ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - B

ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE ORDINARY TIME – Year B (Ezek 17:22-24; 2 Cor 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34) Theme: We are detached from the world and attached to the heaven Reflection Introduction – we are on the journey towards our Christian maturity - We have in the eleventh Sunday of the ordinary time of the year. We have just retaken the path, the path towards our entrance into the kingdom of God. As Christians in the world we are always in the journey and the journey means to go always ahead in well being and in the hope. In most of the time of ordinary period the church keeps open to us the mysteries of the kingdom of God which have been already revealed in the life and action of Jesus Christ. Yet, those mysteries are still in the revelation for us and all through our life we are asked to grow in these mysteries. - As the part of such spiritual growth we have today the two parables of the kingdom of God. Jesus always preferred to explain the mystery of God’s love and His kingdom in way of parable sayings. Parable is a means of explaining the hidden meaning with the help of the content of daily life: it may be with the things that we use in our common life and it may be the simple words that we use in our daily talk and it may also be the situations of which we are thoroughly familiar. Jesus makes use of such kind of means, means very closer to the ordinary life of the people, so that they could easily catch the significance it reveals. - As we have already schematized in the theme, the common meaning of today’s readings is: that we are picked up from the world and place in the upward direction towards the heavenly bliss. In other words, we are uprooted from the soil of the world and upgraded in the spiritual aspiration so that we do not live as though belonging to the world but as if inserted into the life of grace, thus belonging to the very life of God. We will see how the readings help us to understand this truth: the truth of Christian identity of being above the world. First Reading: Small branch picked up and planted by the Lord grows into big tree - In fact, it is from the first reading that we have the fullest meaning of the theme proposed. The first reading is taken from the book of Ezekiel. It reminds the promise of God to the people of Israel that he would pick them from the multitude of nations and place them on the high mountain. The words of the prophet are crystal clear and express well the promise of the Lord: “I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain” (Ezek 17:22). - First and above all, it is the work of the Lord: it is he who makes the promise and fulfills in the time he himself appoints. The Lord has already chosen for himself a small nation through the calling of Abraham and through the patriarchs that followed him. He named it Israel. He gave it an offer of liberation through the establishment of the covenant with them: the covenant of fidelity. It is through the living of this covenant with trust and love that they would enter into the land of freedom. For this He has worked many signs and wonders both in the wilderness providing food and water for them and in the new land by providing them many victories. Though it is a small nation it was flourishing just because of the powerful hand of God. - The story did not end there and did not reach its peak. People who are chosen and called to be faithful have forgotten all that God has done for them. They have become insensitive and inactive to the words and commands of God. They have failed to live up to the conditions of the covenant. The nation has neglected its roots and its base. It has given up its author and founder. The consequence they started tasting the bitterness of failure in the battles. They started reaping the rotten fruits of suffering and scarcity of daily living. They started experience the filth of slavery and captivity. Finally, they are out of their freedom and outside of their Lord’s house. But the story of the faithfulness and mercy of God continues. The covenant is broken not by two partners but only by one. The other is still strong and faithful and it is the Lord himself. He is the Lord of mercy and God of love. Therefore, He did not leave his chosen sect to its fate. He wished to bring them back into their higher dignity and to the life of grace of the covenant. He promises to make them once again a people of his love. - It is from this promise we have the first reading of today: He will make sprout the tree of David’s dynasty. He makes this possible by uprooting them from the numerous people and from the various nations and by placing it in the high mountain as the separated people. They will become a great nation to which all come for their refuge and secure life. This promise is ultimately fulfilled in His Own Son Jesus Christ. Gospel: Not the quantity but quality of the heart that counts much - Jesus himself points to this coming of the kingdom among them in his person and the mystery of his presence of which they have to be aware of. As the content of the parables of today’s gospel reading reveal, it is not the quantity of the seed that is sown but is its quality that matters and that gives good growth. The two parables, the man who sows and the seed that is sown, have an internal unity. Apart from the common concern about the mystery of the kingdom of God, they refer both to the man and the seed. - The seed has both the capacity for growth and possibility for spoil but it certainly depends on the one who sows it for its good growth: “Kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground” (v.26). This first parable reveals the fact that the seed has the capacity to grow by itself and still, it also has the possibility of losing its identity if it is not found in the good soil. o Capacity for growth: In fact, the seed that falls in the good ground has the capacity to sprout and produce fruit but what happens if it falls on the rocky land or in the bushy thorns? Therefore, only after finding itself in the good soil it has the capacity. o Dependence on the sower: But even prior to that it does not simply depend on the seed for its growth but on the one who sows it in the tilled and prepared ground. It is the sower who takes care and makes ready the good soil for the seed. He does not want the seed to go