22nd Sunday in Ordinary time (Year B)

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary time (Year B) 

(Deut. 4:1-2, 6-8; James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27; Mark: 7:1-8, 1

4-15, 21-23)

Our readings today are centred upon what one might call the art of living in the Church.  We are shown the good things God gives us and does for us, and also how mankind – even those who are religious -- can distort and disfigure, those blessings.  In the words of Fr. Faber, it can happen that: “We make His love too narrow, by false limits of our own; and we magnify His strictness with a zeal He will not own.”

In the first and second readings we were reminded of the great blessings God bestowed, first of all, on Israel, and, subsequently upon the whole of mankind, both Jews and Gentiles:

Observe carefully what I command you, for thus you will give evidence of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations, who will hear of all these statutes and say, ‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’

All good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change. He willed to give us birth by the word of truth, that we may be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures. … Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls.

We should recall that, in the first place, the Law given to the Israelites in the desert had come from God, it was not something the People of Israel had managed to produce of and for themselves; and likewise, the land they were about to enter, would not be won by their own might or valour, but would, likewise, itself be a gift from God.  That is why Moses told them:

In your observance of the commandments of the LORD your God which I enjoin upon you, you shall not add to what I command you, nor subtract from it, that you may live and enter in and take possession of the land which the Lord is giving you.

For us too, the Faith that we have received is not of human origin nor does it propose to us merely earthly aspirations.   This was made abundantly clear for us Catholics and all true Christians by St. Peter when -- in response to these words of Jesus:

The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life (John 6:63-64)

he showed -- under inspiration by the Father as Jesus Himself declared –whole-hearted gratitude and wondrous appreciation by answering (Jn. 6:68-70):

Master, You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that You are the Christ, the Holy One of God.

Therefore we must cling firmly to the teaching of the Faith: not only by reverencing it in our words, but also, and supremely – as St. James insists --  by practicing it in our daily living.  And to that end we must, above all else, strive to truly recognize and love, understand and proclaim, Jesus enshrined in the Faith and Sacraments which God has so graciously bestowed upon us in Mother Church:

This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. 

Although such intentions may seem clear and indisputable, nevertheless they can prove difficult to carry out because, at times, our minds: so slow to comprehend, our imaginations: so full of self-love and fear, and our emotions: so blind and imperious, will tempt us to depart – even though perhaps only slightly here and just a little there -- from our approved purpose and follow their urgent promptings.  And though we may resist their attractions, nevertheless, their recurrence and unruliness can be wearisome and make it difficult for us to grow and come to our personal fulfilment in the Faith we acknowledge as both true and God-given.

Such difficulties, of course, are due to the fact that the Faith has been given us in order to change us, from what – who -- we are, into what – who -- God wants us to become.  The Faith has been given us to re-form us: no longer in accordance with our own personal preferences, worldly desires and aspirations, but after the pattern, and according to the will, of Him Who is now seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven, preparing a place for us to live there with Him for all eternity.

Moreover, in addition to such difficulties which arise from our very nature and are therefore the common experience of all disciples of Jesus, there are other difficulties we experience that spring not so much from our common human nature as from our own personal character and that of those with whom we have personal dealings: perhaps difficulties with others who are  in positions of influence and authority, as in our Gospel passage:

The Pharisees and scribes questioned Him, "Why do Your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?"

To which words, Jesus answered most vigorously, saying:

Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.   And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.  And He said to them, "All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.”

     

The traditions of the elders to which the Pharisees and Scribes were so devoted were originally practiced -- and subsequently handed down -- as a means of helping and protecting true devotion among the people of Israel.  And there were, undoubtedly, not a few in Israel who had profited, and would continue to profit, from their observance.  The trouble was, however, that the zeal of the Pharisees and Scribes for such traditions and for the letter of the Law led them, at times, to disregard or even reject God’s commands and His broader spiritual teaching given through the Prophets and in the liturgical worship of Israel.  Moreover, this excessive and misplaced zeal of the Pharisees and Scribes pushed them so far as to assert or desire that everyone in Israel should be bound by their traditions.  This amounted, Jesus said as He quoted the prophet Isaiah, to them:

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

In that condemnation you can recognize how zealous Jesus was for the honour of God: men’s commandments were in no way to be compared with doctrines established on the unique authority, and expressing the sublime wisdom and ultimate goodness, of God Himself.

Now, In Mother Church there are many in positions of authority that entitle, and at times require, them to give advice, guidance and even instruction to the People of God.  Such guidance and instruction – because the authority behind it stems from learning, experience, and above all, from the acknowledged and invoked guidance of God’s promised grace – can require obedience at times, and always merits respect and thoughtful attention.  No one can rightly disdain or totally disregarded such teaching.

