The Most Holy Trinity (Year A) 2014

The Most Holy Trinity (A)

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

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Catholic doctrine concerning the Most Holy Trinity is, in the strictest sense, a mystery of faith; a mystery known to us only due to the fact that it has been revealed to us by God: by hints and suggestions in the Old Testament Scriptures, and above all, in the New Testament, by the most intimate words of Jesus’ lived relationship of loving obedience before His Father and by His promised sending of the Holy Spirit to be our unfailing Helper, and the fulfiller of all Jesus’ prospects and purposes for us.

Notice that, People of God: the Most Holy Trinity was first, and is best, revealed through Jesus’ own loving relationships with His Father and the Holy Spirit, before ever it came to be -- in theological discussion, and even at times in monastic liturgy -- an almost mathematical conception: ‘One in Three’ and ‘Three in One’, even, most amazingly, ‘una Unitas’ (one unity!).   This most holy mystery does indeed necessarily involve our making use of the mathematical concepts of one and three, but, in itself, it always and exclusively concerns PERSONAL relationships of divinely ecstatic love and total commitment, in an absolute oneness of Unique Being.

There is also another thought to be born in mind whereby this ‘mystery’ becomes more easily and lovingly understandable:  none of us knows the most intimate depths of the mind and heart of those we love, even perhaps most dearly.   In the beginning we have to trust the sincerity of their expressive words and actions; only later on, when we have learnt through experience and thereby come to greater maturity, we trust them themselves.   But always, we must trust; because Personality is inviolable, and is indeed that likeness to Himself originally given us by God as His special creation:

            Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.  (Genesis 1:26) 

Faith characterises lovers everywhere, and the need for Christian faith is not alien to our nature nor does it make God inaccessibly distant.  Faith and trust only -- but indeed supremely -- add in human relationships the aspect of difference we frequently call attractiveness and beauty; so too with God, the awesome transcendence of omniscient wisdom and unfailing goodness.  

Jesus makes this known to us in the Gospels where He declares that there is only one true God; that He Himself is the Son of God, truly God, distinct from and sent by His Father, and that the Holy Spirit is God, sent by the Father and the Son to console and enlighten, strengthen and sustain, His Christian people.

Intimately present to One another through absolute knowledge and perfect understanding, bound together in inexpressible unity of love and purpose, the Blessed Trinity is the model for, and can be the goal and fulfilment of, our lives as personal beings.  For through the gift of sanctifying grace we are admitted to the fellowship of the three divine Persons: we are, by faith, baptized into Christ, and He, the Word of God, gives us knowledge of and access to the Father; and together, the Father and the Son infuse the Spirit of Love into our souls, and the Holy Spirit comes with all His gifts which, if we respond, will lead us to the perfection of the life of grace.

The Father is the One for Whom we live and to Whom we aspire; the Son the One with Whom we live and through Whom we learn; the Spirit is Him by Whom we live and in Whom we trust.

The Father sends His Son to us and gives Him for us; Jesus is sent by the Father and bestows the Spirit; the Spirit is the Gift of both Father and Son.

The Father calls us; the Jesus accompanies us and guides us; the Spirit inspires and sustains us.

Such individuality, such complementarity, such Unity!

And that is why Christians, being called to share the divine life, have over many centuries aspired to a gradually more perfect society … to build up a culture where  each and every one seeks to attain his or her individual maturity as members of a heavenly society on earth, where no one lives for self alone but all for each other and all together for God; where no one uses his neighbour for his own personal advantage; where violence and hatred have neither right nor entrance; and where the satisfaction of personal fulfilment is only full-fulfilment when it is crowned with the much deeper joy of thereby contributing to the fulfilment of the whole community.

When Christian society is, today, apparently breaking down in many parts of the world, due to the sins of Christians, the attacks of secularist and atheistic ideologies, and the mindless arrogance and violence of extremists who at times show themselves to be quite specially gifted in the expression of human hatred, we must ever recall with gratitude and hope that the most beautiful and inspiring doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity is still able to inspire, to work in and transform, all who believe in and commit themselves to Jesus.   Such aspirations, both personal and social, are not just beautiful ideals or secret dreams, they are possibilities, realities, which can ultimately be ours; because we are already, by faith and by God’s Gift, partakers in the power and beauty of divine life.

