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: The Bread of Life, Continued, Part III

Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse is so important that the Church spreads the readings across four weeks, not including the precursor which was the feeding of the multitudes.  So let’s take stock of where we are.  In the Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, we had the “sign” of Jesus’ divinity, the supernatural power to feed the multitudes.  On the Eighteenth Sunday, we had the first part of the Discourse on the Bread of life, connecting Jesus with the Manna from heaven.  On the Nineteenth Sunday we have Jesus saying that He is the living Bread.  Today, the Twentieth Sunday, Jesus tells us His flesh is the Bread of heaven, and that you must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have life.

 

Jesus said to the crowds:

"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."

 

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,

"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

Jesus said to them,

"Amen, amen, I say to you,

unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,

you do not have life within you.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood

has eternal life,

and I will raise him on the last day.

For my flesh is true food,

and my blood is true drink.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood

remains in me and I in him.

Just as the living Father sent me

and I have life because of the Father,

so also the one who feeds on me

will have life because of me.

This is the bread that came down from heaven.

Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,

whoever eats this bread will live forever."

~Jn 6:51-58

This time, Bishop Barron gives the comprehensive exegesis of this passage.   

Now, how does the body and blood of Jesus become what He says in the Eucharist?  Here you will need someone from the Order of Preachers to fully explain it.  Let Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P. from The Thomistic Institute explain the Presence of Jesus’s Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist.

 

The concepts of substance and accidents can be tricky to understand. I think Fr. Dominic in that video does about as good a job as I have ever seen.  I recommend all The Thomistic Institute videos on explaining the faith.

Sunday Meditation: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day."

Let’s return to John Michael Talbot for an appropriate hymn, “Gift of Finest Wheat.”

 

This is not an original JMT composition.  It was composed by Robert E. Kreutz.   It is such a beautiful hymn, and I love John Michael’s rendition.