(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)
