13th Sunday Year A, 2023

 2 Kings 4: 8-11, 14-16a; St. Paul to the Romans: 6: 3-4, 8-11; St. Matthew: 10: 37-42

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Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is righteous will receive a righteous man’s reward.  And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple—amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

Dear People of God, those words of our Blessed Lord are words of warning to our world of today: so presumptuous and proud in its understanding of what is “good”: what are good things for persons to do for others, and what is good for people who are in some presumed need.

What are good things to do for others: abortions, of course; but in general, it is good -- our world thinks -- to help people get what they want for themselves, in order to become who they want to be: new selves, able to approve of themselves, now renewed according to their own design or volition.

What is good for people: the greatest good, of course, is freedom.  And here our world bestows such privileged freedom very soon in life, giving children freedom from parental authority; or it bestows freedom later in life with formed characters who are seriously criminal, despite the fact that hundreds of innocent people have been and are being murdered by generously-, lovingly-, freed individuals thanks to panels of good people full of our world’s conviction that it knows what “good” means and how it should to be used, practiced, set up.

All this was anticipated by Our Blessed Lord when thus addressing His Apostles, for He summed it all up with the words:

           

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Modern society in the Western word is given over to finding life for itself and that is why we see, as Jesus warned, the process of life-being-lost rampant around us: immorality everywhere tolerated, even praised, and openly, even blatantly, practiced; because law – apart from temporal criminal law of societies’ occasional making – is unacceptable to those determined to be free.  We see serious lack of essential human dignity in the face of current sexual wishes and excesses, gender disrespect and disassociation.  We see lack of moral fibre, manifest in unwillingness to seriously punish so many crimes,  thereby losing that social unity in peace which demonstrates mutual respect among citizens, and general appreciation for laws balancing crime and punishment.

God is given no place in modern society and now we must glance at Jesus’ words heard earlier:

Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

Those are execrable words for modern deniers of Jesus as our Lord and Saviour; but there is, in truth,  no basis for such an attitude; for there, Jesus simply teaches in a somewhat strikingly different way the whole of what is normal Christian doctrine

 

Those who put father and mother -- son or daughter -- before Me in their spiritual appreciation and obedient service are not worthy of Me.

That however is in no way opposed to human affections for a mother or father -- son or daughter-- being more ardent and impassioned than felt, affectionate, love for God, or Jesus.

And of course, “whoever does not take up his cross …” simply designates those who will not obey God’s commands in the face of human difficulties.

Finally, we have Jesus’ promise to us Catholics and Christians who want to serve God more faithfully and know and love Him ever better:                

 

Whoever receives you (My Apostles) receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives the One who sent me.

Dear People of God, our world gives nothing ‘to a prophet because he is a prophet’ because it does not recognize prophets; it gives nothing nor does it receive a righteous man or a disciple of God because he is righteous or a disciple, because, again, indeed, our world does not recognize God in anyone or anything.

And yet, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we have received many benefits from our current society and world, and therefore, let us most sincerely pray for all those around us who do not know the truth of life and the God of True Life and Love, but who might, by our prayers and His grace, still be able to open wide their mouths for the Good Who is way beyond and above any good they now know or can imagine, Who is our Good, our God, and our All.        

12th Sunday Year A, 2023

 

(Jeremiah 20:10-13; Romans 5:12-15; Matthew 10:26-33)

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Jesus was speaking from His own experience when, in our Gospel reading, He told His disciples not to be afraid.  He Himself had come into this world to speak peace to God’s people and to free them from the darkness and servitude of sin by proclaiming His Gospel of salvation.  He had not been well-received by the ‘religious establishment’, and He knew that worse, including Roman involvement and popular disenchantment, was to follow.  Therefore, He was sending these Apostles out on a preparatory mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel with this commission (Matthew 10:7):

As you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand'.

He warned them (10:16-18):

I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.   Beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues.  You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.

