06-Jun-2017 Dear Friend, Many people believe that their religion and their faith is a private affair between themselves and their God. Yet, just as no human being can be fully human without interacting and relating with others, so no one can live a committed religious life without living with and for others. To be a Christian is to be ready to live in a community. For many the toughest challenge, the litmus test of Christian faith is living with others. Have a ‘living with and living for others’ God-filled weekend! -Fr. Jude Sunday Ref.: The Feast of the Trinity “To live with others, we have to live for others!” 11-Jun-2017Readings: Exodus 34: 4-6, 8-9; 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13; John 3: 16-18;
The first reading treats of God as he manifests himself to his people. He reveals that his name is Yahweh, which means ‘I am who I am.’ The God of Sinai is not the fearsome God he too often is made out to be. When Israel sinned by the worship of idols and had broken the covenant, he does not abandon them but shows himself as one who loves and forgives. He is forever the God of Israel and has bound his destiny to them, no matter what they do, no matter how often they abandon him. Moses, his faithful servant, pleads on behalf of the people: “Lord if we have found favour come with us! True, we are a headstrong people but forgive us our faults and our sins and adopt us as your heritage.” God has made us forever his people, members of his household. He reveals himself as the Father-God, our Abba forever. God, a Mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solvedA father was driving his little son in a car. Suddenly the son turned to the father and asked him, “Dad! Is God one or many?” The father replied, “One, my son.” “Is the Father God?” His father replied, “Yes.” “Is Jesus God?” “Yes.” “Is the Holy Spirit God?” “Yes.” “Then how can Jesus be his own father?” asked his son. The father thought quickly. He drove the car to the side of the road and stopped it. He turned towards his son and said, “You see the bonnet in the front. Inside the bonnet there is the battery. There is only one battery. Yet I can start the car with it, turn on the lights and also blow the horn. How this happens I don’t know. It is a mystery to me. Likewise God is only one, but three persons –the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is a mystery and we cannot understand it completely.”John Rose in ‘John’s Sunday Reflections’ The short reading of today’s gospel speaks of God’s plan of salvation in and through Jesus Christ. It is the Father who initiates the salvific plan. He is always the Creator from whom all good things come. It is the Father who sends his beloved Son Jesus Christ into the world. The Father loves the world because of His Son, whom he sends into the world to reveal himself and his goodness to all humankind. He sends His Son not to condemn but to save the world. The mission of Jesus is to save the world and the one condition that must be fulfilled to be saved, is to believe in Jesus Christ. We must believe totally in Jesus, failing which we stand condemned. Eternal life begins here on earth itself when we believe and accept Jesus as our Lord. Thus, in this passage from John we see the Father initiates the plan of salvation out of his love. His Son Jesus Christ who carries out the Father’s will becomes the instrument of our salvation. Later on in the Gospel John speaks of the Spirit as the Advocate that will remain in man and guarantee God’s presence and power for salvation. Today’s passage shows how God lives as a community united and abiding in love. Out of love the Father creates and shares his love with humankind; this love is concretized and made real, incarnate in His Son Jesus Christ and the mutual love of the Father and the Son, the bond between them is the Holy Spirit, which is given to us. We live the life of God, the Trinitarian life, when we live in love. We can live with others only if we live for others. If we live for others we constantly desire to be united and share our gifts, our love with others. The Ascent of ManIn his brilliant series The Ascent of Man, author Jacob Bronowski devotes an episode to mathematics under the title “The Music of the Spheres”. He shows historically how man’s ascent in civilization was marked by an increasing understanding of mathematical patterns which he saw reflected in the harmonies of music, for example, or in the motion of the spheres around the sun. One of the most fascinating discoveries by the early Greeks was the fact that three fixed points, not all on the same line, determine uniquely one and only one triangle, one and only one plane, one and only one circle. Why this should be we don’t know. All we can do is observe it as a fact and apply it to the real world in art, architecture, engineering and science. Even more mysterious is our belief that there are three persons, yet one and only one God. Why this should be we don’t know. All we can do is accept it as a revealed fact and apply it to our Christian life.Albert Cylwicki in ‘His Word Resounds’ God is sufficientWhen the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go to a certain part of the forest to meditate. Then he would light a fire, say a prayer and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted. Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Magid of Mezritch, had occasion for the same reason to say a prayer, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: “Master of the Universe, Listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am able to say the prayer” And again the miracle would be accomplished. Still later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say: “I do not know how to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place, and this must be sufficient.” Once again a miracle! Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: “I am unable to light the light and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is tell the story, and this must be sufficient.” And it was sufficient, because God is sufficient!Brian Cavanaugh in ‘The Sower’s Seeds’ Seeing God in his manifestations -Living the TrinityFrank Sheed, a famous Catholic layman who lived in England, often went to Hyde Park to talk about religion. He used to say that he could hold a crowd for two hours in the rain, talking about the Trinity. Sheed’s remark is interesting. It makes an important point. People are interested in God. They are interested in the Trinity. They want to make the Trinity come alive and make sense in their everyday lives. Unfortunately, few articles are written about the Trinity. Even when you do read an article or hear a homily on the Trinity, it is often tedious. This is understandable because when we talk about the trinity, we are talking about a profound mystery. Frank Sheed, when preaching at Hyde Park, used the falling rain to try to give people an insight into the unity and diversity of the Trinity. He would say something like this: “The water that is falling is water, but it can exist in three different forms: gas, solid, and liquid –that is: in steam, in ice, and in falling rain.” Of course, every analogy falls short of the reality. But I think you see his point. There are not three different kinds of water. There is only one water, but it exists in three different forms. In some similar way we might think of God and experience his different manifestations.Mark Link in ‘Sunday Homilies’ A model for Inter-dependent livingThomas Edison, the inventor, once remarked: We don’t know about water. We don’t know what electricity is. We don’t know what light is. We don’t know what heat is. We have a lot of hypotheses about all these things, but that is all. But we don’t let our ignorance about these things deprive us of their use.” The truth of that statement is real. Most of us do not know how an electric light works, how a telephone or television works, but this does not prevent us from using them. Let us try to apply the same common sense to the doctrine of Trinity. The mystery of the Trinity is that God is a community of three persons, and God exists in a relationship. Community is something to which we pay a lot of attention. God’s existence in relationship stands as a model for how we should view our connectedness. As the world becomes a smaller and smaller place, we are slowly beginning to realize how much people all over the world depend on one another. Trinity also gives us a vision for all human interactions. In our families and neighbourhoods, we need to be dedicated to relationship building. This means alert to the common good, rather than to private gain, cooperating rather than competing. The lesson of the Trinity is not only about God’s nature, but also about all creation being essentially linked and interdependent. Our challenge is to make the unity of the Trinity happen in our lives. We are three!When asked: “Who are the three persons in God?” six-year old Minnie replied: God the Father, Mary our Mother, and Baby Jesus! Though Minnie got her ‘persons’ wrong, she inadvertently indicated that Trinity must somehow be related to family and community. The early Church worshipped, blessed, baptized and sang hymns to the Triune God. They rejoiced that in Jesus, and through the power of the Spirit, they were adopted as daughters and sons of God. Thus, the Trinity bids us not to try to condense God into formulae but to love and live like the Trinity –one, yet three, united, yet different. There’s that illiterate fisher-folk family that prayed, “We are three, you are three, have mercy on us!” They perhaps, understood the Trinity more than you and me.Francis Gonsalves in ‘Sunday Seeds for Daily Deeds’ May we live as members of God’s family living with and for others! Fr. Jude Botelho [email protected] PS. The stories, incidents and anecdotes used in the reflections have been collected over the years from books as well as from sources over the net and from e-mails received. Every effort is made to acknowledge authors whenever possible. If you send in stories or illustrations I would be grateful if you could quote the source as well so that they can be acknowledged if used in these reflections. These reflections are also available on my Web site www.NetForLife.net Thank you.
