The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Lectionary: 165
Lectionary: 165
Moses said to the people:
"Ask now of the days of old, before your time,
ever since God created man upon the earth;
ask from one end of the sky to the other:
Did anything so great ever happen before?
Was it ever heard of?
Did a people ever hear the voice of God
speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?
Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself
from the midst of another nation,
by testings, by signs and wonders, by war,
with strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors,
all of which the LORD, your God,
did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
This is why you must now know,
and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God
in the heavens above and on earth below,
and that there is no other.
You must keep his statutes and commandments that I enjoin on you today,
that you and your children after you may prosper,
and that you may have long life on the land
which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever."
"Ask now of the days of old, before your time,
ever since God created man upon the earth;
ask from one end of the sky to the other:
Did anything so great ever happen before?
Was it ever heard of?
Did a people ever hear the voice of God
speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?
Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself
from the midst of another nation,
by testings, by signs and wonders, by war,
with strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors,
all of which the LORD, your God,
did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
This is why you must now know,
and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God
in the heavens above and on earth below,
and that there is no other.
You must keep his statutes and commandments that I enjoin on you today,
that you and your children after you may prosper,
and that you may have long life on the land
which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever."
Responsorial
PsalmPS 33:4-5, 6, 9, 18-19,
20, 22
R. (12b) Blessed
the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Upright is the word of the LORD,
and all his works are trustworthy.
He loves justice and right;
of the kindness of the Lord the earth is full.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made;
by the breath of his mouth all their host.
For he spoke, and it was made;
he commanded, and it stood forth.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness,
To deliver them from death
and preserve them in spite of famine.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Our soul waits for the LORD,
who is our help and our shield.
May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us
who have put our hope in you.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Upright is the word of the LORD,
and all his works are trustworthy.
He loves justice and right;
of the kindness of the Lord the earth is full.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made;
by the breath of his mouth all their host.
For he spoke, and it was made;
he commanded, and it stood forth.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness,
To deliver them from death
and preserve them in spite of famine.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Our soul waits for the LORD,
who is our help and our shield.
May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us
who have put our hope in you.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Reading 2ROM 8:14-17
Brothers and sisters:
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you received a Spirit of adoption,
through whom we cry, "Abba, Father!"
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit
that we are children of God,
and if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,
if only we suffer with him
so that we may also be glorified with him.
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you received a Spirit of adoption,
through whom we cry, "Abba, Father!"
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit
that we are children of God,
and if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,
if only we suffer with him
so that we may also be glorified with him.
AlleluiaRV 1:8
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit;
to God who is, who was, and who is to come.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit;
to God who is, who was, and who is to come.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
GospelMT 28:16-20
The eleven disciples went to Galilee,
to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
When they all saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
Then Jesus approached and said to them,
"All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."
to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
When they all saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
Then Jesus approached and said to them,
"All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."
Meditation: "In the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit "
How can we know who God is? Jesus revealed to his
disciples the great mystery of our faith - the triune nature of one God in
three persons and the inseparable union of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Jesus' mission is to reveal the glory of God to us - a Trinity of persons - God
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - and to unite us with God in a community of
unbreakable unity and everlasting love. The ultimate end, the purpose for which
God created us, is the entry of God's sons and daughters into the perfect unity
of the blessed Trinity.
Jesus, the Son of God, reveals the Father's true
nature
The Jews understood God as Creator and Father of all that he made (Deuteronomy 32:6) and they understood the nation of Israel as God's firstborn son (Exodus 4:22). Jesus reveals the Father in an unheard of sense. He is eternally Father by his relationship to his only Son, who, reciprocally, is Son only in relation to his Father (see Matthew 11:27). The Spirit, likewise, is inseparably one with the Father and the Son.
The Jews understood God as Creator and Father of all that he made (Deuteronomy 32:6) and they understood the nation of Israel as God's firstborn son (Exodus 4:22). Jesus reveals the Father in an unheard of sense. He is eternally Father by his relationship to his only Son, who, reciprocally, is Son only in relation to his Father (see Matthew 11:27). The Spirit, likewise, is inseparably one with the Father and the Son.
Through baptism we share in the life of the Trinity
The mission of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit are the same. That is why Jesus tells his disciples that the Spirit will reveal the glory of the Father and the Son and will speak what is true. Before his Passover, Jesus revealed the Holy Spirit as the "Paraclete" and Helper who will be with Jesus' disciples to teach and guide them "into all the truth" (John 14:17,26; 16:13). In baptism we are called to share in the life of the Holy Trinity here on earth in faith and after death in eternal light.
The mission of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit are the same. That is why Jesus tells his disciples that the Spirit will reveal the glory of the Father and the Son and will speak what is true. Before his Passover, Jesus revealed the Holy Spirit as the "Paraclete" and Helper who will be with Jesus' disciples to teach and guide them "into all the truth" (John 14:17,26; 16:13). In baptism we are called to share in the life of the Holy Trinity here on earth in faith and after death in eternal light.
Clement of Alexandria, a third century church father,
wrote:
"What an astonishing mystery! There is one Father
of the universe, one Logos (Word) of the universe, and also one Holy Spirit,
everywhere one and the same; there is also one virgin become mother, and I
should like to call her 'Church'."
We can have a personal relationship with the Father
and the Son through the gift and working of the Holy Spirit
How can we personally know the Father and his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ? It is the Holy Spirit who reveals the Father and the Son to us and who gives us the gift of faith to know and understand the truth of God's word. Through the Holy Spirit, we proclaim our ancient faith in the saving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ until he comes again. The Lord gives us his Holy Spirit as our divine Teacher and Helper that we may grow in the knowledge and wisdom of God. Do you seek the wisdom that comes from above and do you willingly obey God's word?
How can we personally know the Father and his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ? It is the Holy Spirit who reveals the Father and the Son to us and who gives us the gift of faith to know and understand the truth of God's word. Through the Holy Spirit, we proclaim our ancient faith in the saving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ until he comes again. The Lord gives us his Holy Spirit as our divine Teacher and Helper that we may grow in the knowledge and wisdom of God. Do you seek the wisdom that comes from above and do you willingly obey God's word?