However, we must always realize that we have been set free by Jesus Christ; free, that is, to serve God, as living members of the Body of Christ in response to the guidance of His Holy Spirit living and working within us; and that no human guides can ever be allowed to cut us off from that freedom to respond personally to God making Himself known to us in our daily experience of life and prayer, so long as we truly remain in Jesus by keeping His commands and following His teaching handed down to us in Mother Church’s Gospel proclamation.  St. Paul makes this absolutely clear:

Let no one boast about human beings, for everything belongs to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, the world or life or death,  the present or the future: all belongs to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23)

As we go through life, striving to listen ever more carefully to God and follow Him ever more closely, we are always advancing to what is -- for us – new and largely unknown territory so to speak.  Therefore it is indeed both humanly good and spiritually necessary that we should have the help of guidance from Mother Church, for on her alone does Jesus bestow the fullness of His Spirit, and for her alone does the Spirit appropriately recall all that Jesus taught and did.  Nevertheless, after prayerful listening to God whispering in our heart and to our conscience, and with abiding respect for the teaching of and our communion in Mother Church, it is up to each of us, personally, to decide finally which way to go, because such responsible commitment is the hall-mark of a personal relationship with God Who wills to be intimately known and Personally loved by us in our life of faith; it is the glory of a Christian which we should not yield, and certainly never abandon, to another.

Jesus once (Matthew 10:19-21) declared to His disciples:

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.     

Jesus might have said, ‘the Spirit of My Father will guide you’, but no, He actually said, ‘the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you’ will help you.   As it were, obliterating Himself Jesus shows us how closely He wants His disciples to be united to, one with, His Father, and it is for that end He gives us His Spirit at baptism and renews His Spirit within us at every Holy Communion. Oneness with the Father, in Jesus, by the Spirit, that is the culmination of all Christian life and holiness in Mother Church.

However, never at any stage in our life can we presume that we have heard, understood, and responded aright without regularly checking, as we proceed further, that we are, indeed, not only within the parameters of the Faith, but also walking in the direction of, and in a comforting conformity with, the life-thrust of her who is both the unique Bride of Christ and also our own Mother.  And this constant longing for, and looking to, God; this unceasing watchfulness for the motions of His Spirit within us; this abiding awareness of personal weakness and ignorance together with an ever growing awareness of and reliance upon God’s goodness to us in Mother Church; all these attitudes and experiences gradually build up an ever deeper confidence and abiding joy in Mother Church as the Bride of Christ, and an ever more humbling and grateful experience and awareness of the presence and of the goodness of God in our lives.

The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God: the things which God has prepared for those who love Him; things which God has revealed to us through His Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)A

     

21st Sunday in Ordinary time (Year 2)

Twenty-first Sunday (Year B)                         (Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69)

The Gospel passage today, People of God, refers to the Eucharist and continues last Sunday’s reading; Jesus is addressing certain Jews who, quite understandably with their background, found the words of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man as repulsive and unacceptable.  However, in our Mass today, the continuation of that previous Gospel reading has been put in close proximity to St. Paul’s teaching that, in Christian marriage, the wife must respect and obey her husband who, in his turn, must love and cherish his wife.  Let us therefore take up Jesus’ words with dissenting disciples and allow them to illuminate St. Paul’s teaching on the true nature and purpose of Christian marriage and our appreciation of it.

Does this offend you?   What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?  It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing.  The words I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

St. Paul has become a “bête noir” for modern feminists who regard his teaching as being degrading for women; but then, what sort of women do those feminists have in mind, women of the world or Christian women?  The devil’s sin is pride, and the easiest and most acceptable way of leading human beings astray is for him to give them a shot or two of pride into the arm, so to speak.  We Christians, therefore, need to be very careful whom we allow to influence us; and, at times, we have to examine the motives of those who put themselves forward as leaders because we cannot allow ourselves to be guided by the thinking of people whose stated aims are inevitably and essentially worldly: gilded over with so-called acceptable pride; polished and presented for easy assimilation and popularity;  promoted by, and serving as safety-valve for, deep-seated emotional tendencies to self-assertion.

Let us then look at Paul’s teaching:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord: as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. (Eph 5:22, 24)

The feminists say, of course: what woman could accept that?

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, nourish and cherish (them), just as the Lord does the Church.

The boys, macho-men, likewise respond immediately with: what man would want that?

Women will, of course, accuse many men of violence; and men, likewise, will complain of most women’s uncontrolled emotionalism.  However the prime target against which the feminists’ inveigh is what they see as the humiliation of woman in Christian marriage, while the boys target the suffocating bondage and responsibility with which they imagine Christian family life would stifle them.

If those views were the only possible interpretations of St. Paul’s teaching it would be very difficult indeed to understand how it has come about that Christianity has raised the status and dignity of women more than any other religious faith.  How could a religion preaching the so-called humiliation of woman in marriage have lifted up the status, and confirmed the dignity, of women to such an extent?  On the other hand, if the bondage of responsibilities and chastity were so objectionable and unsatisfying for men -- as the boys say -- how could it be that Christian family life has shown itself to be the stable bed-rock of Western, indeed world-wide, democratic society?

