge, consider the example of Carl
Sagan. You remember him - the astronomer who narrated the television
series titled, "Cosmos." Shortly after producing that program, he was
diagnosed with luecemia. He came to Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Center, hoping for a cure. While in Seattle, he said that he wanted a
few more years of life, so he could keep learning about the cosmos.
We humans have an insatiable desire to know. Carl Sagan spent his life
studying the cosmos. Other people have different interests: the Civil
War, railroads, archeology and so on. Many people today have become
political junkies, gathering news about elections, polls and
politicians. Some can't find out enough about movie stars and athletes.
And all of us - let's be honest - find it hard to resist a juicy bit of
gossip. We want to know.
Of course, we hunger for more than random facts. If we start reading a
good novel, pretty soon we have a hard time putting it down. Even
though the characters are fictional, we want to know what happens to
them.
And even if we know how a story turns out, we can experience great
delight in re-reading it. We discover new insights. This summer I am
going to the Shakespeare festival. I have read and seen the plays
several times, but I am still anxious to see them again. And I am
hardly alone. I've talked to young people who have seen certain movies,
over and over. They know the plot by heart, but each time they
experience a new joy of discovery.
I think heaven will be something like that. Our relationship with the
Trinity will involve a continual joy of discovery. Think about it.
Today's first reading describes how "wisdom" was with God when he made
the cosmos. Wisdom is Jesus - God the Son, the Second Person of the
Trinity. And by the power of a Third Person, the Holy Spirit, we enter
a relationship with Jesus and the Father. It is the greatest voyage of
discovery anyone can undertake.
I came across a nice quote on this - by one of my favorite novelists,
Dean Koontz. He has a character named "Odd Thomas" who says: "I tend to
believe in the traditional architecture of life and afterlife. This
world is a journey of discovery and purification. The next world
consists of two destinations: One is a palace for the spirit and an
endless kingdom of wonder, while the other is cold and dark and
unthinkable."**
This Sunday I won't get into how a person can pervert the desire to
know and wind up in hell - a cold, dark, unthinkable place. What I want
to emphasize is that the Blessed Trinity fulfills our deepest longing.
St. Paul says, "hope does not disappoint." God has given each of us an
insatiable desire to know. When all is said and done, only one can
satisfy that hunger. This Sunday he says, "I have much more to tell
you." Now, that's an understatement! But Jesus adds, "you cannot bear
it now." We need the Holy Spirit - the "Spirit of truth."
So that is the invitation today: Come to Jesus. He is the wisdom, at
the Father's side, that fashioned the universe - including such
creatures as you and me. He has placed in our hearts a desire to know.
We can pervert that desire, but we can also accept his offer: "I have
much more to tell you." Jesus - who has always existed as the Wisdom at
the Father's side - has much more to tell us. He alone can satisfy our
desire to know - by bestowing the Spirit of truth, making possible an
eternal relation with the Trinity. Come to Jesus. By the power of the
Holy Spirit, come to Jesus - eternal wisdom, at the Father's side.
**********
*And all of us have heard about the supposed Islamic version of
paradise, where righteous men each get their own harem. It brings a
chuckle, but I wonder if Muslims take it more seriously than we our
cute talk about heaven as a bridge party or a golf course in the sky.
**Odd Thomas, chapter 3
Spanish Version
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http://www.agreeley.com/homilies.html
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Trinity Sunday John 3/16-18
Background:
Some Catholic theologians are now arguing that only because God
is triune is it possible for Her to relate to us. A God who was one
person, they say, would not be capable of relationships. But precisely
because He has internal relationships is God able to have external
relationships too. It’s kind of a neat idea, but I must leave it to
others how it stands up to theological analysis. It does make the
revelation of the Trinity seem reasonable.
Why else would God stun us with this baffling, if dazzling,
notion other then to show us that God could love all beings, even as He
loves His Self. Our God is not an isolated entity. Rather She is a
network of relationships and hence all human networks are actually or
potentially grace-full.