Jesus' warning cannot have failed to impress them, perhaps prompting them to remember what happened to Jeremiah when God had been sent him to preach forthcoming disaster to the people of Jerusalem, long become ‘stiff-necked’ in their disobedience to their God; for, as you heard in the first reading, despite his divine commission, it had not made Jeremiah acceptable to the religious and political leaders; on the contrary, he found it a most dangerous message for him to deliver to them:

I have heard the whispering of many, "Terror on every side! Denounce him; yes, let us denounce him!"  All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine saying: "Perhaps he will be deceived, so that we may prevail against him and take our revenge on him."   

A message acceptable to those in power was wanted, not authentic divine guidance for the good of the whole people.

And yet, well aware of the ‘Jeremaic’ opposition to divine truth still prevalent among the Temple authorities and the self-appointed spiritual leaders of the people -- the Scribes and Pharisees of His time -- Jesus insisted that His Apostles should proclaim His message not only without fear, but to the very utmost of their powers:

What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.

Jesus had already spoken -- and would still continue to speak -- many things to them in the calm solitude of their evenings together, and what He had, in that way, told them privately ‘in the dark’, they were to speak publicly in full light of day.  And perhaps those words ‘what you hear whispered’ is a reference to the Holy Spirit Who – according to Jesus’ promise -- would recall to their minds and hearts whatever aspects of His teaching they might otherwise have forgotten.  Whatever, whether it was words Jesus' own voice had spoken in their hearing, or the inspiration of the Holy Spirit whispering to their minds and in their hearts, all had to be proclaimed without fear.

How can we today learn from Jesus’ sending His Apostles then?

The Twelve were being sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to a people that is who had been prepared over thousands of years to hopefully hear, understand, and embrace their message:

Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave.  As you enter a house, wish it peace. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you. Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words—go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet.  Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.      (Matthew 10: 11-15)

Jesus’ words and intentions still offer wise guidance for us who want to be His true disciples in our modern world where rejection of God is rampant and the exaltation of human ‘virtues’, values, and expectations is blatant and verging on the devilish at times.  I think that St. Paul – suffering for his love of Jesus’ truth in the proudly pagan times of the Roman Empire at its lustiest under Augustus -- has better advice for men and women of today than government representatives and popular social demagogues:

The one who sows for his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit.   (Galatians 6:8)

People of God, there are many pseudo-disciples of Jesus today -- in our own society and in our Western world -- who are afraid of the consequences that might result for them if they were to publicly support/proclaim the teaching of Jesus, for such teaching is not popular today, just as Jesus Himself is not popular.  Of course, almost everyone today will say that Jesus was a good man, indeed, a great man; but what they do not like about Him, is His claim to have a Personal calling and authority; and indeed, above all, to have a Divine dignity, which obliges all who acknowledge Him and His appreciate His Gospel to decide either for Him or against Him in this proudly sinful world.  Deciding for Him could oblige them to keep His word at the risk of public derision or opprobrium; while, on the other hand, deciding against Him might threaten their eternal destiny:

Whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words in this faithless and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels.  (Mark 8:38)

Therefore, despite His great goodness, beautiful truth, and sublime promises, this Jesus of authority is unacceptable to modern society, as is the authoritative teaching of His Church.  We have to recognize, People of God, that in this -- our devilishly proud and irreligious world -- proclamation of the name of  Jesus and of His Gospel does not necessarily involve, and most certainly does not mean, arguing with enemies; nor does it involve constantly trying to persuade incorrigible people.  What proclamation does mean, however, is clear and confident, and if necessary, courageous, witness to what is true and beautiful in the Catholic Christian Gospel; something that can only be done by patient and persevering testimony.

For priests and leaders of the people, there can be, at times, an almost overwhelming temptation to seek success by flirting with popularity.  Jesus, however, wanted love leading to self-commitment, not popularity that feeds on enthusiasm and cries out to be surrounded by others, similarly excited.  Jesus’ message was neither intended nor phrased to provoke or promote His own popularity, rather He deliberately sought to challenge, inspire, and then convert, individual consciences before and for His Father.

Jesus therefore sought to comfort and strengthen the Twelve by explaining:

Fear no one.  Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.

