27-May-2012 Dear Friend,
Today’s feast of the Trinity is our human way of talking about the wonder that is God, revealed to us in Jesus and living in us through the Spirit. Today we are invited to celebrate our relationships, our belonging to the family of God. Most of our joys and many of our problems spring from relationships. Do we value relationships and take time to build, cherish and nourish relationships? Do we believe and live as members of God’s family? To live with one another we have to live for one another! Let’s celebrate our God-family ties this weekend! Fr. Jude Sunday Reflections: Trinity Sunday ‘God has done all these wonderful things for you!! 3-Jun-2012 Readings: Deuteronomy 4: 32-34, 39-40 Romans 8: 14-17 Mathew 28: 16-20 The first reading from the book of Deuteronomy reminds us of the oneness and the majesty of God, an understanding of God that we have inherited from Judaism. In fact the whole of the Old Testament speaks to us of the majesty and power and the initiative of the Father-God, who creates the universe and calls us into being, who gets involved with the destiny of the chosen people, so that they call Him the God-of-Israel. The History of the people of Israel is the history of the wonders that God did for his people. This is also our own history, if we examine it with eyes of faith. God has been a wonderful God, choosing us to be born, to be alive, to be people of faith. He chooses to speak to us and let us speak to Him. Everything about our life and history speaks to us of a God, who is our Father, our Abba, who has loved us and will continue to love us till the very end. The Sundial A missionary from Africa, on his home-leave, came across a beautiful sundial. He thought to himself, “That sundial would be ideal for my villagers in Africa. I could use it to teach them to tell the time of the day.” The missionary bought the sundial, crated it and took it back to Africa. When the village chief saw it, he insisted that it be set up in the centre of the village. The villagers were thrilled with the sundial. They had never seen something so beautiful in their lives. They were even more thrilled when they learned how it worked. The missionary was delighted by everyone’s response to his sundial. He was totally unprepared for what happened a few days later. The people of the village got together and built a roof over the sundial to protect it from the rain and the sun! Well, I think the sundial is a lot like the Holy Trinity, and we Christians are a lot like the African villagers. The most beautiful revelation of our faith is the teaching about the Holy Trinity, namely, the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. But instead of putting the teaching to work in our daily lives, we have built a roof over it, just as the villagers did over their sundial. For many of us the Trinity seems of little practical value, when it comes to our daily lives. We treat it more like an ornament of our faith. Mark Link in ‘Sunday Homilies’ The Gospel will remind us that while we have the privilege and gift of being of the family of God we also have the task and the duty of living and sharing this life with others. If we are children of the Father-God, who always takes the initiative of loving, sharing and giving, then we His children must be like our Father, the first to love, share and give to others. “Go and make disciples of all nations… We can only make disciples of all nations if we ourselves are true disciples, witnesses and mirror images of the Father. We are called to be like Jesus and we do that by doing the Father’s will. Jesus was the obedient son of the Father. Obedience to His laws and commandments should characterize our lives. Jesus lived for His Father and we too are called to live for the Father. This life is only possible in and through the Spirit. Jesus was obedient to the Spirit and led by the Spirit. If we are members of the Trinitarian family of God, we will always be led by His spirit and radiate His spirit of love in our lives. Our True Inheritance The ‘Taking of Christ’ by Caravaggio continues to haunt me. It communicates pain, distress, disappointment, agony, patience but, above all, love. It evokes a response of gratitude, empathy, solidarity, communion and love in return for such great love. Its power is stupendous. Its value is immeasurable. However, in a culture that insists on evaluating everything from sporting prowess to feminine beauty in terms of the money it can command, this painting has acquired a ?20 million tag. But price is an unreliable guide to reality and oftentimes it deflects us from appreciating the true value of what life has to offer. In fact, the most precious things in life can neither be measured, earned, owned, proven or priced. They are pure gifts and the greatest gift of all is the faith in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is our human way of talking about the wonder that is God, revealed to us in Jesus and living in us through the Spirit. Living in that Spirit, we bask in the love God pours into our hearts, which enables us to love one another in the image of the Holy Trinity, in whose name we are baptized. Such is our heritage. Trinity Sunday is a good day to reclaim our inheritance. Tom Clancy in ‘Living the Word’ An ‘interpersonal’ God For people who are active members of a local Christian congregation, perhaps the following metaphor will be at once shocking and comforting. Our God is a committee! To picture the Three Persons discussing the feasibility of creation, the time and