Story:
A group of three young mothers who lived on the same street agreed to
pool their time and resources so that they could help each other take
care of their kids and at the same time provide one another with a
little free time. It worked fine, the kids liked it, the fathers liked
it (anything to escape from the demands of child-rearing), and, most
important, the women like it. They discovered in practice what
they had heard so often in theory: it’s easier to do things as members
of a community than as isolated individuals. They bragged to their
friends in other streets about how well their little community worked
and how everyone should try to imitate them. But then one of the women
began *to tally up the hours she gave the community effort and
concluded that she was giving more time than the other two. They added
up their own times and concluded just the opposite. Indeed they accused
the first woman of making up numbers so she could escape her fair
share.
Since they had all studied economics in college, they began to
shout “free rider” at one another. Soon they were not speaking to one
another. Their community collapsed under the pressures of success,
resentment, and envy – in that order. See, we told you so, said the
neighbors on other streets. Later none of the three could figure out
what went wrong.
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http://www.saintvincentarchabbey.org/homilies/index.lasso
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Gospel
Summary Return to All Homilies
May, 30, 2010
John 16: 12-15
Campion P. Gavaler, O.S.B.
Trinity Sunday
Gospel Summary
In this passage from the Last Supper Discourse, Jesus tells his
disciples that when the Spirit of Truth comes he will guide them in all
truth. He then reveals the true nature of God as a communion of love.
Everything the Father has he gives to the Son. Everything the Son has
he gives to the Spirit. Everything the Spirit receives he gives to us.
Thus the supreme mystery of the gospel: we human beings are offered the
gift of living in the communion of eternal truth and love with the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Life Implications
The structure of the Eucharistic liturgy that we celebrate enables us
to express our faith that our true life even now is communion with the
life of God. Each Sunday's gospel unfolds the mystery of the gift of
divine life to us. In each gospel Jesus makes all that he receives from
the Father's love visible and a gift to us through the power of the
Holy Spirit.
In the Eucharistic prayer that follows the proclamation of the gospel
and homily, we lift up our hearts to be in union with the love of
Christ and pray: "Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the
Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever
and ever." When, with all the angels and saints, we have said "Amen" to
entire church's prayer of gratitude, we ask our Father for the supreme
gift of the Bread of Life. In receiving this Bread, which is the Lord,
we enter into deeper communion of divine life. And we commit ourselves
to allow all that we receive -- the truth and the love -- to flow
through us to everyone we encounter in the circumstances of our lives.
Trinity Sunday is a good opportunity to pay special attention to what
we do and pray every Sunday at Mass so that we realize more deeply that
every Sunday is Trinity Sunday. In addition, the first Scripture
reading (Proverbs 8:22-31) reminds us of the first affirmation of the
creed that we proclaim every Sunday. Always and everywhere we ought to
give thanks for the marvels of creation -- gift of the Father to us
through his eternal Divine Wisdom, the Word Incarnate.
We should not allow Trinity Sunday to pass by without mentioning the
church's sacramentals, which remind us of our life in the trinity of
divine love. One of my favorites is the famous Russian icon painted by
Andrei Rublev in the early part of the fifteenth century. The three
persons of the Holy Trinity -- Rublev uses the image of the three
angels who came to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 18 -- sit at the
eucharistic table in the unity of an intimately related half-circle,
beckoning to be completed. The icon reveals that we are all invited to
accept the hospitality of the three divine persons in their eternal
home, and to share their gift of holy bread and wine.
Rublev's Holy Trinity icon reveals the deepest meaning of the mystery
of the church as the communion of life with Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit around the Eucharistic table of love. The tree of Mamre by which
the Lord appeared to Abraham and Sarah is in the background of the
icon. It calls to mind the tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden,
and also the tree of the cross -- the ultimate revelation of divine
self-giving love made present for us in the Eucharist. The icon reveals
the highest ideal and challenge of human existence. We are called to
reflect in the church, in our families, and in our world the communion
of love, which is the true nature of God. This is the glory and the joy
for which we are created.