There will be a final denouement, a day of judgment when all false colours will be lowered in shame, all injustices corrected, and when all who have suffered for God will be both acknowledged and rewarded.

St. Paul followed the mind and took up the purpose of Jesus when he told his converts in Corinth who were seeking to overcome the notorious corruption and depravity of that great sea-port:

The natural person does not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, for to him it is foolishness, and he cannot understand it, because it is judged spiritually.  

And, because the Christian message is ultimately about redemption through the Cross of Jesus, St. Paul said quite clearly (1 Corinthians 1:18, 25): 

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.   

Therefore, for the Church and for all God's good people, there will inevitably be much obloquy, suffering, and disadvantage to be experienced and indeed embraced in our time on earth, in the course of which we are neither to fear nor rebel; for both fear and rebellion come from looking at ourselves, our situation and our possibilities, whereas our hopes and expectations as Christians should all be centred on God. 

Jesus Himself offered His disciples three motives for rejecting fear.  First of all, if you are going to fear, He said, at least fear Him Who is supremely powerful:

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him Who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.  

That is basic reality, and all true spirituality has to be built on reality.  However, Jesus did not limit Himself to correcting earthly fears with the greater threat of supernatural loss.  Such a corrective measure can indeed hold a man back from sin, but it will hardly ever lead one to virtue, let alone love.  Therefore, He gave the apostles, and us, further advice:

Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will.  Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.  

We must remember and realize that our natural fear is meant to relate us above all to the God Who made us, for fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and at times only a healthy fear of the Lord can save us from the solicitations of sin and the morally corrosive fear of men.  On that basis, however, since love is the truest motive power of any human being’s life, we must then learn to love God aright, and that we begin to do by recognizing and embracing the fact of having been long-loved ourselves.  That is why Jesus make beautifully clear to His apostles the heavenly Father’ love for them:

            Why, the very hairs of your head are all numbered by the heavenly Father;

Therefore, let us confidently commit ourselves to the Spirit of the Lord constantly working in Mother Church and in our personal, targeted, lives; and thus allow Him to lead us along the way of the Lord and Saviour we know and love, into the presence of Him Who is above all, in all, and through all, the One eternal Father, waiting to embrace us, in Jesus, as His own truly adopted, and beloved children for eternity.

11th Sunday Year A, 2023

 

(Exodus 19:2-6; Romans 5:6-11; Matthew 9:36 –10:8)

 

In the first reading we heard what the Lord expected of the house of Israel after having rescued them, through Moses, from their slavery in Egypt:

'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself.  Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all peoples; for all the earth is Mine.  And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'  

That love for the children of Abraham which had led God to thus save Israel from slavery, was now moving Him to exalt them yet further by offering to make them into a holy nation and a kingdom of priests for the glory of His Name and the benefit of mankind:

Now, if you obey Me, (although) all the earth is Mine, you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

However, Israel did not come – thanks to the hatred of the Temple Authorities and the jealous opposition of the Scribes and Pharisees -- to fully recognize Jesus as the Son sent by God, His heavenly Father, for mankind’s salvation.  And so, God has done an even greater work In our New Testament times for those Israelites who did form the original members of Jesus’ Apostolic community, and all those Gentiles who subsequently have come to believe in His name and walk in His ways, as St. Paul tells us:

While we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  One will hardly die for a righteous man -- though perhaps for a good man someone would dare even to die -- but God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, shall we be saved from the wrath of God by His life.

God has -- through Jesus -- freed us, not just from external slavery such as Israel suffered in Egypt, but from the far more insidious, oppressive and destructive, slavery to sin and death. And what is yet inconceivably much more, He offers us an opportunity to win eternal happiness and personal fulfilment in heaven as His adopted children in Jesus.

Having done that wondrous work of salvation for us through His beloved Son Jesus, God now calls us, as Jesus’ true disciples in Mother Church, to participate in that glorious work now to be accomplished, of continuing Jesus’ mission by extending God’s offer of salvation to the whole of mankind and to the end of time:

For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.  (Psalm 100:5)

Therefore, it is no surprise that we find in the Gospel that:

When (Jesus) saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.  Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few.  Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest."