Jesus' departure and ascension into heaven was both an
end and a beginning for his disciples. While it was the end of Jesus' physical
presence with his beloved disciples, it marked the beginning of Jesus' presence
with them in a new way. Jesus promised that he would be with them always to the
end of time. He assured them of his power - a power which overcame sin and
death. Now as the glorified and risen Lord and Savior, ascended to the right
hand of the Father in heaven, Jesus promised to give them the power of his Holy
Spirit, which we see fulfilled ten days later on the Feast of Pentecost (Luke
24:49 and Acts 2:1-4). When the Lord Jesus departed physically from the
apostles, they were not left alone or powerless. Jesus assured them of his
presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Our mission is to proclaim the love of God our Father
who saved us through his Son, Jesus Christ, and who unites us in his Holy
Spirit
Jesus' last words to his apostles point to his saving mission and to their mission to be witnesses of his saving death and his glorious resurrection and to proclaim the good news of salvation to all the world. Their task is to proclaim the good news of salvation, not only to the people of Israel, but to all the nations. God's love and gift of salvation is not just for a few, or for a nation, but it is for the whole world - for all who will accept it. The gospel is the power of God, the power to forgive sins, to heal, to deliver from evil and oppression, and to restore life. Do you believe in the power of the gospel?
Jesus' last words to his apostles point to his saving mission and to their mission to be witnesses of his saving death and his glorious resurrection and to proclaim the good news of salvation to all the world. Their task is to proclaim the good news of salvation, not only to the people of Israel, but to all the nations. God's love and gift of salvation is not just for a few, or for a nation, but it is for the whole world - for all who will accept it. The gospel is the power of God, the power to forgive sins, to heal, to deliver from evil and oppression, and to restore life. Do you believe in the power of the gospel?
"May the Lord Jesus put his hands on our eyes
also, for then we too shall begin to look not at what is seen but at what is
not seen. May he open the eyes that are concerned not with the present but with
what is yet to come, may he unseal the heart's vision, that we may gaze on God
in the Spirit, through the same Lord, Jesus Christ, whose glory and power will
endure throughout the unending succession of ages." (prayer of Origin,
185-254 AD)
Daily Quote from the early church fathers: The pledge of the Holy Spirit, by
Ambrose of Milan, 339-397 A.D.
"Recall then that you have received the spiritual
seal, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of right judgment and
courage, the spirit of knowledge and reverence, the spirit of holy fear in
God's presence. Guard what you have received. God the Father has marked you
with His sign; Christ the Lord has confirmed you and has placed His pledge, the
Spirit, in your hearts" (excerpt from De Mysteriis 7, 42).
Most Holy Trinity Sunday – Cycle B
Note: Where a Scripture text is underlined in the body of this discussion, it is recommended that the reader look up and read that passage.
Introduction
It would seem that on this particular Sunday the Church would tell us all about the inner workings of the Blessed Trinity. Today would be the prime time for answering such questions as:
• How can one God be three Persons, and three Persons be one God?
• Why three Persons instead of three forces, or three ideas, or three concepts?
• Why only three instead of four, or six or a dozen?
• How does the Trinity work together? Does the Father have veto power?
• How does Jesus’ humanity fit into the Trinity?
• Why didn’t the Father and the Holy Spirit become flesh like the Son and dwell among us?
The doctrine of the Trinity describes the unique ways that we experience God’s presence in our lives. It is a confusing doctrine, even for adults, because it seems to imply three gods who are yet One God. When we speak of the mystery of creator and creation, we can only apprehend that mystery by analogy, poetry, and symbolic language. What we describe with the doctrine of the Trinity is an experience of God.
First, we know God through His creation and through our own creative acts. When we make something, whether it be a piece of furniture or a special meal, we are in touch with God as we shape something into a different form. The intense fulfillment of childbirth is another example of creative time. When we are creative, we feel whole and fulfilled. God is creating through us, and we have a sense of being an instrument for the Divine. We call this way of experiencing God “Father”.
Secondly, we know God in the sense expressed in 1 John 4:16 “God is love, and He who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” God is as close to us as the healing love that is shared among His people. It was Jesus who proclaimed this reality by the power of love He showed in His life, death, and resurrection. Using the metaphors of biblical language, we could say that we “meet Christ” in the acts of love and healing. We know God through the “flesh and blood” of His presence in our lives and through the power of love that leads us into deeper life. We call this way of experiencing and knowing God “Son”, since Jesus is called the Son of God.
Finally, we feel the spirit and are “turned on” to God’s power. We know God through the inspiration that comes to us. Our secular use of the word “spirit” describes very well the experiences of God we feel through spiritedness and inspiration. When I say that certain words “came to me” in a moment of crisis, I feel I am describing the experience of receiving inspiration. As Christians we simply add the word “Holy” to the everyday word “Spirit” to define the spirited way of knowing God in our lives. Thus we can say that we know God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The dogma of the Trinity has not always been clearly defined. In fact, the word “trinity” does not appear in Holy Scripture (neither does the word “pope”, “purgatory”, or “catholic” for that matter – as our fundamentalist brothers and sisters will be quick to point out). It is not even clear how the doctrine was understood in the time of the apostles. The oldest doctrinal formulation of the Church’s belief in the Trinity is in the Apostle’s Creed, which, in the form of the ancient Roman baptismal symbol, served as the basis of catechumenical instruction and as a baptismal confession of faith since the second century.
In the early Church, Christians began to ponder the mystery of God’s unity and the Trinity and attempted to explain more precisely the relationships among the persons of the Trinity. These efforts led to many errors in the early years, and most of those who tried to describe the relationships ended in heresy. Even the great theologians Tertullian and Origin stumbled into error in their attempts to explain the relationship between the Father and the Son. Arius, around the year A.D. 300, concluded that the Word (logos) of God was created by the Father to be the instrument of all other creation. The Word, or God the Son, was a perfect creature to Arius, but a creature nonetheless. Were this account true, then only the Father would be truly God, and the Son and Holy Spirit would then be divine only through adoption by the Father. In such a case, the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity would become merely a descending hierarchy with the Father extending His grace to the Son and the Holy Spirit, rather than a communion of co-equal and co-eternal persons, who together are the one, true God. Arianism finally died out almost 500 years later at the end of the 7th century. Arianism has been revived in the modern world by the Jehovah’s Witnesses who deny that Jesus is God.
The creed which we call the Nicene Creed originated at the Council of Nicea in AD 325. It was probably introduced into the western liturgy by the regional Council of Toledo in A.D. 589. That text however, was a Latin translation of the Greek original and came to include a small addition which resulted in major theological disputes, namely that the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Father and the Son, rather than only from the Father. This matter continues to divide Catholic and Protestant Christians from Eastern Orthodox Christians.
