06-04-2012, 10:42 AM
03 June, 2012, Trinity Sunday, Year B
NEW EVANGELIZATION DEMANDS A TRINITARIAN RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
SCRIPTURE READINGS: DT 4:32-34.39-40; ROM 8:14-17; MT 28:16-20
One of the urgent tasks of the Church today is to embark on the work of the New Evangelization. What is this New Evangelization? It is the call to renew the living faith of our Catholics, especially our nominal Catholics or those who have left the Church and to reach out to those who do not know Christ, using new approaches and new pedagogy. What is central to the work of evangelization, whether it is with respect to our Catholics or Non-Catholics, is to enable them to have a personal encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ.
Why is a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus vital to the Christian experience of God? This is because a full experience of God is a Trinitarian experience. We come to know that God is love only because Jesus revealed in His life, especially in His passion, death and resurrection, that the Father whom He worships and loves is a Father of mercy and compassion. But more than just knowing through Jesus that God is our Father, just as He was to Jesus, we come to share in Christ’s sonship as well. This is made possible when the Holy Spirit, who is the love of God between the Father and the Son, comes to dwell in us. Through the Holy Spirit, we come to participate in the life of the Father and Son. This is what sharing in Christ’s sonship is all about.
The truth is that without a Trinitarian experience of God, our lives will remain incomplete and unfulfilled. If the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is central to our faith, it is because we who are created in the image and likeness of God cannot find rest till we share in the Trinitarian life and love. Christianity is considered the fullness of the revelation of God only because Christ has revealed to us the face of the Father and sent the Holy Spirit to give us a share in His life. In order to be complete, we need to relate to God as persons, since we are personal beings that find fulfillment only in personal relationships.
Those who have never had a real relationship with God as Father, Son and Spirit, ie the Trinitarian God, are easily led to forms of prayer and meditation that bypass the humanity of Christ; going straight to their Unconscious, which they mistake as “God in them”. Ironically, for Catholics and Christians who turn to such forms of prayer, it is a step backwards, as the implication is that the work of Jesus, which was to reveal the Father to us and to give us the Holy Spirit, is made redundant, since one can find and know God without going through Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. True Christian prayer must be distinctively Trinitarian in expression and in relationship. That is why all liturgical prayers are addressed to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Christians find fulfillment through relating with this Trinitarian God as persons capable of love, friendship and dialogue.
That the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the fullness of the revelation of God, not just in His relationship with the world but within Himself, is the height of divine revelation. It is significant that the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity is celebrated just immediately after the Easter Season, which ended with the feast of Pentecost. At Easter, we celebrate the divine life of Christ whom we recognize as Lord; at the Ascension, He was given the power to give life to us; and at Pentecost, Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit to continue His mission by empowering us with His gifts. Today’s celebration therefore marks the full recapitulation of our faith, our experience of God and His love for us expressed in the Trinitarian confession of faith. It is no wonder that the Eucharistic celebration begins with the signing of the Holy Trinity and ends with the blessing involving the Trinity as well. The sign of the cross truly captures the Christian faith in God.
Indeed, in the first reading, we see the need of every man to come to encounter God. We read that God in His graciousness revealed Himself through the Word. This in itself is something unimaginable. Indeed, Moses expressed this awesome gratuity of God to manifest Himself to the People of Israel through His Word and the signs of wonder. He said, “Was there ever a word so majestic, from one end of heaven to the other? Was anything ever heard? Did ever a people hear the voice of the living God speaking from the heart of the fire, as you heard it, and remain alive? Has any god ventured to take to himself one nation from the midst of another by ordeals, signs, wonders, war with mighty hand and outstretched arm, by fearsome terrors – all this that the Lord your God did for you before your eyes in Egypt?” Of course the answer is negative. In the history of religions, especially among pagan gods, there was no God like that of the God of Israel.
Even then, it is not sufficient for man to know God as One who is outside of him, regardless how powerful and merciful He is. Such a Transcendent God will only invoke fear and submission. For this reason, God sent His only begotten Son to assume our humanity so that we will never doubt the compassion of God for us. It was not enough for God to give us His Word, He chose to let His Word become flesh. As the Son of God and Son of man, Jesus the Emmanuel, the God-with-us shows His solidarity with us in our sufferings, temptations and the consequences of our sins. Jesus carried our sins upon Himself and in His body so that none of us can ever say that God does not understand our struggles. Although Christ knew no sin yet He suffered all the pains and sufferings that sin brings. In His passion and death, the heart of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is revealed for on the cross, the Father and the Son mutually separated themselves from each other in the same Spirit thereby entering into the depth of the most profound form of suffering, which is separation in love. We who ponder the selfless love of God the Father ,who gave up His Son for us without reservation, and His Son who surrendered His life totally to the Father, cannot but be moved by the Father’s unconditional and utter giving of Himself to us all.