And associated most intimately with this Christian teaching and Catholic doctrine about the Most Holy Trinity is the most intense and beautiful love story that history has to speak of.

At the Last Supper, St. John tells us (30:1ss.):

Jesus knew that His hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, (and loving) His own in the world, He loved them to the end.  So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God, He rose from supper and took off His outer garments.  He took a towel and tied it around His waist.  Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet.  

He then went on (Luke 22:14ss.) to make not only a rare manifestation of His own intimate Personal emotions and feelings but also a most delicate and self-humbling invitation to His disciples to share them with Him:

            I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;

words which can only be related to those He had earlier used to prepare His disciples for the very event that was now imminent and threatening:

There is a baptism with which I must be baptized and how great is My anguish until it is accomplished!  (Luke 12:50)

In such circumstances Jesus entered upon what was to be the culmination of this their special meeting together and the fulfilment of His coming as Son of Man and Saviour of mankind; He instituted His final gift of Self:

            This is My Body which will be given for you; do this in memory of Me;

            This cup is the new covenant in My Blood which will be shed for you.

 The very prospect of the physical and spiritual torments that would actually be involved in that gift of His body and blood were subsequently to cause Him such instinctive horror in the Garden of Gethsemane that (Luke 22:43s.):

 

To strengthen Him an angel from heaven appeared to Him.  He was in such agony and He prayed so fervently that His sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground. 

And yet, He brought that Supper with His disciples, for which He had so ardently longed (‘with desire I desired’ translated literally) to a conclusion with those most sublime words of total love and selfless commitment (John 14:30-15:1):

I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming.  He has no power over Me, but THE WORLD MUST KNOW THAT I LOVE THE FATHER and that I do just as the Father commanded Me.  Get up, let us go.

Whereupon, leading His disciples out of that Upper Room, He led them, singing, to the Garden of Gethsemane,  where, in the most intimate presence of but three -- the chosen three -- of His disciples, the torments of His Passion began to take hold of Him:

            My soul is sorrowful even to death. (Matthew 26:38)

Dear People of God, the Catholic and Christian mystery of the Most Holy Trinity expresses and enshrines such wondrous beauty and sublime truths!  Let us thank God today, for this mystery can truly be said to contain,  as in a vital kernel, the whole of Jesus’ revelation to us and hopes for us:

All power in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.   Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age. (Mt.  28:18–20)

 

Pentecost Sunday (A) 2014

PENTECOST SUNDAY (A)                                

   (Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11; 1^st. Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23)

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My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are celebrating one of the three greatest solemnities enshrined in the liturgy of the Church: Pentecost, in honour of the Most Holy Spirit and the part He plays in the building up of Mother Church, and of our own individual lives as members of Christ.  There is much of beauty to be said about the Holy Spirit, so let me make a beginning with the words of St. Paul which you have just heard in the second reading:

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service, but the same Lord; there are different workings, but the same God Who produces all of them in everyone.  

There are different callings for all sorts of people, but each and every one of those called is offered the same Spirit that He may both enable and guide them to suitably respond to their calling: as the Apostle of England, Pope St. Gregory the Great explained, “we are called to make the effort, and we go out to battle; but it is the Lord who does the fighting: the result is up to Him.”   There are different forms of service, Paul went on to say, but the same Lord: for whatever work we do by the same Spirit in Mother Church, is to be done in the name of, and for love of, the one Lord Jesus.  Finally, there are different workings, but the same God and Father Whose loving Providence orders everything we do to serve His ultimate purposes for the harmony and good of all; and St. Paul tells us elsewhere just what God’s ultimate purposes are, when he writes:

You are the temple of the living God; as God said: “I will live with them and move among them, and I will be their God and they shall be My people. (2 Corinthians 6:16)

Each of us, then, is called to serve our Lord and Saviour by making use of the gifts His Spirit offers us, and, in that way – by the loving Providence of God the Father – to help build a Temple for God’s Glory, and work out our eternal salvation as St. Paul explains further:

The foundation ….. is Jesus Christ.    If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it. It will be revealed by fire, and the fire (itself) will test the quality of each one’s work. If the work stands that someone built upon the foundation, that person will receive a wage. But if someone’s work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:11-15)

In the first reading you heard how the Apostles first received the Gift of the Spirit and began to work under His guidance:

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.  Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.   At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.