1st Reading -Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40
On the plains of Moab, God charges Moses, now close to death, once more to proclaim the Law which he received though the revelation at Mount Sinai. This proclamation is contained in the fifth and last book of the Pentateuch, which is called in the Greek Septuagint deuteronomion, or second law.
Moses is addressing a new generation of Israelites, survivors of the Baal of Peor incident where the men of Israel had indulged in sexual immorality with Moabite women and had bowed down and sacrificed before their gods (baals). As a result of this incident a plague was unleashed against the Israelites which was stopped only when Phineas, grandson of Aaron, thrust his spear through an Israelite man and his Moabite concubine. Twenty-four thousand died in the plague. It was at this point that the line of the priesthood passed from the Levites to the line of Phineas (Numbers 25:13).
The words of the covenant in Deuteronomy are more lax than the words given at Mount Sinai, Moses makes accommodation for their sinfulness. For example, it is in Deuteronomy where we hear this divorce is allowed – otherwise the man would have killed his wife in order to be free to remarry.
[Moses said to the people:] 32 “Ask now of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created man upon the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of? 33 Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?
This is a reference to when the Israelites heard God’s thunder at Mount Sinai while Moses was on the mountain. One cannot see God and live (Exodus 33:20).
34 Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with his strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors, all of which the LORD, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
A reference to the Exodus, the ten plagues which preceded it, and the many signs performed in the desert.
39 This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other.
In preparation for the entering of Canaan, the promised land, the people must realize that Yahweh has superseded the gods of the heavens and the underworld of Canaan and the surrounding nations.
40 You must keep his statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you today, that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may have long life on the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever.”
Being good, obeying the commandments of the Law of God, brings life. This was initially understood as longevity; whereas sin often brought with it misfortune or death as a punishment from God (see Ezekiel 18:10-13, 19-20). The fact that God is just in His treatment of man, rewarding him or punishing him, sooner or later, for the good or evil which he does, is a message that runs through both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament the emphasis is on reward or punishment in this present life on earth; in the New Testament more emphasis is put on divine retribution in the future life in heaven.
2nd Reading - Romans 8:14-17
Today we hear Saint Paul tell us that it is through the Spirit that the Christian becomes a child of God, destined for glory.
14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
The Spirit animates and activates the Christian and makes one a child of God.
“If you put your confidence in baptism to the point that you neglect your behavior after it, Paul says that, even if you are baptized, if you are not led by the Spirit afterward you will lose the dignity bestowed on you and the honor of your adoption. This is why he does not talk about those who received the Spirit in the past but rather about those who are being led by the Spirit now.” [Saint John Chrysostom (ca. A.D. 391), Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans, 14].
15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
Saint Paul is playing on the meanings of pneuma (Greek) which is translated as “spirit.” Christians have received the “Spirit of God” – this is not a “spirit” in the sense of a disposition or mentality that a slave would have. Vitalized and filled by God’s Spirit, the Christian cannot possess the attitude of a slave, because he is free.
but you received a spirit of adoption,
Not a legal adoption as such, but God, through baptism (of water and spirit) has taken the Christian into His family where he (the Christian) has the status of a child rather than of a slave (who indeed belonged to the household but had no “family” rights or inheritance. Since the sin of the golden calf, the Jews were slaves of God.
through which we cry, “Abba, Father!”
My father
“We have received the Spirit to enable us to know the one to whom we pray, our real Father, the one and only Father of all, that is, the one who like a Father educates us for salvation and does away with fear.” [Saint Clement of Alexandria (post A.D. 202), Stromateis, 2.78].
16 The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
The Spirit makes the Christian aware of his adoptive sonship.
“The Spirit of adoption ... bears witness and assures our spirits that we are children of God after we have passed from the spirit of slavery and come under the Spirit of adoption, when all fear has departed. We no longer act out of fear of punishment but do everything out of love for the Father. It is right too that the Spirit of God should be said to bear witness with our spirits and not with our souls, because the spirit is our better part.” [Origin (post A.D. 244), Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans].
17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God
Not only are we admitted into God’s family, but God’s gratuitous gift gives us the right to inherit the Father’s estate (heaven and its rewards).
and joint heirs with Christ,
Jesus, the true son, has already received the Father’s estate (glory) and we are destined also to share it with Him.
if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
Notice the connection explicitly asserted between Jesus’ passion and His resurrection. We, as heirs, must walk in His footsteps. Suffering forms our conscience and perfects us.
“Here ‘suffer with him’ does not mean that we should sympathize and come to the aid of the sufferer, as it usually does in everyday parlance. Christ did not suffer in order to get attention, nor did He undergo weakness in order to gain the sympathy of those who felt sorry for Him. To suffer with Christ means to endure the same sufferings that He was forced to suffer by the Jews because He preached the gospel. ... If we suffer with Him we shall be worthy to be glorified with Him as well. This glory is the reward of our sufferings and is not to be regarded as a free gift. The free gift is that we have received remission of our former sins.” [Diodore of Tarsus (ca. A.D. 345), Pauline Commentary from the Greek Church].
Gospel - Matthew 28:16-20
Our gospel reading for today is the last five verses of the Gospel of Matthew; the five verses which Protestant Bibles call “The Great Commission.” It is Jesus’ second resurrection appearance in this gospel, the first having been to the women who had come to the tomb.
16 The eleven disciples went to Galilee,
This alludes to the absence of Judas who, we are told in Matthew 27:5, had hanged himself.
to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
The identity of the mountain is unknown, like the mount of the transfiguration.
17 When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
Although they recognize Him immediately, the stress is not on His appearance but on His words.
18 Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Note the past tense. It is God the Father who has bestowed divine authority on Jesus as the Son of Man. He is the ambassador of the Father with full authority to make commitments and obligations. The authority is that of the Kingdom of God.
19 Go, therefore,
Because He has full authority, He can commission others to work in His behalf.
and make disciples of all nations,
The great commission is a general command: to “make disciples of all nations” – all people of all cultures – even Jews who are not already disciples.
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,
Now we learn how they are to make disciples – first they baptize them, which is a rite of initiation. By being baptized “in the name” signifies that they belong to the one triune God. By belonging to the Name, they owe allegiance to the one God and all He represents and manifests.
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
After being baptized and having received the Holy Spirit, the initiates are to be instructed in all the doctrines. In the early Church, the Eucharist was not explained until after baptism.