We can understand a little something of the compassion of Jesus as He looked on the crowd, for we know from our own experience of life in a trans-gender, disbelieving and irreligious world, that there is no happiness in sin or spiritual ignorance: for just as sin inevitably breeds harm, hurt, death, and revenge, so does ignorance of our spiritual calling, debase our humanity.  Even for those deliberately taking no account of sin,  our earthly life offers no real fulfilment of itself: because such a ‘sinless’ life inevitably involves frustrations and compromises of all sorts, that is, it is faceless, without fulfilment, and always ends in suffering and loss, that is, in death of which the confines open only to the voice of Jesus calling His sheep to obey the Spirit He has sent them, and walk confidently in His ways to their heavenly home.

Jesus’ loving obedience to His Father led Him to sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, so great was the need of mankind, so real our servitude to the horror of sin, and so consuming the Devil’s hatred for this Man from Nazareth!

That is why -- having done such a glorious work through, and at such cost to, His beloved Son -- God the Father now wants us to continue that work of His Son, in the power of His Spirit sent by the risen Jesus to be with us for ever.  This, dear people, is not an optional matter; it is something we need to do or else risk losing our share in the salvation won for us through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, by slipping back into the worldly ‘business-of-life’ concerns, and the search for satisfactions along the way.

Obviously, we are not all called to be missionaries in the sense of priests and religious going out in the name of Christ and His Church to foreign lands, leaving home, family, and all earthly prospects.  We are, however, all called and obliged to help the spread of the Good News of Jesus.  This we can and must do, FIRST OF ALL, by fighting against sin and the devil in our own lives  All of us must, in that way, share the mission of the Church to save mankind in the name of Christ; for just as our personal, private, sins harm the whole Church, so too, our personal, even hidden, virtues benefit the whole Body of Christ.  None of us are unable to fulfil that work of becoming a healthy member of the Body of Christ, thanks to the power which Jesus gives through the presence in Mother Church and in our lives of His most Holy Spirit.   

There are many and varied ways to serve as truly apostolic witnesses to Jesus, which, according to our circumstances and our gifts, are for our choice, as Jesus showed us when, for example, He said (Mark 14:7):

You have the poor with you always, and whenever you wish you may do them good.

But, dear People of God, do notice those few words He then went to add:

            But Me you do not have always.

Those are heart-stopping, stupendous, words for all walking lovingly along the ways of Jesus.  Love of Jesus, love of God, is not something one can put off to a later date, a better situation!  Love of God, love of Jesus, can only be grasped, seized, if and when offered by the Spirit-at-work-your- heart, disciple of Jesus!!

And when that happens, yes …. at the very beginning, thank the Holy Spirit, and pray that He may lead you ever on and on, to truer love for Jesus and the Father Who sent Him,  and ultimately to a death with Him, in the Spirit, for the Father

Corpus Christi, Year A

(Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16; 1 Corinthians 10: 16-17; John 6:51-58)

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Dear People of God, today we learn what lengths Jesus went to in order to make people think about, pay attention to, what He was saying; He did not aim to be popular, but He did, most passionately, want to be understood.

In the gospel reading He declared:

I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the world.

As you might well imagine, the Jews were outraged at such words and murmured among themselves:

            How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

What did Jesus do?  He went on to say something yet more difficult for pious Jews even to hear let alone accept:

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life in you.

For a Jew, that last statement was absolutely outrageous because it seemed quite contrary to the command God had given Noah and his sons in the beginning:

God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.  Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs; but you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”   (Genesis 9:1-4)

This same command was, moreover, given its crowning confirmation in the Law itself given to Moses on Mount Sinai (Leviticus 7:26-27):

You shall not eat any blood in any of your dwellings, whether of bird or beast.  Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.

What then is the significance of the blood?  Let us learn more from the Old Testament books of Leviticus (17:11) and Deuteronomy (12:23, 27):

The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. 