But the climax of all the work of the Trinity for our redemption is the bestowing of our sonship in Christ. Having been reconciled in Him and forgiven in Christ, we receive the spirit of adoption as God’s sons and daughters. St Paul expressed this great privilege when he wrote, “Everyone moved by the Spirit is a son of God. The spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons, and it makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness that we are children of God. And if we are children we are heirs as well: heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, sharing his sufferings so as to share his glory.” Truly, because of the Spirit of Christ in us, we are set free from all fears and insecurity because like Him, we know that God is our Father. As God’s children, we can therefore surrender our lives to Him. We now know for certain our origin and destiny, which is to share in the inheritance of Christ, the joy and glory of sonship and sharing in God’s divine life and love. With the assurance of our real identity as the sons and daughters of God which is given to us at our baptism when we were baptized in the Name of the Trinity, we can count ourselves a royal, priestly and kingly people. We have God as our Father, Jesus as our brother and the Holy Spirit as the love of God poured into our hearts!
Truly, only with this Trinitarian relationship with God does He come near to us. Unfortunately, many Catholics have abandoned authentic Christian prayer, which is our dialogue with the Trinity, relating to each of the three persons intimately and together as God. When we do not relate with God in the three persons, we become orphans, for God is no longer experienced as our Father and we have no brothers.
Today as we celebrate the centrality of our faith in God as Father, Son and Spirit, let this faith be not merely an empty doctrine, irrelevant to life but truly an experience in the way we relate to God. The Trinity must not simply be believed. It must be celebrated in prayer and in worship. Every worship, especially in the Eucharist, is a celebration of the redeeming work of the Trinitarian God; the Father who sends the Son and the Son, after revealing the Father’s love and mercy to us, sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts so that His love is in us and so that we can continue to exercise that same power of making the love of God felt and known to the whole world.
Making the love of God known to the whole world takes more than mere confession and celebration; it must ultimately be proclaimed in our lives. In other words, we must allow the life and love of the Holy Trinity to be reflected in our lives. Just as the Father, Son and Spirit are distinct persons, yet they are one in love and life. In everything they do, they do as One God, according to their appropriations. The three persons live by each other, from each other, in each other and for each other. The intensity of this love in the three persons causes us to declare that God is love not in the philosophical sense but in a real interpersonal meaning. Since we are created in His image and likeness, we too must now love and care for each other, making ourselves available to each other in love. Like the Holy Trinity, we need to respect each other and see each other not as competitors but as complementary to one another. We are not against but for each other. Every person and his gifts must be valued and appreciated. When we value each other as gifts from God to us and to each other, then we no longer need to be afraid of our fellow human beings but see them as our brothers and sisters in Christ. In this way, we build the family of God, of love and unity mirrored after the Holy Trinity.
NEW EVANGELIZATION DEMANDS A TRINITARIAN RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
SCRIPTURE READINGS: DT 4:32-34.39-40; ROM 8:14-17; MT 28:16-20
One of the urgent tasks of the Church today is to embark on the work of the New Evangelization. What is this New Evangelization? It is the call to renew the living faith of our Catholics, especially our nominal Catholics or those who have left the Church and to reach out to those who do not know Christ, using new approaches and new pedagogy. What is central to the work of evangelization, whether it is with respect to our Catholics or Non-Catholics, is to enable them to have a personal encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ.
Why is a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus vital to the Christian experience of God? This is because a full experience of God is a Trinitarian experience. We come to know that God is love only because Jesus revealed in His life, especially in His passion, death and resurrection, that the Father whom He worships and loves is a Father of mercy and compassion. But more than just knowing through Jesus that God is our Father, just as He was to Jesus, we come to share in Christ’s sonship as well. This is made possible when the Holy Spirit, who is the love of God between the Father and the Son, comes to dwell in us. Through the Holy Spirit, we come to participate in the life of the Father and Son. This is what sharing in Christ’s sonship is all about.
The truth is that without a Trinitarian experience of God, our lives will remain incomplete and unfulfilled. If the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is central to our faith, it is because we who are created in the image and likeness of God cannot find rest till we share in the Trinitarian life and love. Christianity is considered the fullness of the revelation of God only because Christ has revealed to us the face of the Father and sent the Holy Spirit to give us a share in His life. In order to be complete, we need to relate to God as persons, since we are personal beings that find fulfillment only in personal relationships.
Those who have never had a real relationship with God as Father, Son and Spirit, ie the Trinitarian God, are easily led to forms of prayer and meditation that bypass the humanity of Christ; going straight to their Unconscious, which they mistake as “God in them”. Ironically, for Catholics and Christians who turn to such forms of prayer, it is a step backwards, as the implication is that the work of Jesus, which was to reveal the Father to us and to give us the Holy Spirit, is made redundant, since one can find and know God without going through Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. True Christian prayer must be distinctively Trinitarian in expression and in relationship. That is why all liturgical prayers are addressed to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Christians find fulfillment through relating with this Trinitarian God as persons capable of love, friendship and dialogue.
