Sunday Meditation: The Heart of God

On the first Sunday after Pentecost the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity.  Each liturgical year has different readings, and for Year A the Gospel is the often quoted, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”  Why is this passage read for the Feast of the Holy Trinity?  On the surface it only mentions two of the three persons of the Trinity.  God the Father and the Son are clearly stated.  But look carefully.  The Holy Spirit is a spiraling forth of the love between the Father and the Son.  That love is clearly there, and so then is the Holy Spirit.

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,

so that everyone who believes in him might not perish

but might have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

Whoever believes in him will not be condemned,

but whoever does not believe has already been condemned,

because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

~Jn:3:16-18

 

It is so hard to describe the Trinity.  I don’t think you can capture it with one image.  It takes a complex set of words to formulate the Christian notion of the Trinity.  This program, Catholic Saints & Feasts, does a noteworthy job of it in short of a seven minute video. 

 

Catholic Saints & Feasts:

God is the ultimate superlative adjective whose nature admits of no competing God. Christian monotheism stops us from approaching different gods for different things. We believe in one God with one will, one mind, and one plan for mankind.  The Holy Trinity, the God of Christianity, is complex. Clear language must be used and clear thinking deployed to grasp the Christian God.

 

The church believes that God is one in his nature and three in his persons.  This means that if you were in a pitch black room and sensed a presence nearby, your first question would be, "What is that? Is it the dog or the cat, my spouse or the wind?" If it were God in the darkness, he would answer the question of what by saying, "I am God." Satisfied that the presence was a person and not an animal or the wind, the next question would be, "Who are you?" And to that question, God would reply in three successive voices. I am the father. I am the son. I am the holy spirit. A nature is the source of operations, but a person does [music] them. A statue has eyes, but it is not its nature to see.  It is not man's nature to lay eggs or to breathe underwater, but it is the nature of a bird or a fish to do so. Our nature sets the parameters for what actions are possible for us. The daughter of a lion is a lioness and does what lions do. The son of a man is a man and does what men do. And the son of God is God and knows, loves, and acts as God does perfectly.  Our trinitarian supernova is both a unity and a plurality, both one and many at the same time. This means that God does not exist alone but in a community of love. God is not narcissistic admiring his own beauty and perfection.  Instead, the love of the father is directed toward the son for all eternity. And the love of the holy spirit animates and passes between the father and the son. The trinity's three persons do not share portions of the divine nature. They each possess it totally.

 

Our God, distinct in his persons, one in his essence and equal in his majesty, is solemnly invoked as the water spills on our heads at baptism and as the oil is traced on our palms at our anointing. God in all of his complexity and in all of his simplicity is with us always in this world and hopefully in the world to come. Most Holy Trinity, we look to your three persons as a model of true love, knowledge, and community life. Help all marriages and families strive for the high ideal of perfection you set before the world, no matter the discouragement resulting from our sins and imperfections. Amen.

 

Not only did the words make the Trinity understandable, but there were so many beautiful images to present how artists through the ages have tried to capture the Trinity.

For the pastoral homily I turn to Fr. Kris Janczak in his YouTube Channel, Good Soil.  I’m not sure if I’ve ever posted one of Fr. Janczak’s homilies before but I have listened to a few.  I think today he really highlights what is a pastoral understanding of this Solemnity.

 

Fr. Kris:

Even though we celebrate this feast day once a year, every single day we pray to the holy trinity. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. May almighty God bless you, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Through him and with him and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours forever and ever.  Sound familiar? See, sometimes we automatically repeat these prayers, forgetting that when we say them, we honor one God who is in three persons.

 

There were much smarter and more educated people in the past who tried but failed. However, I am here to tell you that this is not about understanding but believing. That is not to grasp all this with our brains but with our hearts. And that makes all the difference. There were endless times during Jesus ministry when he repeated, "Believe, have faith, trust me." He didn't ask people to understand.  He asked them to believe. Today he is asking us to believe to believe that the father and the son and the holy spirit are one. One God. Yet what does this mean to us? What does it mean to believe in the Holy Trinity? Well, the holy trinity is united in the greatest love.  The one thing that connects these three, father, son, and the spirit is love. It is love that makes them one God.

 

If I could compare this truth to something, it would be to a marriage between a man and a woman.  During our Catholic wedding ceremony during the mass, before the end of mass, the priest blesses the couple using a unique and beautiful blessing.  It is called the Nuptial Blessing. It is a rather long blessing or prayer if you wish. But there is one sentence in there that says, "God, we pray that they husband and wife become one flesh, become one body." How can they become one flesh? How can they become connected? Only by a true love that they have for each other. They are still two separate people, but they are equal. And by their sacrificial love, they become one, one flesh, husband and wife. And nothing should separate that union.

