12-Jun-2011 Dear Friend,
There are times when we feel like withdrawing from others and shutting ourselves and living alone. People get on our nerves and we feel confronted and challenged. Who needs others? Yet the fact remains that to be human is to live with others. The worst punishment is to be confined to solitary confinement. God revels himself in relationships. May we discover Him as a Father-Mother God, Jesus as our brother, and His Spirit -love in our midst! Enjoy being part of God's family this weekend! Fr. Jude Sunday Reflections: Trinity Sunday 'Living in Community of Father, Son and Spirit!' 19-Jun-2011 Exodus 34: 4-6, 8-9; 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13; John 3: 16-18; In the first reading, God reveals that his name is Yahweh, which means 'I am who I am'. The God of Sinai is not just the fearsome God. When Israel had sinned and broken the covenant, he shows himself as one who loves and forgives. He is forever the God of Israel and has bound his destiny to them. 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. Invited to His Table There is a beautiful Russian icon of the Blessed Trinity painted by a monk by the name of Rublev. It depicts the three Divine Persons sitting at a table. A dish of food lies on the table. But the thing that immediately strikes you is the fact that at the front of the table there is a vacant place. The vacant place is meant to convey openness, hospitality, and welcome towards the stranger and outsider. That vacant place is meant for each of us, and for all the human family. It signifies God's invitation to us to share in the life of the Trinity. God doesn't exclude us. He doesn't talk to us at the doorstep. He invites us to come in and sit at his table. He wants to share his life with us.-Many are intimidated by the great mystery of the Blessed Trinity. This is a pity. We should see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as friends to whom we can relate, and to whom we can talk in prayer. We are God's children. We are part of the family. Flor McCarthy in 'New Sunday and Holy Day Liturgies' The short reading of today's gospel speaks of God's plan of salvation. 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 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. Thus, in this passage from John we see the Father initiates the plan of salvation out of his love. Because of his great love he sends his Son Jesus Christ who carries out the Father's will, becoming 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 in communion and share our gifts, our love with others. Relating to God The four-year-old took me aback when she told me that even though her mother was very good, she often made mistakes. For whatever reason, the sophisticated youngster's implicit trust in a caring parent is already tottering. The loss is great. Humanly, we are made for trusting relationships. In the adult world, every time trust is undermined, we are all diminished. Trust can be misplaced and even well-placed trust can be undermined. Coping with such betrayal stretches maturity and love. Some cope by not risking trust again with anybody and so retreat into an impoverished self-centred lifestyle. Others are secure enough within themselves to absorb the pain and reach out again in trusting friendship, believing that we are called to a greatness beyond our limited human vision.-Such people have glimpsed into the heart of God. What makes God; God is that he remains always faithful to us. No matter what our betrayal, he continues to trust us again and again and to call us forward to the greatness he has destined for us. This greatness is to share the inner love life of God, where Father, Son and spirit live in an eternal bond that we call the Blessed Trinity. Tom Clancy in 'Living The Word' Three . Yet One In 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 geometric 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 plane, and 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' Tuned to God One day a farmer went into the city. As he was walking down a busy street he suddenly stopped and said to a friend who was with him, I can hear a cricket'. His friend was amazed and asked, 'How can you hear a cricket in the midst of all this noise?' 'Because my ears are attuned to his sound,' the farmer replied. Then he listened even more intently, and following the sound, found the cricket perched on a window ledge. His friend couldn't get over this. But the farmer showed no surprise. Instead he took a few coins out of his pocket and threw them on the pavement. On hearing the jingle of coins, the passers by stopped in their tracks. "You see what I mean,' said the farmer. 'None of those people could hear the sound of the cricket, but all of them could hear the sound of the money. People hear what their ears are attuned to hear, and are deaf to all the rest.' We could be tuned into God if we took a little trouble. Voltaire said: It is natural to admit the existence of God as soon as one opens one's eyes.' And Abraham Lincoln said, 'I can see how it might be possible for the man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.' Flor McCarthy in 'New Sunday and Holy Day Liturgies' Trying to Understand the Trinity Hyde Park in London is a favourite place for soapbox orators. Anyone can go there on a Sunday afternoon and talk on any subject under the sun, ranging from Politics to religion. The famous English catholic layman, Frank Sheed, went there often to talk about religion. When he was once preaching there on Holy Trinity, it began to rain. He used the rain to explain the unity in diversity of the Trinity. He said 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, an analogy like this falls short of the reality. But it offers an insight into the Trinity. As there are not three different kinds of water but only water in three different forms, so there is only one God in three different persons. St Ignatius of Loyola, once in prayer, perceived the Trinity in the form of three musical notes which made up a single chord. Vima Dasan in 'His Word Lives' Film: 'Les Miserables' -The face of God The setting is France at the beginning of the nineteenth century. After Jean Valjean has served a sentence of almost twenty years of hard labour for stealing a loaf of bread, he is released on the condition that he report regularly to the police. On his journey he is given hospitality by a bishop, but then steals candlesticks and silverware from his house. When the bishop tells the police that the items were his gift to Valjean, Valjean decides to devote his life to helping the needy. He does not disclose his past and is so successful in developing a new town factory that, in his new found respectability, he is elected mayor. However, his nemesis, the unrelenting Inspector Javert who wants to arrest Valjean, is assigned to the town as Prefect achieved. When he assists an ailing factory worker named Fantine, he promises to care for Cosette, her young daughter. Fantine dies, and Valjean eludes Javert and takes refuge in Paris with Cosette. They live quietly in a convent for many years where Valjean is the caretaker. There are political uprisings in Paris and young republican enthusiasts join the fight against the royal forces at the barricades. Cosette falls in love with Marius, one of the republicans. Javert arrives in Paris where he ultimately comes face to face with Valjean. Javert is captured by Marius and his companions and placed in Valjean's custody. Valjean refuses to take revenge on Javert and frees him. Marius is then captured by the royalists and Javert captures Valjean as Valjean rescues Marius. Javert cannot live with Valjean's mercy; he frees Valjean and then kills himself. Finally, Valjean walks along the river, a free man. Peter Malone in 'Lights, Camera..Faith!' The Power and Life of God in Us A father was driving his little son in a car. Suddenly, the son turned towards his 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 the 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 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 Homilies' May we reveal in our lives that we belong to the family of God! 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.