Be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life; you may not eat the life with the meat.  The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the LORD your God, and you shall eat the meat.

Our faith teaches us that God is Life, and when we hear from the Old Testament prophets that the life of the flesh is in the blood, indeed the blood is the life, therefore we can understand why the Law said that blood of what lives belongs to God and cannot by drunk by man but must be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God. 

Why, therefore, did Jesus speak so provocatively to the Jews by first of all saying, “eat My flesh” and then following it up by the even more provocatively objectionable words, “drink My blood”?   What was He trying to express that was so important, so sublimely important, that He felt the need to go to such lengths in order to make His hearers give close attention to, and think deeply about, what He was saying?

First of all, He wanted to show the sacrificial character of His forthcoming death:

The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the LORD your God.

However, and above all my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, here we are given a startlingly clear picture of the uniquely Christian awareness of the mystery of God’s love for us, as also of the divine humility of Jesus.  For, although Jesus’ blood -- the Blood of the God’s only begotten Son -- was most sinfully poured out by us, nevertheless, as St. Paul (Ephesians 2:4) assures us:

God, Who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us;

turned that supreme evil into a supreme blessing:

Even when we were dead in trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ.

In the light of the Christian revelation and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we learn that, by being allowed to eat the Body and drink the Blood of Jesus we are thereby able to imbibe life – divine life, eternal life -- and ultimately attain to a share in the Sonship of Christ Himself!!  

How great is the Father’s love for us, People of God!   The blood of all creatures pertains to Him Who is the Lord of Life; how dear beyond all measure, therefore, how unutterably precious, is the Blood of His only-begotten Son-made-flesh? The humiliation which Jesus so lovingly embraced out of obedience to His Father and out of compassion for us is beyond our comprehension: pouring out His Most Precious Blood, as it were, for our use, our profit, for our blessing, and ultimately, for our salvation!!

How sublimely, then, is that text of Leviticus fulfilled:

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given It (the Blood of the Immaculate Lamb of God) to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the Blood that makes atonement for the soul (and this blood is the most Precious Blood of the Risen and eternally living Son of God, made Man). 

People of God, we live in evil times, we live in a society which condones, and indeed admires, all sorts of excesses: a society which, too often, teaches its children to get, not give; to seek for pleasure rather than practice discipline; to seek advantage and success rather than strive for honour and integrity.  We Catholics however, in response to God’s wondrous love, we -- as disciples of Jesus – must remember the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs (9:6) where we read:

Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.

And here we can advance markedly by appreciating another, essential, aspect of Jesus’ insistence that we eat His flesh and drink His blood.

In our world money is supreme, and most of it -- and consequently most of the world’s advantages and benefits -- goes to those who are top-dogs or already rich, the important ones, the famous and the popular; while the underdogs, the poor, the insignificant and the unpopular, have to be satisfied with what remains over.  Jesus saw it all and warned His disciples:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. (Matthew 20:25)

Jesus knew that such a situation was the expression of sin’s presence in the world, and having become Man in order to conquer sin and bring redemption for mankind, He therefore went on to say:

It shall not be so among you.

To that end, therefore, Jesus insisted repeatedly that no one could be saved by their own native genius or power of whatever sort: personal salvation cannot be won or acquired by personal endeavour, advantage, or success, using natural talents, it can only be received as a gift subsequent on a personal encounter with, and loving response to, Jesus.

Jesus speaks of His own Body and Blood:

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life in you.  Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life;

to make it absolutely clear that the supreme blessing of salvation and eternal life can, ultimately, only come to men from without ourselves; that is, as Jesus’, God’s, gift.

In Jesus’ Church, in preparation for the coming Kingdom of God, all thus start, once again, on an equal footing  (1 Corinthians 10:16-17):

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ?  The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the Body of Christ?  For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one Bread.   

That ‘one bread and one cup’ are the source of all grace and every blessing for us, and on receiving them we encounter Christ, the Risen Lord, Himself; and, in that encounter we are in the presence of, and alone with, Him: there is no one else listening to our conversation; we are free to say, ask for, what we want, totally free to be ourselves with Him Who knows, and what is much more, appreciates, not only who we are but also what we want to be.  St. Paul (Galatians 4:9) puts it this way:

Now you have known God, or rather are known by God.