 

If I could summarize it, through love, persons become one.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

 

We sang this at our parish today, “All Hail Adored Trinity.”

 

 

All hail, adored Trinity!

All hail, eternal Unity!

O God the Father, God the Son,

And God the Spirit, ever One.

 

Three persons praise we evermore,

One only God our hearts adore:

In thy sure mercy, ever kind,

May we your strong protection find.

 

The Trinity is at the heart of God.

 

Sunday Meditation: One Through Prayer

I know most of the country has transferred Ascension Thursday to Sunday, today.  For us in the Archdiocese of New York, last Thursday was Ascension Thursday and today is the Seventh Sunday of Easter.  Frankly that’s how it should be, and I definitely prefer it this way.  For the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year A, Jesus continues his high priestly prayer.  He prophesizes his departure, and then prays for those given to Him.

Three years ago on this Gospel I highlighted what Jesus said was the means to eternal life: “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”  I consider this to be very important.  To know God through Jesus Christ is eternal life. 

But how does one “know God”?  Read Jesus’s last paragraph here; He tells us.  (1) Belonging to God through Jesus, (2) keeping God’s word, (3) knowing that everything comes from God, (4) receiving God’s word, and (5) understanding and accepting God’s word.

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said,

“Father, the hour has come.

Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,

just as you gave him authority over all people,

so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.

Now this is eternal life,

that they should know you, the only true God,

and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.

I glorified you on earth

by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.

Now glorify me, Father, with you,

with the glory that I had with you before the world began.

 

“I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world.

They belonged to you, and you gave them to me,

and they have kept your word.

Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,

because the words you gave to me I have given to them,

and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you,

and they have believed that you sent me.

I pray for them.

I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me,

because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours

and everything of yours is mine,

and I have been glorified in them.

And now I will no longer be in the world,

but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”

~Jn:17: 1-11

 

 

Since almost all of the rest of the country is on a different liturgical schedule, it is difficult to find pertinent homilies for the Seventh Sunday of Easter.  This children’s animation from Singapore (I think) called, “St. Joseph’s Corner,” does an excellent job of explaining the readings.

 

St. Joseph’s Corner:

The Seventh Sunday of Easter comes between the Ascension of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  It is a time when the Church remembers what it means to wait on God’s promise.  The readings show the disciples gathered in prayer holding on to hope for what is to come…The Gospel shares the prayer of Jesus for His friends asking the Father to keep them safe and united.  The Seventh Sunday of Easter of Year A invites us to reflect on our faith while we wait for God to act.  It is a call to trust, to pray, and to hope, and to stay close to others who share the same hope.

 

On the Seventh Sunday of Easter of Year A, it aligns with the theme of trusting God while awaiting His work.  [It] invites us to reflect on Jesus’s prayer before He leaves His disciples.  He prays for Himself, His followers, and all who will believe in Him.  His words remind us of the importance of our relationship with God, the need for unity, and the call to love one another.

 

Perhaps that was intended for children, but that was pretty deep for adults too!

I’m going to go all the way to Nigeria for the pastoral homily.  I really enjoyed Fr. Martin Badejo’s homily who outright tells us his central theme: “Cultivate the Habit of Prayer.”

 

Fr. Martin:

This Gospel passage is referred to as the Priestly Prayer of Christ…He asks the Father to glorify Him.  He speaks of the source of eternal life as knowing the Father and Him whom the Father sent.  Then he prays about his disciples as well.  He makes his prayer directly to the Father for them so that the Father will protect them in the world, for they are in the world and He is going back to the Father.  In this short passage we find a lot of themes condensed together; such themes include the unity between the Father and Jesus, the glorification of Jesus, the connection between Jesus and heaven as he lifted up His eyes to pray, the meaning of eternal life, the concern and care of Jesus for his disciples, the manifestation of the Father's name to the disciples.

 

If there is one thing [Jesus] teaches us it is that we also must cultivate the habit of prayer.  In that prayer of Jesus we observe the fluency of His words and His request from the Father.  This can only be possible on the pre-existing Foundation of a Unity which derives from consistency [of] communication.  In other words if he had not been consistently united with His Father and in contact with the Father His communication with the Father at this point would not be as fluent…That communication which sustains relationship is very necessary even between us and God.  Jesus never for once took it for granted that since He's the son of God or because He is co-equal with the Father then He does not need to pray.  He communicated with the father all the time; in fact even his breath was prayer.