place of the redemptive intervention, the best way to keep in touch with the human community through all history, would seem to be accurate anthropomorphic theology and not simply poetic imagining. Christianity demands that we support one another, depend on one another, love one another. Our strangely fascinating teaching of a triune God implies that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relate to one another in a similar way. There is nothing Christian about the absolutely rugged individualist who needs no one else, who is concerned about no one else. Perhaps there is nothing God-like about a Creator who does not need, and give support to, a Redeemer and Sanctifier. Eugene Laeur in ‘Sunday Morning Insights’ Witness of Community Life At an International Conference on Evangelisation, people from different countries were presenting their preferred methods in their missionary work. Some spoke of food, others spoke of housing, while others spoke of health and medicine. Between them, there was a wonderful spirit of generosity and of missionary zeal. One of the surprise packages presented came from a group of Christians in the Far East. Of course, they saw the need for food, for health, for housing, and they tried what they could to provide that. The most important thing for them, however, was, once they had selected an area in which they wished to implant the Christian message, the first thing they did was to send a Christian family to live there. Their first line of evangelization was always the witness value of Christian living. It had always been the Catholic tradition that its strongest message was the witness of its members in their daily living. This, of course, could be disputed, but there is no doubt about it, Christianity is more about attracting than promoting. Jack McArdle in ‘And that’s the Gospel truth!’ Understanding Each Other John and Josephine have just celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary. Since their four children have left home and married, they have spent seventeen years on their own, a time they describe as “a new growing towards each other.” When they were asked why they still enjoyed each other’s company. Josephine replied: “We’ve always had a healthy respect for each other’s differences. And we’re still growing to know each other better. I just wish that we could have communicated with each other years ago the way we do now. But perhaps our easiness with each other now could only come about because of all the struggles we went through.” Unless we settle for stereotypes, understanding other people is a lifetime’s task. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that when it comes to understanding God we can become paralyzed by the sheer magnitude of the mystery. The more we discover about God, the greater becomes the mystery of his presence and love. The considerable knowledge of the Church can never dispel the mystery of ages. Mystery means that we can never say the final word about God; there is always more to discover, there is always more to share, there is always more to experience. And each year, Trinity Sunday calls us to reflect on the life of God. Denis McBride in ‘Seasons of the Word’ Heirs of a Family-God During catechism class, a priest asked 6-year old Sheila: “Can you say something about the Trinity?” Sheila mumbled something softly. “Sheila, I don’t understand what you’re saying!” complained the priest. “You shouldn’t,” replied Sheila, “Teacher said that the Trinity is a mystery!” Not only kids but also pastors and theologians have difficulty in explaining the Trinity. Theologian Karl Rahner laments that most Catholics are “Mere monotheists,” and, after their 1989 deliberations on Trinity, the British Council of Churches entitled their document “The Forgotten Trinity.” Thus, Trinity Sunday bids us remember the Trinity not merely as ‘mystery’ but as precious part of our everyday life. Trinity Sunday reminds us that there is no ‘self-made man’; or, ‘self-saved woman’, for that matter! It is the family God who creates us, saves us, sanctifies us. May Trinity Sunday see parents and pastors reminding their children and congregations of the urgent need to re-member the Forgotten Trinity, that down-to-earth Family-God who abides in, and animates, our daily family life. And may all families continue worshipping and working with our family-God. Francis Gonsalves in ‘Sunday Seeds for Daily Deeds’ One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity St. Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, spent nearly 30 years of his matured life in writing 15 books on the subject of Trinity. His friends waited for the publication for many years, but Augustine was hesitating. One day they surreptitiously took away the manuscripts – without final corrections, and published them without Augustine’s knowledge and permission. Augustine immediately made corrections in the manuscripts he had, and began to publish them. Although he spent several years meditating on the Trinity, he was aware of his shortcomings in treating a topic so sublime. He said, “I pray to our Lord God himself, of whom we aught always to think, and yet of whom we are not able to think worthily, and whom no speech is sufficient to declare, that he will grant me both help for understanding and explaining that which I design, and pardon if in anything I offend.” John Rose in ‘John’s Sunday Homilies’ Inspired by our Trinitarian God, May we live with each other and for each other! 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.