And behold, I am with you always,
Jesus is Emmanuel, the divine presence (Shekinah) with His people as they make decisions, study, pray, preach, baptize and teach. He is with us because we are in covenant with the Father and we are all always part of His family.
until the end of the age.
The coming of the kingdom of God in its fullness
Note: Where a Scripture text is underlined in the body of this discussion, it is recommended that the reader look up and read that passage.
Introduction
It would seem that on this particular Sunday the Church would tell us all about the inner workings of the Blessed Trinity. Today would be the prime time for answering such questions as:
• How can one God be three Persons, and three Persons be one God?
• Why three Persons instead of three forces, or three ideas, or three concepts?
• Why only three instead of four, or six or a dozen?
• How does the Trinity work together? Does the Father have veto power?
• How does Jesus’ humanity fit into the Trinity?
• Why didn’t the Father and the Holy Spirit become flesh like the Son and dwell among us?
The doctrine of the Trinity describes the unique ways that we experience God’s presence in our lives. It is a confusing doctrine, even for adults, because it seems to imply three gods who are yet One God. When we speak of the mystery of creator and creation, we can only apprehend that mystery by analogy, poetry, and symbolic language. What we describe with the doctrine of the Trinity is an experience of God.
First, we know God through His creation and through our own creative acts. When we make something, whether it be a piece of furniture or a special meal, we are in touch with God as we shape something into a different form. The intense fulfillment of childbirth is another example of creative time. When we are creative, we feel whole and fulfilled. God is creating through us, and we have a sense of being an instrument for the Divine. We call this way of experiencing God “Father”.
Secondly, we know God in the sense expressed in 1 John 4:16 “God is love, and He who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” God is as close to us as the healing love that is shared among His people. It was Jesus who proclaimed this reality by the power of love He showed in His life, death, and resurrection. Using the metaphors of biblical language, we could say that we “meet Christ” in the acts of love and healing. We know God through the “flesh and blood” of His presence in our lives and through the power of love that leads us into deeper life. We call this way of experiencing and knowing God “Son”, since Jesus is called the Son of God.
Finally, we feel the spirit and are “turned on” to God’s power. We know God through the inspiration that comes to us. Our secular use of the word “spirit” describes very well the experiences of God we feel through spiritedness and inspiration. When I say that certain words “came to me” in a moment of crisis, I feel I am describing the experience of receiving inspiration. As Christians we simply add the word “Holy” to the everyday word “Spirit” to define the spirited way of knowing God in our lives. Thus we can say that we know God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The dogma of the Trinity has not always been clearly defined. In fact, the word “trinity” does not appear in Holy Scripture (neither does the word “pope”, “purgatory”, or “catholic” for that matter – as our fundamentalist brothers and sisters will be quick to point out). It is not even clear how the doctrine was understood in the time of the apostles. The oldest doctrinal formulation of the Church’s belief in the Trinity is in the Apostle’s Creed, which, in the form of the ancient Roman baptismal symbol, served as the basis of catechumenical instruction and as a baptismal confession of faith since the second century.
In the early Church, Christians began to ponder the mystery of God’s unity and the Trinity and attempted to explain more precisely the relationships among the persons of the Trinity. These efforts led to many errors in the early years, and most of those who tried to describe the relationships ended in heresy. Even the great theologians Tertullian and Origin stumbled into error in their attempts to explain the relationship between the Father and the Son. Arius, around the year A.D. 300, concluded that the Word (logos) of God was created by the Father to be the instrument of all other creation. The Word, or God the Son, was a perfect creature to Arius, but a creature nonetheless. Were this account true, then only the Father would be truly God, and the Son and Holy Spirit would then be divine only through adoption by the Father. In such a case, the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity would become merely a descending hierarchy with the Father extending His grace to the Son and the Holy Spirit, rather than a communion of co-equal and co-eternal persons, who together are the one, true God. Arianism finally died out almost 500 years later at the end of the 7th century. Arianism has been revived in the modern world by the Jehovah’s Witnesses who deny that Jesus is God.
The creed which we call the Nicene Creed originated at the Council of Nicea in AD 325. It was probably introduced into the western liturgy by the regional Council of Toledo in A.D. 589. That text however, was a Latin translation of the Greek original and came to include a small addition which resulted in major theological disputes, namely that the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Father and the Son, rather than only from the Father. This matter continues to divide Catholic and Protestant Christians from Eastern Orthodox Christians.
1st Reading -Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40
On the plains of Moab, God charges Moses, now close to death, once more to proclaim the Law which he received though the revelation at Mount Sinai. This proclamation is contained in the fifth and last book of the Pentateuch, which is called in the Greek Septuagint deuteronomion, or second law.
Moses is addressing a new generation of Israelites, survivors of the Baal of Peor incident where the men of Israel had indulged in sexual immorality with Moabite women and had bowed down and sacrificed before their gods (baals). As a result of this incident a plague was unleashed against the Israelites which was stopped only when Phineas, grandson of Aaron, thrust his spear through an Israelite man and his Moabite concubine. Twenty-four thousand died in the plague. It was at this point that the line of the priesthood passed from the Levites to the line of Phineas (Numbers 25:13).
The words of the covenant in Deuteronomy are more lax than the words given at Mount Sinai, Moses makes accommodation for their sinfulness. For example, it is in Deuteronomy where we hear this divorce is allowed – otherwise the man would have killed his wife in order to be free to remarry.
[Moses said to the people:] 32 “Ask now of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created man upon the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of? 33 Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?
This is a reference to when the Israelites heard God’s thunder at Mount Sinai while Moses was on the mountain. One cannot see God and live (Exodus 33:20).
34 Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with his strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors, all of which the LORD, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
A reference to the Exodus, the ten plagues which preceded it, and the many signs performed in the desert.
39 This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other.
In preparation for the entering of Canaan, the promised land, the people must realize that Yahweh has superseded the gods of the heavens and the underworld of Canaan and the surrounding nations.
40 You must keep his statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you today, that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may have long life on the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever.”
Being good, obeying the commandments of the Law of God, brings life. This was initially understood as longevity; whereas sin often brought with it misfortune or death as a punishment from God (see Ezekiel 18:10-13, 19-20). The fact that God is just in His treatment of man, rewarding him or punishing him, sooner or later, for the good or evil which he does, is a message that runs through both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament the emphasis is on reward or punishment in this present life on earth; in the New Testament more emphasis is put on divine retribution in the future life in heaven.
2nd Reading - Romans 8:14-17
Today we hear Saint Paul tell us that it is through the Spirit that the Christian becomes a child of God, destined for glory.