Peter made use of his own particular gifts of the Spirit to proclaim the name of the Lord Jesus, and we are told (Acts 2:41) that:

Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand persons were added to (the disciples’ number) that day.

Or, as Jesus Himself more beautifully expressed it on a later occasion, the Father gave Him three thousand souls that day.

If we likewise, as living members and integral parts of the one Body of Christ, open our hearts to receive the Spirit, each of us will be given a share in the Spirit’s gifts whereby we will be enabled to do our own personal quota of work to prepare for and give expression to the ultimate beauty and variety of God’s Temple of glory.

All the parts of the body, though many, are one body. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body (of Christ) -- whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or freepersons -- and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.  The Body is not a single part but many.  (1 Corinthians 12:12-15)

There is another reason, however, for our different gifts: it is because we ourselves are all different; each one of us is a particular creation of God with our own unique personality.  Now, in the service of Jesus, the gift of the Spirit is meant indeed to make us all one, but not, however, all alike; and so the Spirit comes to make each one of us both a truly harmonious part and living member of the one Body of Christ, and also to lead us to become our very own self such as God originally foresaw, loved, and intended when He created us.  In God, individuality is meant to serve, beautify, and perfect unity.

 Let me give you a picture from the Fathers of the Church.  Water, as you know, is often used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, and supremely in the sacrament of baptism.  Now water coming down from heaven as rain falls for and upon all plants alike: water falls upon the ground and feeds the vine and the apple tree, the crops and the vegetables, to name but a few.  That same water in the soil, however, produces eventually wine, thanks to the vine, and cider thanks to the apple tree.  Seeds in the field, thanks to the one water from heaven bring forth now wheat, or barley; now parsnips or potatoes, each according to its own nature.  So it is with us, dear People of God.  We should delight in and treasure God’s Gift offered to us today, for it is only by His gracious dwelling with us and working in us that we can realise and fulfil our true and secret selves, for the good of all our brethren and for the supreme glory of God our Father.

St. John tells of an event which occurred in Jerusalem at the great Feast of Booths:

On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and exclaimed, “Let anyone who thirsts come to Me and drink.  Whoever believes in Me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’”  He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in Him were to receive. There was, of course, no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.  (John 7:37-39)

Now Jesus prepares His Apostles and His Church for all those countless peoples who, over the centuries, will come to Him, thirsting for the gift of His Spirit.  He directs His Apostles to go out to all peoples in His name:

Peace be with you!  As the Father sent Me, I also send you.

And then, in order that His promise of living water might find fulfilment:

He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

The Apostles could not give the Spirit of themselves, He had first of all to be bestowed on them by Jesus; only then could He subsequently be conferred by them in the name of Jesus.  But lest there be obstacles of sin in those asking for God’s Gift and wanting to offer themselves for His purposes, Jesus tells His Apostles:

Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them; and whose sins you retain are retained.

People of God, recognize and reverence the dignity of Mother Church.  To establish, to guide, and to sustain His Church Jesus gives His own most Holy Spirit; only in Mother Church can we find and receive the fullness of the Spirit, and only in Mother Church can our souls be cleansed and freed from sin in order to worthily receive and fruitfully co-operate with Him.

In matters such as this we must not blindly follow our sinful times.  Sins can be forgiven by God alone, is not enough that your neighbour or your friend understands you; it is not enough, in fact it is no excuse at all, that you are only doing what many people are doing; it would not enough even if a secularist government were to give you the legal right and their public encouragement to act contrary to Catholic teaching, as, for example, with abortive and contraceptive measures, for sin can only be removed and wiped out by God’s forgiveness.  Therefore Jesus gives His Apostles and His Church the power first of all to forgive sins and then to bestow the Holy Spirit.  None can receive the Spirit from the Church who is unwilling to seek forgiveness through the sacraments of the Church.