 

We should learn from the Lord. We should cultivate the habit of prayer.  We should let our lives be an acceptable offering to the Father.  This can be effectively done and suitably achieved by the foundation of a constant communication with Him.  It must become for us a habit to talk to God.

 

Make sure you watch Fr. Martin to the end where he will take up a guitar and sing a Gospel song.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: " I pray for them.”

 

We sang “One Love Released” as our communion hymn today at Mass and I thought it was beautiful.

 

 

One bread, one body, one cup, one call, one faith, one Spirit present in us all.

One prayer, one blessing, one hope, one peace, one church, one people, one love released.

 

Is not this bread we share, the body of our Lord?

Is not this wine we drink, the blood of Christ outpoured?

 

One bread, one body, one cup, one call, one faith, one Spirit present in us all.

One prayer, one blessing, one hope, one peace, one church, one people, one love released.

 

I am the bread of life, eat and you shall live.

To those who share this meal, my strength I'll always give.

 

One bread, one body, one cup, one call, one faith, one Spirit present in us all.

One prayer, one blessing, one hope, one peace, one church, one people, one love released.

 

Unity is necessary.  I can’t stand those that would splinter the Body of Christ.  One!

Sunday Meditation: The Spirit of Truth

The Sixth Sunday of Easter—the second to last Sunday of the season—continues with Jesus’s Last Discourse, and, if you notice, these discourses are focused on the coming of the Holy Spirit.  These Gospel readings, then, set the stage for Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus tells the disciples that after He dies and rises and stays with them for a while (forty days) the Holy Spirit will come to them. 

I’ve been impressed with the Gospel reflections of Gina Hens-Piazza who provides reflections at America magazine.  She points out this week that Jesus in this passage is defining what love is.

 

Jesus, however, is suggesting a different relationship between love and obedience. He never threatens to withhold love, even when we turn away from the commandments. Instead, he makes obedience to the commandments the means by which we love one another. The concrete nature of love in human relationships becomes the means by which we love him. After all, whether they be mandates of commission or omission, commandments such as “Honor your father and mother” or “You shall not commit adultery” aim specifically at cultivating and preserving loving relationships among people. For Jesus, love is not contingent upon obedience but is the product of obedience. Divine commandments facilitate love of one another and result in love of Jesus.

Love in the Christian sense is certainly more complex than an emotional feeling.

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

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

 

 

Today’s reflection comes from Fr. Greg Heille O.P. from St. Louis.  He is one of the Dominican friars from the St. Albert the Great Province that provides these “Know Before You Go” homilies.  Fr. Greg rightly emphasizes the foretelling of the coming of the Holy Spirit in this passage.

 

Fr. Greg:

Our Jewish brothers and sisters celebrate a holiday that is called the Festival of Weeks which is held seven weeks and one day, or 50 days, after Passover…Well fifty days translates to Pentecost, and so we have in two weeks from now the solemn Feast of Pentecost, 50 days after our celebration of our Easter Sunday.  Early in our Easter season our celebration was all about “Alleluia, He is Risen, He is Risen Indeed!”  But now late in the Easter season our celebration has more of a spirit of “Veni Sancte Spiritus, Come Holy Spirit."

 

In a way the Gospel from John 14 looks ahead to the next four weeks of celebration in our liturgical cycle.  A week from now we will celebrate the Feast of the Ascension…Our Gospel today in a way gives a hint of ascension because as we think about Jesus ascending into heaven we can wonder where is He now.  And our Gospel today, John 14, says, “I will not leave you orphans.  I will come to you.”  “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always.”  The word advocate in Greek is paraclete, and its etymology is “one who is called aside to help.”  A helper.

 

So as we approach Pentecost we ae being promised by Jesus a paraclete, one who will walk along side of us to help.  We will not be left as orphans…Jesus was brought to life in the Spirit.  The Spirit walked with Jesus as His helper.  He was raised to life in the Spirit…And we begin to realize that what God has done for Jesus so too He does for us.  He raises us up in the Spirit.  He walks along side of us as a companion, an advocate, a helper.

 

That is the heart of our lives in the Spirit.  We have a “vital connection to Christ and the Father through the Holy Spirit.”  Be sure to listen to the end to where Fr. Greg explains that synodality is a walking of us all together on the Way.

For the pastoral homily, Cardinal Blasé Cupich of Archdiocese of Chicago combined this Gospel passage with a link to today’s Mother’s Day holiday.