14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
The Spirit animates and activates the Christian and makes one a child of God.
“If you put your confidence in baptism to the point that you neglect your behavior after it, Paul says that, even if you are baptized, if you are not led by the Spirit afterward you will lose the dignity bestowed on you and the honor of your adoption. This is why he does not talk about those who received the Spirit in the past but rather about those who are being led by the Spirit now.” [Saint John Chrysostom (ca. A.D. 391), Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans, 14].
15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
Saint Paul is playing on the meanings of pneuma (Greek) which is translated as “spirit.” Christians have received the “Spirit of God” – this is not a “spirit” in the sense of a disposition or mentality that a slave would have. Vitalized and filled by God’s Spirit, the Christian cannot possess the attitude of a slave, because he is free.
but you received a spirit of adoption,
Not a legal adoption as such, but God, through baptism (of water and spirit) has taken the Christian into His family where he (the Christian) has the status of a child rather than of a slave (who indeed belonged to the household but had no “family” rights or inheritance. Since the sin of the golden calf, the Jews were slaves of God.
through which we cry, “Abba, Father!”
My father
“We have received the Spirit to enable us to know the one to whom we pray, our real Father, the one and only Father of all, that is, the one who like a Father educates us for salvation and does away with fear.” [Saint Clement of Alexandria (post A.D. 202), Stromateis, 2.78].
16 The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
The Spirit makes the Christian aware of his adoptive sonship.
“The Spirit of adoption ... bears witness and assures our spirits that we are children of God after we have passed from the spirit of slavery and come under the Spirit of adoption, when all fear has departed. We no longer act out of fear of punishment but do everything out of love for the Father. It is right too that the Spirit of God should be said to bear witness with our spirits and not with our souls, because the spirit is our better part.” [Origin (post A.D. 244), Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans].
17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God
Not only are we admitted into God’s family, but God’s gratuitous gift gives us the right to inherit the Father’s estate (heaven and its rewards).
and joint heirs with Christ,
Jesus, the true son, has already received the Father’s estate (glory) and we are destined also to share it with Him.
if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
Notice the connection explicitly asserted between Jesus’ passion and His resurrection. We, as heirs, must walk in His footsteps. Suffering forms our conscience and perfects us.
“Here ‘suffer with him’ does not mean that we should sympathize and come to the aid of the sufferer, as it usually does in everyday parlance. Christ did not suffer in order to get attention, nor did He undergo weakness in order to gain the sympathy of those who felt sorry for Him. To suffer with Christ means to endure the same sufferings that He was forced to suffer by the Jews because He preached the gospel. ... If we suffer with Him we shall be worthy to be glorified with Him as well. This glory is the reward of our sufferings and is not to be regarded as a free gift. The free gift is that we have received remission of our former sins.” [Diodore of Tarsus (ca. A.D. 345), Pauline Commentary from the Greek Church].
Gospel - Matthew 28:16-20
Our gospel reading for today is the last five verses of the Gospel of Matthew; the five verses which Protestant Bibles call “The Great Commission.” It is Jesus’ second resurrection appearance in this gospel, the first having been to the women who had come to the tomb.
16 The eleven disciples went to Galilee,
This alludes to the absence of Judas who, we are told in Matthew 27:5, had hanged himself.
to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
The identity of the mountain is unknown, like the mount of the transfiguration.
17 When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
Although they recognize Him immediately, the stress is not on His appearance but on His words.
18 Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Note the past tense. It is God the Father who has bestowed divine authority on Jesus as the Son of Man. He is the ambassador of the Father with full authority to make commitments and obligations. The authority is that of the Kingdom of God.
19 Go, therefore,
Because He has full authority, He can commission others to work in His behalf.
and make disciples of all nations,
The great commission is a general command: to “make disciples of all nations” – all people of all cultures – even Jews who are not already disciples.
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,
Now we learn how they are to make disciples – first they baptize them, which is a rite of initiation. By being baptized “in the name” signifies that they belong to the one triune God. By belonging to the Name, they owe allegiance to the one God and all He represents and manifests.
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
After being baptized and having received the Holy Spirit, the initiates are to be instructed in all the doctrines. In the early Church, the Eucharist was not explained until after baptism.
And behold, I am with you always,
Jesus is Emmanuel, the divine presence (Shekinah) with His people as they make decisions, study, pray, preach, baptize and teach. He is with us because we are in covenant with the Father and we are all always part of His family.
until the end of the age.
The coming of the kingdom of God in its fullness
St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church,
Picayune, MS http://www.scborromeo.org
SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY
TRINITY
SUNDAY, MAY 27, MATTHEW 28:16-20
(Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40; Psalm 33; Romans 8:14-17)
SUNDAY, MAY 27, MATTHEW 28:16-20
(Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40; Psalm 33; Romans 8:14-17)
KEY VERSE: "Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (v. 19).
TO KNOW: The so-called "Great Commission" in Matthew's Gospel is Christ's command to his disciples to baptize disciples in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus it summarizes the three major themes of Matthew’s Gospel: (1) Supreme and universal authority has been given to Jesus by his heavenly Father; therefore he far surpasses every other human being and deserves the exalted titles given to him. (2) The disciples are to share their faith with all people, including non-Jews. (3) The promise of Jesus’ continuing presence with the disciples and their successors brings to fulfillment the name “Emmanuel” (“God is with us”) given to Jesus at conception (Matt 1:23; Isaiah 7:14). Jesus reassured his disciples that he would sustain them in their mission to preach the gospel to all nations. The Father’s love, and the Spirit of the Risen Christ continues be with the Church to guide and protect it until the end of time.
TO LOVE: How is the Trinitarian love of God manifested in my life?
TO SERVE: Father, Son and Spirit, help me to reverence your Holy Name.
NOTE: In Matthew’s gospel, he wrote that Jesus commissioned his apostles to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, yet nowhere is the "Trinity" so-named in scripture. Since the beginning of the third century the doctrine of the Trinity has been stated as the One God who exists in Three Persons: "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." The doctrine of the Trinity was later explained to us by the Church. The Trinity exists as three persons (in Greek: hypostases), but one being. Each of the persons is understood as having the one identical essence or nature. The political milieu that developed between the Council of Nicea in AD 325 and the Council of Constantinople in AD 381 had much to do with the development and acceptance of Trinitarian orthodoxy. Nicea’s primary concern was the relationship of Jesus to the Father, but Constantinople added to its creed the full, coequal, coeternal, consubstantial deity of the Holy Spirit. For this reason it is regarded as the first, truly Trinitarian creed. Who can fathom this deep mystery of God? Human words are inadequate to express the divine reality of the Father who loves us equally with the Son, and who shares this divine love through the Holy Spirit who dwells within us through baptism. A Christian's life should be identified with the Blessed Trinity.