However, this emphasis on the need for sins to be forgiven is but the reverse side of the most awesome and wonderful truth offered us by the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives at Pentecost.  Our heavenly, supernatural, destiny is to live and share with Jesus in the heavenly beatitude of the most Holy Trinity: to personally experience something of the divine love that flows between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the eternal peace of Their mutual and total commitment.

Notice, that relationship between the sharing of divine love and peace.  Jesus, having risen from the dead in His glorious humanity comes to His disciples and says, first of all:

            Peace be with you!

The disciples rejoiced greatly on recognizing the living Lord Who had suffered and died on the Cross; but Jesus, speaking a second time, insisted, ‘Peace be with you’.  He was about to bestow on them the most holy ‘Promise of My Father’ (Luke 24:49), His own most sublime Spirit … and for that, Peace was most necessary, much more necessary even than joy.  Peace was essential to both welcome aright and then learn to hear and respond to the Holy Spirit, the ‘Gift’ of God:

The Spirit of Truth -- Whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him -- you know Him, because He abides with you and He will be in you.   (John 14:17)

Only the Holy Spirit -- working in us and with us here on earth -- can form us in the likeness of Jesus so that in Him we may ultimately be led by Him into the sublime Presence of the Father of Glory.   When, therefore, God demands that we must be purified from our sins, He is not interested in morbid nit-picking, nor is He tyrannically demanding total and legalistic observance of His own arbitrary laws and observances; He is seeking to help us become -- in Jesus His beloved Son -- His own adopted children, able to share with their Saviour in ‘the glory He had with the Father before the world was’.

People of God, come forward with rejoicing on this day to receive the Gift of the Spirit from Jesus Himself anew in Holy Communion.  The Spirit alone can make you truly free, and enable you to experience the fullness of divine love and peace; indeed, He alone can make you fully your own true self, a unique reflection of the Father Who created you, in the Lord Who saved you, by the Spirit Who moves you.

                               

Ascension of Our Lord, Year A, 2014

ASCENSION OF OUR LORD (A)      

   

   (Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:17-23; Matthew 28:16-20)

At the end of his Gospel St. Matthew keeps our attention firmly focussed on Jesus: he does not tell us about the promised Gift of the Spirit to be awaited with prayerful expectation and hope by the disciples, he fixes our minds on Jesus alone:

Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain  which Jesus had appointed for them.  When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying,

All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  Go therefore and  make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. 

All authority has been given to Jesus but He is going away; He is not, apparently, going to use this authority, not, that is, in the eyes of the world.  The glorious work of making disciples of all the nations is to be accomplished by His disciples, His glory is to be theirs not His, so far as the world will be able to judge (John 14:12):

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. 

This is in accordance with a consistent principle of Jesus He gives His own Self, He gives us His own Spirit, to help us in all things and to make us, in Himself, adopted sons and daughters for the glory of His Father; on the other hand, He takes our sins upon Himself and subsequently, consistently seeks to glorify us while, apparently, disappearing into the background Himself: 

In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God. (Jn. 16:26s.)

Indeed, Jesus even goes so far on one occasion to speak of the Spirit and of the Father in our regard while omitting to mention Himself altogether (Mt. 10:19-20):

When they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

The reason why the world hated Jesus and still hates Him and His, is not because of His human character, which is universally admired by all unbiased students of His life; no, the great trouble, so to speak, with Jesus, is that He claims authority over us, and intends to make us divine in Himself, using His divine ‘version’ of our humanity to wipe out our sin and, ultimate, to totally destroy the sin of the word!!

Worldly men and women want to live morally-carefree lives, they want to feel themselves free to enjoy any, if not all, of the worldly pleasures available.  Many modern scientists, delighting aright in their rational ability to scan and thereby gradually conquer the universe, cannot bear to think of mankind being in any way above and beyond their rational observations, calculations, and hypotheses: there must be other planets beside this earth where mankind – or the likeness of mankind -- is to be found; there is no such thing as a soul to make man essentially spiritual rather than merely natural, totally observable and predictable; sin is nothing real, and personal responsibility is a degrading myth.  Mankind, many hold, is merely a most superb machine, governed by genes, and showing pre-determined attitudes and reflexes; Christian marriage is inhuman; and the Christian faith is not only an illusion, but even criminally judgmental.