As you can see, so much depends on how you look at things.  That is why we heard in the first reading Joshua, the leader of the Israelites after Moses, saying to the assembled people, “Make up your minds”:

Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt.  And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."  So the people answered and said: "Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods.

Many of our troubles today are largely the due to people who, like the Israelites of old, publicly say they don’t want to forsake the Lord, but who, in their hearts, neither hold Him in fear, nor are willing to discipline their ambitions or their bodies so as to serve Him in sincerity and truth.

Jesus, in the Gospel reading, knew some such people who found His teaching hard because they were unwilling to commit themselves entirely to Him:

When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you?  What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?   It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.  

What if you see the Son of Man ascending to heaven?  Can’t you understand where I am leading you?  You will see me ascend as your leader to the place where I am preparing a place for all who will follow me.  I am not preparing you to be My disciples for a mere seventy or eighty years’ life in this sinful set-up; I have been sent to help you become, in Me, children of God, My heavenly Father.  I am, indeed, sent to make you -- by the Spirit I will send to you -- His children able to live for ever in an eternal home prepared for you in His Kingdom; but for that you have to be willing to trust me.

Just as there are many rooms in the Father’s Kingdom where Jesus is preparing to receive His faithful disciples, so too, here on earth, there are many ways of learning discipleship and some, indeed, are better than others, as both Mary and Martha learnt; but all acceptable ways involve loving God and one’s neighbour, serving, imitating, Jesus, and obeying His Spirit in the Church. 

Whatever way we choose, the whole of our life as Christians is a time of preparation for our heavenly home, a preparation whereby we are gradually purged and cleansed of our sins and formed in the likeness of Jesus by His Holy Spirit.  It is not a time for the pre-eminent pursuit of worldly vanity and pleasure, nor is it a worldly process we can monitor and appraise to our own satisfaction – even Mary had not been able to observe the full extent of her Son’s manly spiritual development before His heavenly Father.  The progress of life on earth for a disciple of Jesus is a Spiritual work, a work carried out by the Holy Spirit; and it is a faith work, a work that can only be done for those who live by faith in Jesus Christ and in that way open themselves up to His Holy Spirit and allow Him to work, even secretly, in them.

And so marriage, the Christian relationship between man and woman, is a most important relationship for the training of God’s children; it cannot be a relationship which is private to the two concerned, that is, a free-love association.  Marriage is the union of man and woman offered to Jesus, to be lived according to His teaching and for His purposes; and the words of St. Paul today are of supreme importance and indeed striking beauty in this respect.  The wife is to honour and obey her husband so that, becoming a Christian mother she can not only teach but also gently lead her children to, and accustom them in, authentic obedience to their father.  Were the father alone in requiring obedience from his children, he would almost inevitably be thought to be demanding it, and consequently considered as domineering.  The husband is to love his wife so that he can indeed lead and guide his children in tender love and consideration for their mother; for if she were alone in seeking such love she would easily be thought of as neurotic.   Christian children have to learn obedience and disciplined love in the home and there is no more beautiful way than following mother in honouring and obeying father, and joining with father in expressing love and gratitude to mum.  Thus the father can, and indeed must, rightly insist that his children love their mother; the wife can and should ensure that her children honour and respect their father by obedience.

Christian marriage is a privileged preparation ground: it continues and potentially glorifies God’s work of creation, it serves and promotes the salvation of the spouses by forming them for His heavenly family.  Every Christian blessing comes to us through the Cross; consequently, in the whole of Christian life there is the Cross, but as we see in Jesus, the Cross is ultimately something which a Christian -- as a sincere and true disciple of Jesus -- can learn to embrace, with the Lord, for love of the Father; it is something intended and able to lift us up from the earth to heaven.  Just to put it briefly in answer to the feminists and to the lads, Christian marriage is meant to help a Christian man and woman grow in humility on the one hand, and in true, self-less, love on the other hand, both of which demand responsible and enduring commitment, together with willing and patient sacrifice.  To enable them both to do this, the Christian bond of marriage bestows a share in divine love, a gift of grace which enables those who want to receive it strength to live in a way which is more than human; and that is precisely why the feminists and the lads cannot understand Christian marriage and Christian love, because it is for those destined for heaven, not for those intent on, and hoping to be satisfied, with the vanity of human pride or the satiety of worldly pleasures.

In all this however, argument is of limited value, for as Jesus said:

Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.

That does not mean that the Father denies anyone the opportunity or the ability to come to Jesus, but simply that He will not force it upon anyone; while those who do come to discipleship, must realize that it is a gift of God, not their own work.