Sunday 27 May
2018
Week IV Psalter. Trinity Sunday.
Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40. Psalm.32(33): 4-6. 9, 18-20,
22. Romans 8:14-17. Matthew 28:16-20.
Happy the people the Lord has chosen to be his own—Psalm.32(33):
4-6. 9, 18-20, 22.
The Blessed Trinity reveals who God is for us.
Extending our reflections on the doctrine of the Trinity beyond
what it reveals about the inner life of God, we might see it as a summary of
what we believe about the ways in which the triune God shares the divine life
with us – as creator, redeemer and sanctifier. It is the mystery of God-with-us
and God for-us.
Before his ascension, Jesus addressed these words to his
followers: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in
the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to
obey everything I have commanded you’. This is our mission as Christians. It is
supported by Jesus’ assurance that he will be with us to the end of time.
Saint Augustine of Canterbury
Saint of the Day for May 27
(? – May 26, 605)
Saint Augustine of Canterbury’s Story
In the year 596, some 40 monks set out from Rome to evangelize
the Anglo-Saxons in England. Leading the group was Augustine, the prior of
their monastery. Hardly had he and his men reached Gaul when they heard stories
of the ferocity of the Anglo-Saxons and of the treacherous waters of the
English Channel. Augustine returned to Rome and to Gregory the Great—the pope
who had sent them—only to be assured by him that their fears were groundless.
Augustine set out again. This time the group crossed the English
Channel and landed in the territory of Kent, ruled by King Ethelbert, a pagan
married to a Christian, Bertha. Ethelbert received them kindly, set up a
residence for them in Canterbury and within the year, on Pentecost Sunday 597,
was himself baptized. After being consecrated a bishop in France, Augustine
returned to Canterbury, where he founded his see. He constructed a church and
monastery near where the present cathedral, begun in 1070, now stands. As the
faith spread, additional sees were established at London and Rochester.
Work was sometimes slow and Augustine did not always meet with
success. Attempts to reconcile the Anglo-Saxon Christians with the original
Briton Christians—who had been driven into western England by Anglo-Saxon
invaders—ended in dismal failure. Augustine failed to convince the Britons to
give up certain Celtic customs at variance with Rome and to forget their
bitterness, helping him evangelize their Anglo-Saxon conquerors.
Laboring patiently, Augustine wisely heeded the missionary principles—quite
enlightened for the times—suggested by Pope Gregory: purify rather than destroy
pagan temples and customs; let pagan rites and festivals be transformed into
Christian feasts; retain local customs as far as possible. The limited success
Augustine achieved in England before his death in 605, a short eight years
after his arrival, would eventually bear fruit long after in the conversion of
England. Augustine of Canterbury can truly be called the “Apostle of England.”
Reflection
Augustine of Canterbury comes across today as a very human
saint, one who could suffer like many of us from a failure of nerve. For
example, his first venture to England ended in a big U-turn back to Rome. He
made mistakes and met failure in his peacemaking attempts with the Briton
Christians. He often wrote to Rome for decisions on matters he could have
decided on his own had he been more self-assured. He even received mild
warnings against pride from Pope Gregory, who cautioned him to “fear lest,
amidst the wonders that are done, the weak mind be puffed up by self-esteem.”
Augustine’s perseverance amidst obstacles and only partial success teaches
today’s apostles and pioneers to struggle on despite frustrations and be
satisfied with gradual advances.
Saint Augustine of Canterbury is the Patron Saint of:
England
LECTIO DIVINA: TRINITY SUNDAY
(B)
Lectio Divina:
Sunday, May 27, 2018
Resurrection and mission
"I am with you always"
Matthew 28:16-20
"I am with you always"
Matthew 28:16-20
1. OPENING PRAYER
Lord Jesus, send your Spirit to help us
to read the Scriptures with the same mind that you read them to the disciples
on the way to Emmaus. In the light of the Word, written in the Bible, You
helped them to discover the presence of God in the disturbing events of Your
sentence and death. Thus, the cross that seemed to be the end of all hope
became for them the source of life and of resurrection.
Create in us silence so that we may
listen to Your voice in Creation and in the Scriptures, in events and in
people, above all in the poor and suffering. May Your word guide us so that we
too, like the two disciples from Emmaus, may experience the force of Your
resurrection and witness to others that You are alive in our midst as source of
fraternity, justice and peace. We ask this of You, Jesus, son of Mary, who
revealed to us the Father and sent us Your Spirit. Amen.
2. READING
a) A key to the reading:
The liturgy of Trinity Sunday uses the
closing verses of Matthew's Gospel (Mt 28; 16-20). In the beginning of the
Gospel, Matthew introduced Jesus as Immanuel, God with us (Mt
1:23). Here, in the last verse of his Gospel, Jesus communicates the same
truth: "I am with you always" (Mt 28:20). This was the central point
of the faith of the communities in the eighties (AD), and continues to be the
central point of our faith. Jesus is the Immanuel, God with us. This
is also the perspective for our adoration of the Most Blessed Trinity.
b) The text:
The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to
the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they all saw him, they
worshiped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, "All
power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And
behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."
3. A MOMENT OF PRAYERFUL
SILENCE
so that the Word of God may penetrate
and enlighten our life.
4. SOME QUESTIONS
to help us in our personal reflection.
a) What drew your attention most in this
text? Why?
b) What kind of image of Jesus does this
text convey to us?
c) Is this the first point where Jesus
says “make disciples of all nations” rather than just having been sent to the
House of Israel? Why now?
d) Some translations use the phrase
“they doubted” and others use “some doubted”. Does this make a difference in
meaning or what we take away from it?
e) How is the mystery of the Trinity
presented in this text?
f) In Acts 1:5, Jesus proclaims a
baptism in the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2:38, Peter speaks of a baptism in the name
of the Lord Jesus. Here the text speaks of a baptism in the name of the Father,
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. What is the difference among these three
affirmations, or are they speaking of the same baptism?
h) What, exactly, is the mission that
Jesus gives the Eleven? What is the mission of our communities today as
disciples of Jesus? According to the text, where do we find strength and
courage to fulfill our mission?