That the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the fullness of the revelation of God, not just in His relationship with the world but within Himself, is the height of divine revelation. It is significant that the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity is celebrated just immediately after the Easter Season, which ended with the feast of Pentecost. At Easter, we celebrate the divine life of Christ whom we recognize as Lord; at the Ascension, He was given the power to give life to us; and at Pentecost, Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit to continue His mission by empowering us with His gifts. Today’s celebration therefore marks the full recapitulation of our faith, our experience of God and His love for us expressed in the Trinitarian confession of faith. It is no wonder that the Eucharistic celebration begins with the signing of the Holy Trinity and ends with the blessing involving the Trinity as well. The sign of the cross truly captures the Christian faith in God.
Indeed, in the first reading, we see the need of every man to come to encounter God. We read that God in His graciousness revealed Himself through the Word. This in itself is something unimaginable. Indeed, Moses expressed this awesome gratuity of God to manifest Himself to the People of Israel through His Word and the signs of wonder. He said, “Was there ever a word so majestic, from one end of heaven to the other? Was anything ever heard? Did ever a people hear the voice of the living God speaking from the heart of the fire, as you heard it, and remain alive? Has any god ventured to take to himself one nation from the midst of another by ordeals, signs, wonders, war with mighty hand and outstretched arm, by fearsome terrors – all this that the Lord your God did for you before your eyes in Egypt?” Of course the answer is negative. In the history of religions, especially among pagan gods, there was no God like that of the God of Israel.
Even then, it is not sufficient for man to know God as One who is outside of him, regardless how powerful and merciful He is. Such a Transcendent God will only invoke fear and submission. For this reason, God sent His only begotten Son to assume our humanity so that we will never doubt the compassion of God for us. It was not enough for God to give us His Word, He chose to let His Word become flesh. As the Son of God and Son of man, Jesus the Emmanuel, the God-with-us shows His solidarity with us in our sufferings, temptations and the consequences of our sins. Jesus carried our sins upon Himself and in His body so that none of us can ever say that God does not understand our struggles. Although Christ knew no sin yet He suffered all the pains and sufferings that sin brings. In His passion and death, the heart of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is revealed for on the cross, the Father and the Son mutually separated themselves from each other in the same Spirit thereby entering into the depth of the most profound form of suffering, which is separation in love. We who ponder the selfless love of God the Father ,who gave up His Son for us without reservation, and His Son who surrendered His life totally to the Father, cannot but be moved by the Father’s unconditional and utter giving of Himself to us all.
But the climax of all the work of the Trinity for our redemption is the bestowing of our sonship in Christ. Having been reconciled in Him and forgiven in Christ, we receive the spirit of adoption as God’s sons and daughters. St Paul expressed this great privilege when he wrote, “Everyone moved by the Spirit is a son of God. The spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons, and it makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness that we are children of God. And if we are children we are heirs as well: heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, sharing his sufferings so as to share his glory.” Truly, because of the Spirit of Christ in us, we are set free from all fears and insecurity because like Him, we know that God is our Father. As God’s children, we can therefore surrender our lives to Him. We now know for certain our origin and destiny, which is to share in the inheritance of Christ, the joy and glory of sonship and sharing in God’s divine life and love. With the assurance of our real identity as the sons and daughters of God which is given to us at our baptism when we were baptized in the Name of the Trinity, we can count ourselves a royal, priestly and kingly people. We have God as our Father, Jesus as our brother and the Holy Spirit as the love of God poured into our hearts!
Truly, only with this Trinitarian relationship with God does He come near to us. Unfortunately, many Catholics have abandoned authentic Christian prayer, which is our dialogue with the Trinity, relating to each of the three persons intimately and together as God. When we do not relate with God in the three persons, we become orphans, for God is no longer experienced as our Father and we have no brothers.
Today as we celebrate the centrality of our faith in God as Father, Son and Spirit, let this faith be not merely an empty doctrine, irrelevant to life but truly an experience in the way we relate to God. The Trinity must not simply be believed. It must be celebrated in prayer and in worship. Every worship, especially in the Eucharist, is a celebration of the redeeming work of the Trinitarian God; the Father who sends the Son and the Son, after revealing the Father’s love and mercy to us, sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts so that His love is in us and so that we can continue to exercise that same power of making the love of God felt and known to the whole world.
Making the love of God known to the whole world takes more than mere confession and celebration; it must ultimately be proclaimed in our lives. In other words, we must allow the life and love of the Holy Trinity to be reflected in our lives. Just as the Father, Son and Spirit are distinct persons, yet they are one in love and life. In everything they do, they do as One God, according to their appropriations. The three persons live by each other, from each other, in each other and for each other. The intensity of this love in the three persons causes us to declare that God is love not in the philosophical sense but in a real interpersonal meaning. Since we are created in His image and likeness, we too must now love and care for each other, making ourselves available to each other in love. Like the Holy Trinity, we need to respect each other and see each other not as competitors but as complementary to one another. We are not against but for each other. Every person and his gifts must be valued and appreciated. When we value each other as gifts from God to us and to each other, then we no longer need to be afraid of our fellow human beings but see them as our brothers and sisters in Christ. In this way, we build the family of God, of love and unity mirrored after the Holy Trinity.