Campion P. Gavaler, OSB
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http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/lowhome.html Meeting Christ in the Liturgy
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Proverbs
8, 22-31; Psalm 8, 4-5.6-7.8-9; Romans 5, 1-5; St.John 16, 12-15
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Our omnipotent eternal God reveals his inner life of everlasting love
through the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son and the outpouring of
the Holy Spirit. On this Sunday after Pentecost we celebrate the
mystery of the Trinity, a truth about God that we could not know except
it had been revealed. To know the truth of the Triune nature of God is
the gift of God who reaches out to befriend and to save us, drawing us
into the everlasting embrace of the Trinity through the real presence
of the Son in the Eucharist and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
May religions invoke God as "Father." The deity is often considered the
"father of gods and men." In Israel, God is called "Father" inasmuch as
he is Creator of the world. (Cf. Deut 32:6; Mal 2:10.) Even more, God
is Father because of the covenant and the gift of the law to Israel,
"his first-born son."(Ex 4:22) God is also called the Father of the
king of Israel. Most especially he is "the Father of the poor," of the
orphaned and the widowed, who are under his loving protection. (Cf. 2
Sam 7:14; Ps 68:6.) (CCC 238)
Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard of sense: he is Father
not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father by his relationship
to his only Son who, reciprocally, is Son only in relation to his
Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the
Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal
him." (Mt 11:27.) (CCC 240)
For this reason the apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: "In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God"; as "the image of the invisible God"; as the "radiance of the
glory of God and the very stamp of his nature." (Jn 1:1; Col 1:15; Heb
1:3.) (CCC 241)
Following this apostolic tradition, the Church confessed at the first
ecumenical council at Nicaea (325) that the Son is "consubstantial"
with the Father, that is, one only God with him. (The English phrases
"of one being" and "one in being" translate the Greek word homoousios,
which was rendered in Latin by consubstantialis.) (CCC 242)
The Father and the Son are revealed by the Holy Spirit, sent in
His fullness at the first Pentecost to give life and holiness to the
Church as "Lord and giver of life."
Before his Passover, Jesus announced the sending of "another Paraclete"
(Advocate), the Holy Spirit. At work since creation, having previously
"spoken through the prophets," the Spirit will now be with and in the
disciples, to teach them and guide them "into all the truth." (Cf. Gen
1:2; Nicene Creed (DS 150); Jn 14:17, 26; 16:13.) The Holy Spirit is
thus revealed as anotherdivine person with Jesus and the Father. (CCC
243)
The sweetest gift of the divine person of the Holy Spirit is "the love
of God which has been poured into our hearts" by the giving of the Holy
Spirit at Pentecost. By this gift we enjoy the fruit of grace in love
and receive the power and energy to pursue the holiness of the
Christian life as, in and by love, we keep the Commandments with joy.
For we know that "the Holy Spirit is given to those who obey God."
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: 91, 243, 244, 485, 687, 690, 692,
1117, 2466, 2615, 2671,.) |
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http://www.ctk-thornbury.org.uk/
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Trinity Sunday
As we progress through the liturgical year we take in turn the
wonderful sayings and miracles of Christ, we contemplate the great
events of salvation, the birth of Christ, the Last Supper, his passion
and death, his resurrection and ascension into heaven, the birth of the
Church at Pentecost, the Eucharist on Corpus Christi.
But today we contemplate the greatest mystery of all, the Blessed
Trinity, the source of all that was, is and is to come. Today we
contemplate the inner mystery of God himself. And I use my words
advisedly; we contemplate the mystery of God.
We contemplate —what else can we do in the face of God but contemplate.