My dear People, whatever natural gifts each of us may have are not given us solely to further our own personal advancement and salvation, they are bestowed upon us also for the benefit of the society in which we live and, indeed, of the whole world.  Eternal salvation will only be ours as a result of our personal encounter of faith, and relationship of love, with and in response to Jesus, present among us as Christ and Saviour above all in the Eucharist; an encounter and relationship to be sustained, developed, and deepened by our correspondence with the inspirational guidance of His own Most Holy Spirit in our daily living and final dying as St. Paul (Ephesians 5:15–20) advised his converts:

Watch carefully then how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore, do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of the Lord;  giving thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.

Indeed, giving thanks above all for the wondrous beauty and goodness, the infinite mercy and compassion, of God our Father made manifest to us in and through the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus His Son and our Redeemer.

We must realize, therefore, that although we are obliged to struggle at times in order to resist and overcome earthly inclinations which would lead us, through sin and self-indulgence, to death beyond the grave; nevertheless, as disciples of Jesus, our life as a whole should rather be experienced as, and characterized by, an ever deepening and developing awareness of the love and beauty both surrounding and awaiting us, as we learn, in Jesus, so to love our heavenly Father, that we ultimately receive -- as children of God -- a share in the heavenly inheritance of His beloved Son, thanks to the saving grace won for us by Jesus and bestowed upon us throughout our earthly pilgrimage by His Most Holy Spirit.   To the One God, therefore, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be all glory, praise, and honour, for ever and ever.    Amen.

Trinity Sunday, Year A

(Exodus 34:4-6, 8-9; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; John 3:16-18)

 

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  But whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 

 

Dear Catholic and Christian People, Jesus came among us -- was ‘sent by His Father’ as He loved to say -- as perfect God and perfect man, and believers in Him were and are able to receive everlasting life because, as Word-of-God-made-flesh, Jesus was and is life itself.

 

Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus of Nazareth, does not merely represent God’s love for us but presents, offers, it to us in a way most supremely ‘accessible’ for our human minds and hearts, by the Gift of His most Holy Spirit and His own Eucharistic Presence.   That is why whoever does not believe has already been condemned -- not by God however, but by him or her-self – because whoever will not accept God’s love, obviously cannot be embraced by the eternal God and must therefore perish, for God is life.

 

That, dear People of God, is a fact of the spiritual life.

 

Just as whoever will not eat food, drink water, or breath air, will thereby die; so whoever wills not, chooses not, to believe in God’s only-begotten Son among us, will, thereby and therefore, die spiritually and eternally.   And that is in no way cruel, dear People of God, for there is nothing cruel in a fact of life as St. Paul insists (Romans 9:20):

Will what is made, say to its maker, ‘Why have you created me so?’    

 

Originally, God did not create us in His own likeness so that we might be free to run wild like the animals, free to just grow in beauty and stature like the plants.  After the devil had deceived Adam and Eve, He sent His only-begotten Son to become one of us, One with us, that He might re-create us according to His Father’s plan because of His unfailing obedience-human-flesh to His Father’s commands, about which Jesus said:

 

The Father Himself Who sent Me has given Me a commandment (and) I know that His commandment is eternal life. (John 12: 49-50)

 

By such loving obedience in our flesh to the very end of His life on earth, Jesus, rose again, taking our flesh to eternal life, so that each one of us -- by the help of His most Holy Spirit -- might ourselves become redeemed flesh as members of His mystical Body -- able to thrive before God, and thus fulfil God’s original plan that His human creation might find fulfilment of being – mind, heart, body and soul – by giving thanks, praise and glory to God the Father of all in the beatitude of heaven.

 

Jesus of Nazareth is, for us, the Way (in His Body), the Truth (in His teaching and example), and the Life (by the power and inspiration of His saving Death and Resurrection, now offered to us by the Gift of His Most Holy Spirit).