5. A KEY TO THE READING
to enter deeper into the theme.
i) The context:
Matthew writes for the Judeo-Christian
communities of Syria and Palestine. They were criticized by the Jewish brethren
who said that Jesus could not be the promised Messiah and therefore, their
manner of living was wrong. Matthew tries to uphold their faith and helps them
understand that Jesus is indeed the Messiah who came to fulfill the promises
God made in the past through the prophets. A summary of Matthew's message to
the communities is found in Jesus' final promise to the disciples, the subject
of our meditation on this Trinity Sunday.
ii) Commentary on the text:
* Matthew 28:16: the first and
last appearances of the risen Jesus to the Eleven disciples.
First, Jesus appears to the women (Mt
28:9) and, through the women, tells the men that they had to go to Galilee to
see Him once more. It was in Galilee that they received their first call (Mt
4:12.18) and their first official mission (Mt 10:1-16). And it is there, in
Galilee, that everything will begin again: a new call and a new mission! As in
the Old Testament, important events always take place on the mountain, the
Mountain of God.
* Matthew 28:17: Some doubted.
When the disciples see Jesus, they
prostrate themselves before Him. This is a response of those who believe and
welcome God's presence, even though it might surprise and be beyond human
ability to comprehend. So, some doubt. The four Gospels emphasis the doubt and
incredulity of the disciples when confronted with the resurrection of Jesus (Mt
28:17; Mk 16:11:13,14; Lk 24:11,24:37-38; Jn 20:25). This serves to show that
the apostles were not naïve and encourages the communities of the eighties (AD)
which still had doubts.
* Matthew 28:18: Jesus'
authority.
"All authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to Me". This is a solemn declaration very much like
the other affirmation: "Everything has been entrusted to Me by My
Father" (Mt 11:27). There are other similar affirmations by Jesus in
John's Gospel: "Jesus knew that the Father had put everything into His
hands" (Jn 13:3) and "All I have is yours, and all you have is
Mine" (Jn 17:10). This same conviction of faith in Jesus appears in the
canticles preserved in Paul's letters (Eph 1:3-14; Phil 2:6-11; Col 1:15-20).
The fullness of divinity is manifested in Jesus (Col 1:19). This authority of Jesus,
born of His oneness with the Father, is the basis for the mission that the
disciples are about to receive as well as our faith in the Most Blessed
Trinity.
* Matthew 28:19-20ª: The triple
mission.
Jesus conveys a triple mission: (1) to
make disciples of all nations, (2) to baptize in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit and (3) to teach them to observe all the
commands He gave them.
a) To become a disciple: The
disciple lives with the master and thus learns from this daily living together.
The disciple forms a community with the master and follows him, seeking to
imitate his way of living and of living together in obedience. The disciple is
someone who does not place absolute value on his/her manner of thinking, but is
always open to learning. A disciple is also active. It is not a passive role,
like watching television. Like the "servant of Yahweh", the disciple
strains his/her ear to listen to what God has to say (Is 50:4).
b) To baptize in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: The Good News of God
that Jesus brought to us is the revelation that God is Father and that thus, we
are all brothers and sisters. Jesus lived and obtained this new experience of
God for us through His death and resurrection. This is the new Spirit that He
spread over His followers on the day of Pentecost. In those days, to be
baptized in someone's name meant to publicly assume the commitment to observe
the proclaimed message. Thus, to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit meant the same as being baptized in the name of
Jesus (Acts 2:38) and the same as being baptized in the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5).
It meant, and still means, publicly assuming the commitment to live the Good
News that Jesus brought, to reveal through prophetic brotherhood that God is
Father, to struggle to overcome divisions and separations among people, and to
affirm that all are children of God.
c) To teach to observe all the
commandments that Jesus gave us: We do not teach new doctrines nor do
we teach our own doctrines, but we reveal the face of the God whom Jesus
revealed to us. It is from this revelation that comes all the doctrine passed
on to us by the apostles.
* Matthew 28:20b: God is with us
always.
This is the great promise, the synthesis
of all that was revealed from the beginning. It is the summary of the name of
God, the summary of the whole of the Old Testament, of all the promises, of all
the desires of the human heart. It is the final summary of the Good News of God
passed on to us in Matthew's Gospel.
iii) The history of the revelation of
the Name of God, One and Three:
When one hears a name for the first
time, it is just a name. The more we live with the person the more the name
becomes a synthesis of that person. The longer we live with the person, the
greater the significance and value of the name. In the Bible, God has many
names and titles that express what He means or what He can mean for us. God's
personal name is YHWH. We have already come across this name in the second
narration of creation in Genesis (Gen 2:4). The deep meaning of this name (the
result of long living together through the centuries, which also went through
the "dark night" of the crisis of the exile in Babylon) is described
in the book of Exodus on the occasion of the calling of Moses (Ex 3:7-15).
Living with God through the centuries endowed this name of God with meaning and
depth.
God said to Moses: "Go and free my
people" (cf. Ex 3:10). Moses is afraid and justifies himself by feigning
humility: "Who am I?" (Ex 3:11). God answers: "I shall be with
you" (Ex 3:12). Even though he knows that God will be with him in his
mission of liberating the people oppressed by Pharaoh, Moses tries to excuse
himself again: he asks God's name. God replies by simply reaffirming what He
had already said, "I AM WHO AM". In other words, God is saying I am
certainly with you and you cannot doubt this. The text then goes on: "You
are to say to the people of Israel ‘I AM has sent me to you’!" The text
concludes, "This is My name for all time: by this name I shall be invoked
for all generations to come" (Ex 3:14-15).
This brief text, which is deeply
theological, expresses the deepest conviction of faith of the people of
God: God is with us. He is Immanuel, an intimate, friendly,
liberating presence. All this is contained in the four letters of the name
YHWH, which we pronounce as Yahweh: the One who is in our midst. This
is the same certainty that Jesus communicates to His disciples in His last
promise on the mountain: "I am with you always, yes, to the end of
time" (Mt 28:20). The Bible is insistent on this one thing: the Name of
God, that is, the presence of God in our midst expressed in the name Yahweh:
"He is in our midst". In the Old Testament alone, the name Yahweh
appears more than 7000 times! It is the wick of the candle around which gathers
the wax of the stories.