To contemplate is to turn our gaze on him, to empty our hearts and
minds of all other thoughts. In contemplation we become aware of his
majesty, his glory, and wonder at his greatness and the extraordinary
depth of his love.
There is no higher form of prayer than this; just to spend time away
from all our other preoccupations and in reverent silence become aware
of his presence which is ever with us but which we constantly push to
the background.
Yes, by all means recite your usual prayers; pray over the scriptures;
ask God for all your needs; turn to him for forgiveness; offer him your
heart and mind and indeed your whole life. But don’t finish your
prayers at this point—no, go on. Go on and with your mind’s eye just
gaze on his majesty and glory. Say nothing; just spend some time
wondering at the greatness and gentleness of God.
Don’t worry about how long you should do this, or whether you are doing
it well or not, or whether it is time for tea. Empty your mind of
everything else and just ‘be’ with him.
He who is the source of your being surely deserves some moments of your
time so don’t be mean and give him just a few seconds every now and
then. This is the one who will in due course draw you into eternal
communion with him so let yourself get used to his presence here and
now.
I say that this is the highest form of prayer, but it is also the most
essential form of prayer, indeed this is prayer with a capital P. This
is what all the rest leads up to.
We contemplate the mystery of God. And indeed it is a very great
mystery. Not a mystery in the sense of a puzzle, although a puzzle he
certainly is; but a mystery in the sense that we are full of wonder and
awe in his presence, a mystery in the sense that our human
understanding can only begin to appreciate.
But God has, in fact, chosen to reveal quite a lot about himself to us.
This gradual revelation can be traced through the pages of the Old
Testament and then the culmination of revelation is set forth in the
Gospels in the person and words of Jesus.
Today we celebrate the revelation that he is three persons in one God
—Father, Son and Spirit. This wasn’t handed down from the mountain in
tablets of stone like the Ten Commandments but it was revealed directly
to us by God himself in the person of Jesus his Son.
Jesus himself is the personal revelation of God; he is God made
manifest in the world and to the world.
Jesus taught us that he came from the Father, he told us to call him
Abba, he taught that he is the creator and sustainer of all things and
he taught us that he is love. When he returned to the Father Jesus
bequeathed to us the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth
who would guide and protect the Church keeping it holy and free from
error in matters of faith.
Pontius Pilate famously said, “What is truth?” But Jesus tells us
in the Gospel today that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth and
that he will guide us to the complete truth. What is this truth? It is
all that we Christians have come to believe that God has revealed to
us.
Perhaps we should rephrase Pilate’s question: not “What is truth?” but
“Who is truth?” And the answer is: “The truth is God alone.”
God is love, God is true, God is one. There is no error in him; there
is no evil; there is no disunity. God is above all, and is over all,
and brings all things together in himself. In due time the whole
created order will come to this realisation and will bow down and
worship him in humble adoration.
All these things we believe as Christians, all these things we know to
be true.
And the Blessed Trinity is the highest model for our Christian
life—three distinct persons, yet one God; each living in harmony and
perfect unity with each other. The three persons of the Trinity have
their own roles and function but there is no disunity only perfect
harmony.
The Church of God on earth aims to reflect this unity and this is
indeed Christ’s wish and prayer for us, “May they all be one. Father,
may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you.” (Jn 17:21)
We are a living community of faith and as such we really do strive for
the unity Christ prays for. There are plenty of problems along the way
caused by sin and our human failings but we really do long for that
unity that Christ desires for us.
In the risen life of heaven we will be taken up into God and become one
with him. This is our true destiny but it is a destiny that through our
Baptism has already begun for us. So let us strive to reach this goal
with the help of the Holy Spirit and let us do nothing that causes
division or damages this community of faith.
Let the people around us realise that something extraordinary is
happening here. Let them see that the unity, that the truth, that the
love of God is shining forth from this place and that he is really
present among us. That this is not merely a community gathered in name
alone but is a manifestation of the presence of God himself here in
this place.
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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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