Sunday Meditation: The Mystery of God’s Being

We closed the Easter season with the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday, and we return to Ordinary Time with the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.  How fitting.  We have known the Father; we have met the Son; we have received the Holy Spirit.  Now we put them all together to understand—or at least intuit—the mystery of God’s being.  For the reading in Year C, we hear Jesus words at the Farewell Discourse from the Gospel of John on how the Holy Spirit will lead the apostles.

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.

But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,

he will guide you to all truth.

He will not speak on his own,

but he will speak what he hears,

and will declare to you the things that are coming.

He will glorify me,

because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

Everything that the Father has is mine;

for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine

and declare it to you."

   ~Jn 16:12-15

Instead of a homily today to explain the Trinity, I want to present an episode (“The Persons of the Trinity”) from Aquinas 101, the Dominican Friar set of lectures on the Catholic faith as explained by St. Thomas Aquinas.  Here Fr. Dominic Legge O.P. explains the Trinity as the “mystery of God in Himself.”

 

Contemplating the Trinity, as Fr. Dominic explains quoting St. Thomas, “elevates our spirits so that our minds get some glimpse of the highest truth.”  So I hope you sit back with the Trinity today and absorb the concept with joy.

 

For the pastoral homily, I return to Fr. Peter Hahn.

Fr. Hahn quotes Pope Francis: “The word mercy reveals the very mystery of the most Holy Trinity.  Seeing the Father who only wants to forgive his wayward children, the Son in the His ultimate and supreme act of His love on the cross which offers to us the forgiveness of our sins, and the Holy Spirit dwelling in the heart of every person looks sincerely into the eyes of his brothers and sisters on their shared path of life.”

 

Sunday Meditation: “When he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.”

 

How about this Catholic classic for today’s hymn, which I bet you sung at Mass today, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

 

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!

Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.

Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!

God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

 

Have a blessed Sunday with the Trinity and Happy Father’s Day.

 

Sunday Meditation: One Body

Today is the Seventh and final Sunday of Easter.  Next week the Holy Spirit will descend with Pentecost.  For the Seventh Sunday in Year C, we hear in His Farewell Discourse Christ’s great prayer for unity. 

 

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying:

"Holy Father, I pray not only for them,

but also for those who will believe in me through their word,

so that they may all be one,

as you, Father, are in me and I in you,

that they also may be in us,

that the world may believe that you sent me.

And I have given them the glory you gave me,

so that they may be one, as we are one,

I in them and you in me,

that they may be brought to perfection as one,

that the world may know that you sent me,

and that you loved them even as you loved me.

Father, they are your gift to me.

I wish that where I am they also may be with me,

that they may see my glory that you gave me,

because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

Righteous Father, the world also does not know you,

but I know you, and they know that you sent me.

I made known to them your name and I will make it known,

that the love with which you loved me

may be in them and I in them."

   ~Jn 17:20-26

 

Given that some if not many are celebrating the Solemnity of the Ascension today, while my diocese celebrated it on Thursday, it was a bit hard to find homilies strictly on the Seventh Sunday of Easter.  Here is a new preacher to my blog, Fr. Oliver Keenan OP from Great Britain’s Blackfriars in Oxford.

Notice what Fr. Oliver says: “The visibility of the Church’s unity was the manifestation of the love of God.”  In unity we are “perfected into one.”

For the pastoral homily, I once again go to Fr. Peter Hahn, this from nine years ago.  Apparently nine years ago the Seventh Sunday of Easter fell on Mother’s Day, and Fr. Peter connects the unity that Christ calls for with that of a mother and her child.

I particularly liked the quote and exhortation from Pope Francis. 

Sunday Meditation: “Father, they are your gift to me.  I wish that where I am they also may be with me. "

 

 

For the hymn, how beautiful os John Michael Talbot’s “One Bread, One Body.”

 

“And we, though many, throughout the earth, we are one body in this one Lord.”

Sunday Meditation: The Joy of Love

On the sixth Sunday of Easter the Gospel continues with Jesus’s great discourse, and here He gets to the heart of Christianity.  Keep in mind that the second reading is from the First Letter of St. John, where the evangelist makes the astounding declaration that God is Love. 

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"As the Father loves me, so I also love you.

Remain in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,

just as I have kept my Father's commandments

and remain in his love.

 

"I have told you this so that my joy may be in you

and your joy might be complete.

This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.

No one has greater love than this,

to lay down one's life for one's friends.

You are my friends if you do what I command you.

I no longer call you slaves,

because a slave does not know what his master is doing.

I have called you friends,

because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.

It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you

and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,

so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.

This I command you: love one another."

~Jn 15:9-17

If God is love, then what kind of love is God?  In Greek philosophy there were five kinds of love: Eros, or romantic love; Philia, or love between friends; Storge love between family members; Philautia, or self-love; and Xenia or hospitality.  Jesus uses none of these terms.

What Jesus uses is Agape, and here is a definition from Wikipedia.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape

Agape (/ɑːˈɡɑːpeɪ, ˈɑːɡəˌpeɪ, ˈæɡə-/;[1] from Ancient Greek ἀγάπη (agápē)) is "the highest form of love, charity" and "the love of God for [human beings] and of [human beings] for God".[2] This is in contrast to philia, brotherly love, or philautia, self-love, as it embraces a profound sacrificial love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance.

What it comes down to is charity to the point of sacrifice.  That is what Jesus calls us to do.  I’m going to offer two homilies.  First from Fr. Joshua Kibler, C.O. at the Pittsburgh Oratory.

 

Here also is an excellent homily from Bishop Barron.

 

 

That is spot on.  I have grown tired of all the people point out errors of dogma or of flawed morals and have no love.  They are nothing more than “noisy gongs” and “clanging cymbals” (1 Cor 13:1). 

Sunday Meditation: "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you

and your joy might be complete.”

 

Today’s John Michael Talbot song appropriate for the reading, I Found My Beloved.

 

If you didn’t catch the closing lyrics, here they are:

So I have abandoned

All I ever sought to be

And in dying

My spirit has been released

Sunday Meditation: Do You Love Jesus?

This week, Jesus continues His Farewell Discourse with a promise.

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

And I will ask the Father,

and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always,

the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept,

because it neither sees nor knows him.

But you know him, because he remains with you,

and will be in you.

I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

In a little while the world will no longer see me,

but you will see me, because I live and you will live.

On that day you will realize that I am in my Father

and you are in me and I in you.

Whoever has my commandments and observes them

is the one who loves me.

And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father,

and I will love him and reveal myself to him."             

Jn 14:15-21

But you can only receive the Advocate if you follow His commandments, and you will follow His commandments if you love Him.  Jeff Cavins gives a wonderful exegesis of this passage by first putting you—the worshipper—on the spot.

 

So do you love Jesus?

Here is the verse to meditate on:  “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you..”  How can that be?