in vain or fall in the useless soil and lose its existence. He wants its growth. - The measure of the size does not matter but the internal potency that matters: the second parable is the parable of the mustard seed which is smallest of all the seeds in size and in measure but it has the qualitative productive nature if once it is planted (vv. 31-32). It grows into a great tree so that all the birds come under its shade and find their living place. o Kingdom is a reality which is almost invisible and incomprehensible at the beginning of its entrance into the world but its final splendor will be so great that all reach to it for their spiritual security. Once it grows into the great tree of life with is arms extended, as the branches, it offers to all the protection and peace. o It has the capacity to grow just because it was planned, prepared and planted by God himself in the world. His kingdom is his renewed Covenant in the Person of Jesus Christ, whose branches of redemption are outreaching to the every corner of the world. It is in Jesus that all have the possibility of finding their personal dignity and freedom. It is in him that they find their growth in fullest sense: they realize what they are and who they are only in his rays of light. Second Reading: We are in the time of maturity as good Christians - It is the time of bodily existence: Paul recalls our daily life. He reminds how we are and how we lead our life. What we have is only bodily life. But this is not the destiny of our earthly life. The destiny of bodily is its transformation into the spiritual and eternal existence. - It is the time of exile: Paul also admonishes us to be attentive to the way of life we are living. We are not in our land. We are called to be in the kingdom of God and that has to be realized at the end of our life. Meanwhile we are in the life of transition and in the life of passage: we have to passes from the desert to the land of the living, from the exile to the freedom. - It is the time of preparation for the life of the Lord: the bodily existence and the exilic life of this earth will pass away and we will reach our final destiny and the tent that is prepared for us and that is the life with the Lord. We will be with the Lord and in the Lord. For this purpose we have to prepare ourselves daily. - How to prepare? By being always confident (v.6), by walking with faith (v.7) and by doing what is pleasing to him (v.9). It reminds us that we are in the time of preparation and in the period towards the maturity. Conclusion – We are the diamonds in and for the present world - Christ himself is the Seed of God (Word of God): o He is sown and planted into the human soil: In the incarnation and in death, he has assumed human nature and he has entered into human death. In the proclamation and in the resurrection, he has sprouted into new life. He is planted in the ground of death and he is grown into the life giving tree. o He is the seed, unknown and refused: John puts it well: “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (John 1:10-11). When Jesus has come to his people they did not recognize his presence, they did not intend his words and they did not understand his actions. More than their comprehension they have rejected him and put him to death. He is the neglected and rejected seed. o He is the seed, small and humble – poor and weak: Both in the incarnation and death his smallness and humility, his poverty and helplessness are manifested. He has nothing to wear and nowhere to lay his head when he came into the world, only a manger became his dwelling place. He has nothing on his body and nowhere to rest his head when he left the world, only a cross became his refuge and it was all his wealth of the world. He is the seed so small, so humble, so poor and so weak. o Yet, once planted in the ground in death he has risen/sprouted to life on the third day, he became the savior of the world and the refuse of redemption and the dwelling place of peace. Unless the seed falls into the ground and dies, it has not life. Jesus is the seed thrown into the ground and died and transformed and now became the tree of life in the midst of the garden of the world. - Church/ community of believers is the Seed of Christ and the Spirit: o Jesus is the seed of God who is thrown in the human world and who has become the tree of life. Now Jesus is the man who sows the seed in the world by his redemptive merits. The seed which he plants the present world is his Church. o The Church is the seed that is small and often unintended: Though the small Christian community has grown into powerful tree of grace in the world, still the Church is poor because all that she has she pours out to others; she is still humble because she obeys and accepts in silence all the her master’s instructions; she is still in the growth because she puts herself at the disposition of the truth, of the charity and of the solidarity. o The church is the seed, neglected and rejected: the church is often like the hidden seed because its existence is often neglected by its own members because of their failure to be faithful; the church is often rejected by the other entities which seems to be powerful and dominating with their rapid technological and scientific developments; but once it grows it is the only consolation to the world and it is the only tree of hope to which and around which all gather. - Each one of us is the seed of the Church, of Christ and thus of God: o We are called to be small and humble: Jesus assures the blessedness of the poor in Spirit (Mt 5:3). He invites his listeners to be like him meek and generous (Mt 11:29ff). Let us not regret when we are not understood. Let us not be discourages when we are not recognized. Let us lose our heart when we are openly rejected with any kind of inhibitions. In this we manifest our littleness which will grow slowly in the greatness in God’s presence. o We are in the spiritual journey towards the harvest of blessed joy: we have not yet finished our journey. We are still in the walk towards our promised land. What we have to do in this journey is contained in two things: one, we have to remember well that we are detached from this world and are placed within the divine life, and second, we have to spend all our energies, capacities and possibilities, to grow into a fruitful tree for our neighbors next to door and to all in the society.