 

Archbishop Cupich:

We've seen some remarkable transformations in this group of disciples that formed the early church.  We have Philillip who now very publicly addresses the people and speaks of Jesus.  Philip was the one who wanted death to know from Jesus the way that he was going.  And Jesus said to him, "How long have you been with me and yet you do not know me?" But all of a sudden with the gift of the spirit, something changes in him dramatically.  And it occurs to me as we celebrate Mother's Day that there are many qualities that are reflected in mothers that we find in this early church that's transformed by the spirit.

 

The first thing is the way the the disciples take initiative. Jesus is no longer with them. They're on their own.  And yet they go out and they make a difference.  How often mothers are the ones in the home who have to take initiative to get things going. Maybe those times in which there are birthdays or celebrations of holidays. They're the ones who take the initiative. They're the ones who kind of learn on the spur of the moment. I remember my own mother who was married when she was uh a young 22 years old and by the time she was 30, she had six children and she had to learn how to balance her life and balance being a mother to all those children. She took initiative much like we see in that early church.  But we also see these early disciples being willing to adapt and be flexible to the point that there were new members of the community who were different. We hear about of course the formation of the deacons. When the Greek Christians felt that they were being overlooked, the disciples were able to adapt and create a whole new order within the church that of deacons.  They paid attention to the specifics of the different groups that were there.  I think my mother reflected that as well. She always said that each child was different. The being a parent is not an exact science simply because there are so many variables in each child that comes along. She was once asked, "Do you love any of your children more than the others?" And her answer was swift and clear. No, she said, but only if they need it.  I think that that's the way each one of us have experienced our mothers as well.  That they know us and they look for ways in which they're going to meet the needs of each one of us in our particular circumstances, much like the early church was able to do.

 

Mothers as well were the point of unity within a family. So often the ones who brought people together for healing, telling and encouraging us to have forgiveness, but also the kind of unity that stays with us in our life even when our man mothers pass from this life. Much like the unity that we hear about in the gospel where Jesus says, "Even though I will be away from you, I will be in you as my father is in me and I am in you." How often we are able to carry within us the voice, the image, the words of our mothers within us. In a way showing us that the unity within a family is being able to have a sensitivity to the lives of others but also a fond remembrance of each other no matter what the circumstances are in life. Even if we are separated by distance or even by death.

 

God bless our mothers.  They are the image of Jesus in our lives.

 

Sunday Meditation: "On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.”

 

How can we not listen to “Veni Creator Spiritus” after Christ’s foretelling of the Holy Spirit? 

 

Come, Holy Ghost, Creator, come

from thy bright heav'nly throne;

come, take possession of our souls,

and make them all thine own.

 

Thou who art called the Paraclete,

best gift of God above,

the living spring, the living fire,

sweet unction and true love. (...)

 

O guide our minds with thy blest light,

with love our hearts inflame;

and with thy strength, which ne'er decays,

confirm our mortal frame. (…)

 

Through thee may we the Father know,

through thee th'eternal Son,

and thee the Spirit of them both,

thrice-blessed three in One.

 

In Gregorian Chant!  Beautiful!

 

Sunday Meditation: Seeing the Father Through Jesus

The final three Sundays of the Easter season, leading to Pentecost Sunday, are devoted to highlighting Jesus’s Last Discourse sermon in John’s Gospel.  On the Fifth Sunday of Easter in Year A we get Jesus explaining He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  Three years ago I embedded Dr. Brant Pitre’s exegesis of this phrase.  But when the apostle Phillip asks Jesus to reveal the Father, Jesus gives another important response about seeing the Father in seeing Jesus.  Jesus is the living face of the Father.  But it’s even deeper than that.  Jesus goes on to say that the Father is in Him and He in the Father.  Here is the perfect image of the Trinity.  While there are three persons in God, it is One God because there is a sharing of the Godhead. 

So what is the face of the Father that we see in Jesus?  Gina Hens-Piazza, reflecting on this passage for America Media, sums it up nicely:

 

Thus, the fullness of Jesus’ humanity reveals the very nature of God. In Jesus’ compassion for the widow whose son had died (Lk 7:12-15), in his forgiveness of a woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1-11), in his healing a paralytic man (Mt 9:1-8), in his healing of a man with a withered hand in spite of strict religious obstacles (Mt 12:9-14, Mk 3:1-6, Lk 6:6-11), in his determination to eat with a man known to have questionable background as a tax collector (Mt 9:10-17, Mk 2:15-22, Lk 5:29-39), and in his encounter with a Samaritan woman, to whom he first revealed his divine identity (Jn 4:4-42), humanity sees the true character of God.