Today’s celebration of Our Lord’s Ascension is -- for such opponents -- another example, indeed, perhaps the supreme example, of the objectionable nature of Christianity:  for it tells us, they say, that Jesus goes away; goes away to pray, in order to effect the ultimate change on earth.  Yes, it is the central teaching of Christianity that good -- all good -- comes from God, by the gift of God, for the glory of God; and the great glory of human beings is that they are made for, in the likeness of, God: able to delight in and respond to His Personal Self-communication and Gift; called to sing His praises and to glorify His Name by serving as a channel for the  exercise and extension of His saving power on earth; and ultimately to find supreme peace and eternal fulfilment in His presence.

People of God, we who humbly and gratefully accept the authority of Jesus, can joyfully appreciate why, on this wondrous day, He should say (Mt. 22:38-40):

‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.  

He loved us, He seeks our glory at His own expense -- according to human standards -- in all things; and today, He is gone to the Father, is eternally with the Father, though never leaving us alone.  The Father’s glory and our salvation, that was always and is eternally Jesus’ aim and purpose; and He has left us – His disciples aspiring to be living members of His glorious Body – His own example, His words, and His Holy Spirit in the sacraments with which He has endowed His Church.

The Ascension of Our Lord is a ludicrous scandal to most of the exponents and expounders of modern scientific thought.   They can only accept as real what can be seen in some way and correspondingly measured, what can be tested, replicated and repeated.  But when you think on that, it means that scientific thought has a strictly limited awareness and minimal appreciation of our human life and experience.  It can stir us to the most sincere admiration and indeed astonishment for its discovery of innumerable facts and forces, both great and small, that govern and hold sway within us and without us in our universe; it does indeed provide us with food and all sorts of instruments and appliances that make life healthier, easier and more comfortable; it provides countless things for our use and profit, countless facts and figures for our cogitation.  But .. that is all!!

Science can tell us nothing – other than mere statistics – about the most immediately important aspect of life for the vast majority of human beings: it can tell us nothing about our relationships of love, our appreciation of what is beautiful and our awareness of truth; our sometimes vague but always most intimate and at times most objective (you are the guilty one!) sentiments of right and wrong; our awareness of, response to, and delight in innocence, which can cause, for example, the young of even the most rapacious of animals such as the tiger, polar bear, to appear almost irresistibly attractive.

People of God, Jesus has ascended into heaven!  He has indeed opened up for us a totally new possibility for life; not, as our scientific opponents rightly say, for natural life, but for that supernatural life (which they deny!) that Jesus offers to us and bestows on us through our faith in His Resurrection:  an eternity of loving fulfilment before the God and Father of infinite glory and all-embracing goodness!   All of which is rubbish, those who deride us loudly and repeatedly proclaim.  Why is it rubbish, one might ask?   The reply is, ‘We can’t find any place like heaven, we can’t locate or allocate it, nor can we measure, test, reproduce its supposed effects nor can we imagine ourselves devising ‘filters’ or programmes that might ‘provoke’ some manifestation of its being.  In other words, it is all RUBBISH!!

Are then our daily, most intimate and enduring experiences of love and friendship rubbish too?  Are there no such realities as beauty and truth?  Is there nothing behind our feelings of right and wrong?   Science says that there is no great, grey-haired Old Man judging us from up there!  Science is right there; but surely science cannot be proud to proclaim such a ridiculous idea.  And by such derision does science, do such scientists, mean to say then, that there is no one, anywhere, greater than the individual ME?  Am I known and answerable to no-one but Myself?  Are each and every one of us inviolable, untouchable, little ‘me’s until publicly found out and criminally accused?  Are goodness and wickedness illusions?  Are legal and illegal perfectly the same as, indeed even better expressions than, right and wrong, for the good and bad experiences we have in the course of our lives?

For believers, the Ascension is a celebration of the Sacred Humanity of Our blessed Lord in His most glorious achievement for us, and the ground of our surpassing hope and heavenly aspirations in Him: a new and transcendent home awaits us, where sin and death are unknown, where divine love (charity) reigns supreme and all that such love -- in whatever measure -- has moved, guided and sustained us to become and to accomplish here on earth will find both acknowledgement and sublime fulfilment there: 

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?   if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.  (John 14:2-3)