CORPUS DOMINI - Year B

CORPUS DOMINI: Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ – Year B (Ex 24:3-8; Heb 9:11-15; Mark 14:12-16, 22-26) Theme: We are the Eucharist – We are the Visible Presence of Jesus in the World Reflection: We are called to be filled with the mystery of God - We have completed the Liturgical Time of Easter with the Ascension and with the Pentecost. We are supposed to re-start and continue with the Ordinary Time of the Liturgical Year. Though in the weekly Calendar we already started the Ordinary Time, Sundays we still celebrate the feasts of the Lord. In ordering the Calendar this way, the Church intends that we have to participate fully in the mystery of the Lord so that with the vigor of God’s presence we can continue our year. - Participation in the mysteries of Christian faith and the mystery of God is the only motive. The mystery of God is revealed or unveiled to the utmost level in the Paschal event of Jesus and in the sending of the Holy Spirit. We celebrated the paschal time and now it is time to celebrate the mysteries of God before we enter into the ordinary time of the year. Thus, we have the Solemnity of the Trinity in the last Sunday, the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ today, and the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the next. - With the celebration of these feasts we enter into the mystery of God so that we are transformed into testimonies of his presence to the world. Last Sunday, in the Feast of the Trinity, we have celebrated the abyss of love of God, One and Three. Today we are celebrating the Feast of Corpus Domini, as we often call it, in which we remember that the same abyss of love of God is manifested as something very near to us and as something very close to us. Love of God is made itself present to us. In other words, God made himself a person near to us and a presence amidst us. He has come so close to us so much so he offered himself to us as our food and drink. Old Covenant is perfected in the New Covenant - Today’s antiphon of the mass expresses the Lords providence: “I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with the honey from the rock I would satisfy you” (Ps 81:16). We are nourished with the finest wheat and our thirst is quenched with the honey from the rock. The verse from the Psalm reveals the truth how God has taken the side of his people in their exodus. The people of Israel had suffered a lot because of the hunger and thirst and they invoked the Lord even to the extent of testing him. Lord, who is always attentive to the prayers of his people, had fed them: he fed his people with the finest of the food – Manna in the desert and with the tastiest drink – Water from the rock. - God, who has provided their physical nourishment to his people, has willed to fill them also with the spiritual nourishment of his Word. For this He has made an alliance (a covenant) with them. His covenant with his people was marked by the blood. This is narrated by today’s first reading: Moses takes the blood, sprinkles it first on the altar and then reads out the commandments of the covenant and when people have given their consent “their amen” to what is read, he sprinkles the blood also on them so that they become part of the covenant (Ex 14:6-8). This order of the alliance, (sprinkling of blood first on the altar, and only finally on the people), shows that it is God himself who takes the initiative to call people to himself, otherwise, by themselves people cannot climb to God because of their infidelity. He wills to be present among his people and he invites people to be open to this presence. - With the sprinkling of the blood the alliance was established between God and his people. Jesus too repeats the same order. First, he reveals Gods loving will to live among his people. Secondly, he invites his disciples to participate in that love by keeping his commandments. And finally, he establishes the new and eternal covenant between God and people by offering his own blood and by instituting the Eucharist. - The covenant Jesus establishes is new and eternal because it supersedes all the sacrifices of the Old Testament and transforms them into perfect sacrifice. The blood of the goat and rams of the Old Testament sacrifices is replaced by the “very blood” of Jesus himself. No more a third element of sacrifice but he himself becomes the victim for the covenant. This makes the New Testament alliance of God in Christ as an everlasting and perfect covenant. This is the mystery we are called to participate in so that we are filled with his presence and with his power to become his carriers of his love. Memorial of the Paschal Mystery – The Fruit of Redemption - The opening prayer of today’s celebration