Something tragic happened (and is still
happening) when, in later centuries during the exile in Babylonia,
fundamentalism, moralism, and ritualism gradually presented that living,
friendly, present and loved face as a rigid and severe figure, unfittingly hung
on the walls of sacred scripture, a figure that aroused fear and placed a
distance between God and His people. Thus during the last centuries before
Christ, the name YHWH could not be pronounced. Instead, the word Adonai was
used, a translation of Kyrios, which means Lord. A
cult centered on the observance of the laws, a cult centered
on the temple in Jerusalem and a racially closed
system, created a new kind of slavery that stifled the mystical experience and
withheld contact with the living God. The Name that should have been like
transparent glass which revealed the Good News of the friendly and attractive
face of God, became a mirror that reflected only the face of the one who looked
into it. A tragic deceit of self-contemplation! They no longer drank at the
source, but drank water bottled by the doctors of the law. To this day we go on
drinking water kept in storage, rather than water from the source.
By His death and resurrection, Jesus did
away with small-mindedness (Col 2:14), broke the mirror of idolatrous
self-contemplation, and opened a new window where God shows His face and draws
us to Himself. Citing a canticle of the community, St. Paul says in his letter
to the Philippians, "God raised Him high and gave Him the name which is
above all other names so that all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the
underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue
should acclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil
2:9-11). On the day of Pentecost, Peter ended his first speech by revealing
what the great discovery of the experience of the resurrection meant for him,
"Let all the people know: God has constituted Jesus Christ Lord". Jesus
who died and rose again, is the revelation that God, the same as always, is and
continues to be YHWH (Adonai, Kyrios, Lord), an intimate presence, friendly and
liberating in the midst of his people, conqueror of every barrier, even death.
With the coming of Jesus, and in Jesus, the God of the forebears, who seemed so
distant and severe, gained the features of a good Father, full of kindness.
Abba! Our Father! For us Christians, the most important thing is not to confess
that Jesus is God, but to witness that God is Jesus! God
reveals Himself in Jesus. Jesus is the key to a new reading of the Old
Testament. He is the new name of God.
This new revelation of the name of God
in Jesus is the fruit of the completely free gift of the love of God, of His
faithfulness to His Name. This faithfulness can be ours too, thanks to the
complete and radical obedience of Jesus: "Obedient unto death, death on
the cross" (Phil 2:8). Jesus identified Himself completely with the will
of God. He says, "What the Father has told Me is what I speak" (Jn
12:50). "My food is to do the will of the one who sent Me" (Jn 4:34).
That is why Jesus is the completely transparent revelation of the Father,
"To have seen Me is to have seen the Father!" (Jn 14:9). In Him dwelt
"the fullness of the divinity" (Col 1:19). "The Father and I are
one" (Jn 10:30). Such obedience is not easy. Jesus went through difficult
moments when He exclaimed: "Let this chalice pass me by!" (Mk 14:36).
As the letter to the Hebrews says, "He offered up prayer and entreaty,
aloud and in silent tears to the One who had the power to save Him out of
death" (Heb 5:7). He overcame by means of prayer. That is why He became
full revelation and manifestation of the Name, of what the Name means for us.
Jesus' obedience is not a disciplinary one, but a prophetic one. It is an
action that reveals the Father. Through obedience, chains were broken and the
veil that hid the face of God was torn. A new way to God opened to us. He
earned for us the gift of the Spirit when we ask the Father for the Spirit in
His name in prayer (Lk 11:13). The Spirit is living water earned for us by His
resurrection (Jn 7:39). It is through the Spirit that He teaches us, revealing
the face of God the Father (Jn 14:26; 16:12-13).
6. PSALM 145 (144)
Jesus establishes the Kingdom
I will extol Thee, my God and
King,
and bless Thy name for ever and ever.
Every day I will bless Thee,
and praise Thy name for ever and ever.
and bless Thy name for ever and ever.
Every day I will bless Thee,
and praise Thy name for ever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be
praised,
and His greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall laud Thy works to another,
and shall declare Thy mighty acts.
On the glorious splendor of Thy majesty,
and on Thy wondrous works, I will meditate.
Men shall proclaim the might of Thy terrible acts,
and I will declare Thy greatness.
They shall pour forth the fame of Thy abundant goodness,
and shall sing aloud of Thy righteousness.
The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and His compassion is over all that He has made.
All Thy works shall give thanks to Thee,
and His greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall laud Thy works to another,
and shall declare Thy mighty acts.
On the glorious splendor of Thy majesty,
and on Thy wondrous works, I will meditate.
Men shall proclaim the might of Thy terrible acts,
and I will declare Thy greatness.
They shall pour forth the fame of Thy abundant goodness,
and shall sing aloud of Thy righteousness.
The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and His compassion is over all that He has made.
All Thy works shall give thanks to Thee,
O Lord, and all Thy saints shall bless
Thee!
They shall speak of the glory of Thy kingdom,
and tell of Thy power,
to make known to the sons of men Thy mighty deeds,
and the glorious splendor of Thy kingdom.
Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and Thy dominion endures throughout all generations.
The Lord is faithful in all His words, and gracious in all His deeds.
The Lord upholds all who are falling,
and raises up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to Thee,
and Thou givest them their food in due season.
Thou openest Thy hand,
Thou satisfy the desire of every living thing.
They shall speak of the glory of Thy kingdom,
and tell of Thy power,
to make known to the sons of men Thy mighty deeds,
and the glorious splendor of Thy kingdom.
Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and Thy dominion endures throughout all generations.
The Lord is faithful in all His words, and gracious in all His deeds.
The Lord upholds all who are falling,
and raises up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to Thee,
and Thou givest them their food in due season.
Thou openest Thy hand,
Thou satisfy the desire of every living thing.
The Lord is just in all His ways,
and kind in all His doings.
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
to all who call upon Him in truth.
He fulfills the desire of all who fear Him,
He also hears their cry, and saves them.
The Lord preserves all who love Him;
but all the wicked He will destroy.
My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord,
and let all flesh bless His holy name for ever and ever.
and kind in all His doings.
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
to all who call upon Him in truth.
He fulfills the desire of all who fear Him,
He also hears their cry, and saves them.
The Lord preserves all who love Him;
but all the wicked He will destroy.
My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord,
and let all flesh bless His holy name for ever and ever.
7. FINAL PRAYER
Lord Jesus, we thank for the Word that
has enabled us to understand better the will of the Father. May Your Spirit
enlighten our actions and grant us the strength to practice that which Your
Word has revealed to us. May we, like Mary, Your mother, not only listen to but
also practice the Word. You who live and reign with the Father in the unity of
the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.
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