 

 

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"Do not let your hearts be troubled.

You have faith in God; have faith also in me.

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?

And 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.

Where I am going you know the way."

Thomas said to him,

"Master, we do not know where you are going;

how can we know the way?"

Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

If you know me, then you will also know my Father.

From now on you do know him and have seen him."

Philip said to him,

"Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us."

Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you for so long a time

and you still do not know me, Philip?

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.

The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,

or else, believe because of the works themselves.

Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,

and will do greater ones than these,

because I am going to the Father."

~Jn:14: 1-12

 

 

I found Fr. Cajetan Cuddy’s homily fascinating.  Fr, Cajetan seems to delve into some of the more complex theology in his homilies but here he says Jesus is simple and direct.

 

Fr. Cajetan:

In the midst of this storm of information and of data and of pixels, we want clarity…This is supremely true in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He responds concisely, pithily, truthfully, with concision and precision: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.” 

 

Jesus identifies himself as the way, Himself as the truth, Himself as the life.  And yet there remain a plethora of ways, truths, and different lifestyles, claiming that there are other ways, other truths, other lifestyles that are consonant with what our Lord and who He was and indeed even who he is.  The evident problem with the responses of pluralism and diversity that diverge, not culturally different, personally different, but essentially different from what our Lord Himself revealed is that they don’t provide a cipher through which everyone can cut through all of the diverging claims about what it means to follow Jesus.  In other words, the fog of ideas and contradictory claims don’t bring precision. They don’t bring concision, and they don’t bring salvation, because salvation is precise, it is concise, it is simple, and it’s Jesus Himself. 

 

Jesus does not offer one path among many. He offers Himself. The confusion of the modern world cannot be resolved by more analysis or more perspectives, but only by returning to Christ.

 

How do we follow Jesus?  Turn to Him.  We are not saved by analysis or diverging viewpoints.  We are saved by Him.

For the pastoral homily, I will return to Archbishop Edward Weisenburger.  The Archbishop points out that in this scene Jesus is preparing the disciples for His departure.

 

 

Archbishop Weisenburger:

As the discussion continues, Thomas, it seems somewhat exasperated, blurts out, "Lord, just show us the way to the Father and that will be enough  for us." Jesus responds with those beautiful words, "How long have I been with you, Thomas, and still, you do not know me? Thomas, I am the way."  Okay, brothers and sisters, the meaning of that little phrase, "I am the way," holds a meaning that makes all the difference.  You see, in the first century of Judaism, the phrase "the way" was a metaphor for "life with God."  Today, we might call "the way" something more like "the spiritual journey" or "the life of faith." But the phrase was indeed a common one and very specific.  It seems Jesus is asserting that He alone the fullness of life with God. He alone has opened the door to heaven for all of humanity.

 

…I almost hear an echo of the anxious and frightened Thomas today.  His words, Thomas' 2,000 years ago, were, "Lord, we do not know where you are going.  How can we know the way?" Today, coming from our mouths, it might sound more like, "Lord, where in the world are we going, because it seems we have lost our way."  And for many in the fear, anxiety and struggles of today, what some have lost still goes back to that original meaning of "the way." It seems that some have lost the very relationship with God. And yet, if we listen attentively, does Jesus not respond to us today with   the same comforting words He first offered Thomas, and through Thomas, to all of us?  "Thomas, I am the way. I am the way."

 

Brothers and sisters, Jesus' words this weekend are powerful and critical.  We must not let any fears or anxieties of the day dampen our spirits or compromise our courage, our perseverance, and our determination. For while He has left us to take His place at the right hand of the Father, He is profoundly and wonderfully with us and remains with us forever.  And those who are on the way with Him can never be lost.

 

Again, Jesus is the way, and when you realize this, truly realize it, your heart will no longer be troubled.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”

 

This is such beautiful hymn, “I Received the Living God,” performed by The Cathedral Singers.

 

The Lyrics:

Refrain:

I received the living God,

and my heart is full of joy.

I received the living God,

and my heart is full of joy.

 

Jesus said: "I am the Bread

Kneaded long to give you life;

You who will partake of me

Need not ever fear to die." [Refrain]

 

Jesus said: "I am the Way,

And my Father longs for you;

So I come to bring you home

To be one with him anew." [Refrain]

 

Jesus said: "I am the Truth;

If you follow close to me,

You will know me in your heart,

And my word shall make you free." [Refrain]

 

Jesus said: "I am the Life

Far from whom no thing can grow,

But receive this living bread,

And my Spirit you shall know." [Refrain]