 

After His bar-mitzva youthful experience of God His Father mediated to Him by the Liturgy of the Temple in Jerusalem (‘My Father’s house’), Jesus spent eighteen years in Nazareth working with Joseph and waiting for His heavenly Father’s call.  He eventually learned  of John the Baptist’s ministry and, it would seem, in order to admire His Father’s work through John, and to draw as physically close as possible to that manifest Presence, He left His mother and home at Nazareth and went to witness John’s baptizing in the Jordan where -- to His Father’s great joy – He, the Son of God – humbly joined Himself to those confessing pilgrims and humble penitents; showing Himself thereby to be indeed, even instinctively, truly also a Son of Man.

 

That inspiration to leave Nazareth and search for His Father was a direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, not just a deeply spiritual aspiration born of the Temple liturgy as before years before.  And so, this decisive act of Jesus was authenticated most manifestly by the Father embracing His Son and bestowing the Holy Spirit upon Him before John the Baptist’s very eyes, so that He -- the unknown from Nazareth -- was now publicly endowed to inaugurate His public mission of salvation and redemption for mankind, and seal the ultimate destruction of Satan and his strangle-hold over men.

 

Likewise, when Jesus later took Peter, James, and John with Him to the mountain top where He was transfigured before them, surely it was, at that most decisive moment, the Spirit’s direct inspiration and the Father’s will that brought Jesus where the Father wanted to glorify Him before His specially chosen disciples, and where, with the witness and testimony of Moses and Elijah representing all those prophets and martyrs who, at God’s behest, had throughout OT times spoken of and worked for the Messiah’s advent to Israel, He willed to strengthen, enlighten, and embolden His beloved Son before the trials so ominously awaiting  and threatening Him.  

 

Let us therefore, dear People of God, try live out our spiritual life in a ‘Trinitarian’ way, so to speak, ever seeking with Jesus, following His teaching and His example, for the Father in all things, under the power and spiritual guidance guidance of His most Holy Spirit, bestowed on us through His sacraments, above all the most holy Eucharist, and in our own patient obedience and personal loving prayer.

 

Before my Catholic days, as an aspiring lieder and concert hall singer, I was for several years at the Royal Academy of Music in London and I sought to take advantage of what that great city offered by hearing as much music of the highest quality as I could.  My aim was not so much to continually and critically assess with my mind what I heard but to imbibe into my very being what was beautiful and true musically … and even today nearly 70 years I still delight to hear ‘my’ local blackbirds giving me wonderful lessons on tonal quality and voice production!

 

Now that is not unlike my present aspiration to living the spiritual life in a ‘Trinitarian’ way.   Try to live with Jesus as much as possible, dear People of God!

 

Just as a blackbird can still always speak to, teach, me about singing; let Catechism doctrine, may holy reading, Catholic devotions, and the lessons of life itself -- such as gratitude for blessings of both happiness and suffering that have deepened your understanding and beautified your appreciation of life – give access and opportunity for the Holy Spirit to speak to you about Jesus, and about the Father’s amazing love for you.

 

It is a matter of patiently wanting and longing; not trying to think, imagine, work out, for there is so much of self in such endeavours.  Infinitely better, consider what the Psalmist (51:8) says of God:

 

            Behold You desire true sincerity, and secretly You teach me wisdom.

           

It is by constantly wanting, hoping, watching, waiting, and longing for Him and ever-asking Him to teach you about God, the Father, Who is, as Jesus Himself said,

 

            My God and your God, My Father and your Father.

 

Here we should most profitably recall Our Blessed Lady, Mother Church’s supreme model and example, in her love for Jesus, who, Scripture tells us, ‘treasured all these things in her heart’.    Dear People of God, let Mary help you, may the Holy Spirit lead and ‘inspire’ you, to know and ever more appreciate the wondrous beauty and purity of Mother Church’s doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and to celebrate it both humbly and whole-heartedly in your own personal liturgy of love and admiration, prayer and thanksgiving, and life-long endeavour.

(2023)