As in His days in Palestine, Jesus’ message faithfully proclaimed by Mother Church today, still displeases many:

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.

However, contrary to the impression given by over-anxious disciples at times, Jesus does not depend on human backing, He does not find it necessary to count “bums on seats”, as the saying goes, in order to be able to trust His Father, and so:

Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to leave?"

In reply Peter said what all true believers since then have repeated wholeheartedly:

Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

20th. Sunday (Year B)     

           

(Proverbs 9:1-6; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58)

Today we learn to what lengths Jesus went to in order to make people think about, pay attention to, what He was saying: Our Lord did not seek popularity, but He did, most passionately, want to be understood.

In the gospel reading He declared:

I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.

As you might well understand, the Jews were disturbed, some even incensed, 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 have no 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:

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. (Leviticus 7:26-27)

What then is the significance of the blood?  Let us learn more from the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy:

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; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. (Leviticus 17:11)

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. (Deuteronomy 12: 23, 27)

God alone is – absolutely and uniquely -- the Lord of life, and so:

The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the LORD your God, and you shall eat the meat.

Why, therefore, did Jesus speak in such a humanly provocative manner to the Jews by first of all saying eat My Flesh, and then following it up by the far more objectionable and religiously provocative 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?

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

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

has turned that supreme evil into the unique source of supreme blessing.  Since Jesus poured out His blood so willingly for us, God – pitying our sinful state -- allows us to make use of that poured-out blood for our own benefit!  In the light of the Christian revelation and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we learn that, being allowed to drink the Blood of Jesus we are thereby given to imbibe life – the beginnings of divine, eternal life -- and ultimately enabled to receive, thereby, a share in the divine sonship and eternal blessedness of Christ Himself!   As Paul continues:

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

How great is the Father’s love for us, People of God!   The blood of all creatures pertains to Him alone; how dear beyond all measure, therefore, and how unutterably precious, is the blood of His only-begotten Son made flesh?  How unimaginable is the humility with which Jesus so lovingly embraced and willingly undertook out of  obedience to His Father and compassion for us to allow His own His own blood, His most Precious Blood, to be poured out by us, in divine Providence for our sins, and so for our use, our benefit, our profit, and our salvation.

How sublimely, then, has that text of Leviticus thereby been 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 (being the Precious Blood of the Risen and eternally living Son of 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 enjoy pleasure rather than practice discipline; to use others, not serve them; to seek success rather than strive for honour and integrity.  We, however, in response to God’s wondrous love must, as our first reading said:

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

And it is here that we can appreciate another, essential, aspect of Jesus’ insistence that we eat His flesh and drink His blood.

In our world money is supreme, with most of it -- and consequently most of the world’s advantages and benefits – going, first of all, to those who are born rich and/or privileged, then to those able and prepared to fight their way, tooth and nail, to the position of top-dogs; before finally being bestowed upon the charismatic ones, both famous and the popular.  As for the underdogs -- the poor, the insignificant, those deemed dull and unpopular – they 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 gifts or endowments of whatever sort: personal salvation cannot be won by personal endeavour using natural talents, least of all can it be acquired by human force, cunning, or deceit in any way.  It can only be humbly received as a longed-for gift subsequent on a personal encounter with and faithful response to Jesus.

Jesus spoke -- with brutal clarity, the Jews thought -- 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;

And He did this in order to make it absolutely clear that the Gift of eternal life, and ultimately, of salvation, can only come to us  from without ourselves; that is, as a gift, and also through a personal faith in Jesus.  

In Jesus’ Church, and in preparation for the coming Kingdom of God, all of us, in that  way, start once again on an equal footing:

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. (1 Corinthians 10:16-17)

That one bread and the one cup are the source of all grace and every blessing for us, and we receive them in Mother Church through a faithful encounter with Christ, the Risen Lord, in which, St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Galatians (4:9):

Now you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God.

In that encounter we are in the presence of, and alone with, the One Lord and Saviour of all mankind: there is no one listening-in on our conversation with Him; we are free to say, ask for, what we want; free to be ourselves with Him Who not only appreciates what we are but also knows what we aspire to be.  Above all, we are, totally free before Him Who is aware of what, in His Father’s plans we might become, before Him Who sacrificed Himself on our behalf for the fulfilment of those plans. 

My dear People, the natural gifts each of us possesses have been bestowed upon us for our life in, and the benefit of, Mother Church, society in general, and the world in which we live.  Eternal salvation, however, only comes to us as a result of our personal encounter with and faithful response to God in our recognition of the One He has sent, as the ultimate fruit of our humble awareness of and personal love for Christ in the Eucharist, and as the crowning fulfilment of our commitment to the guidance of His own Most Holy Spirit in our daily living and final dying.

As we heard in the second reading we should:

Watch carefully how (we) 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 supremely 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 can ultimately embrace -- as children of God ourselves -- 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