has twofold character: what Christ has left for us – the memorial, and what we receive from it – the benefits. The opening prayer of the mass goes this way: “Lord Jesus Christ, who has left to us the memorial of the Paschal mystery in the admirable sacrament of Eucharist, grant that we adore with the living faith, the mystery of your Body and your Blood, so that we feel within ourselves the benefits of the redemption.” The first part of the prayer reveals the mystery that Jesus has left with us his presence as the memorial celebration and the second part of the prayer is the invocation of faith so that we participate in the fruits of salvation. We reflect for a while on these two aspects of the prayer. - First – the memorial celebration of the paschal mystery: The Eucharist we celebrate every time in the Church is not a repetition of the sacrifice that is offered by Jesus on the cross. It is neither a simple repetition nor a simple acknowledgment. It is not even a mere recalling to our mind what Christ has done. It is more than that. Recalling has the presupposition of forgetting. Instead, it is a memory. It is a memory in which mind is always aware of what has already happened, thus eliminating the element of forgetting of it even for a single moment. Memory is something which remains always and in all times. It is the constant living of what has already happened as if it still takes place right now. It is a commemoration of what has been already accomplished once and for all. It is the same sacrifice of Jesus once fulfilled is now continued in his remembrance: “Do this in memory of me” is the command of Jesus on which the daily Eucharist is celebrated. The mystery is already fulfilled once and for all since Jesus has done it once and for all as the Letter to the Hebrews keeps it evident: “He entered into the sanctuary, once for all, not with the mediation of the blood of rams and goats but in the virtue of his own blood, to obtain in this manner the eternal redemption” (Heb 9:12). It cannot be repeated because it is not the blood the animals that was shed and which can often repeated but it was his own blood that was poured out. He knows that we cannot repeat it that’s the reason why he asked us to do it “in his memory”. Therefore, the Eucharist is the memorial celebration of the paschal mystery. - Second – the benefits of redemption: what was left with us by Jesus is the celebration of the Eucharist. We have to celebrate it with the living faith. The prayer helps us to learn to adore the body and blood of Christ. Adoring signifies both “admiration” and “mission”. Admiration of what has been presented to us should lead us to living of it as the part of our Christian mission. The fruits of the celebration do not come to us just with the admiration but with the vocation of it. We both profess our faith and testify it with our life. Both should go hand in hand or one should lead to the other: wonder of the mystery and living of the mystery or wonder leading to the living. - What are the benefits it fetches for us: first of all, by the celebration of the Eucharist, we become the real Eucharist; we become the mystery of love; we become like the one whom we receive in it: alter Christus – another Christ. Secondly, we participate in the promises of its nutrition. Jesus enumerates the fruit of the receiving of his body and blood. In his discourse about the “Living Bread” in St. John’s Gospel, sixth chapter (54-57), Jesus assures what will be the fruit of eating his body and drinking of his blood. He describes the four fruits: the one who eats his body and drinks his blood 1) has eternal life, 2) he will be raised up on the last day, 3) he lives in Jesus and Jesus lives in him and finally 4) he lives for him whom he receives. Jesus willed that he wants to be with them and in them in the form of their spiritual nutriment. For this he wills to make himself Eucharist in which he gives his body and pours out his blood. He calls his disciples to take part in this eternal meal. But at the end of the discourse we see many people walking away from him because they did not comprehend him well. They discussed and disputed among themselves with the questions: how can he give his flesh and blood? And how can we eat his flood and drink his blood? They did not want God to be with and within them. They did not imagine that God can present himself so closely to the people: to be with them and for them. They walked out because their intelligence could not reach God’s will of making alliance with his people in the Eucharist. Thus, the fruit of redemption is this: that our memorial celebration transforms us to be the living and visible Eucharistic presence in the world. Eucharist forms Christian and Christian forms the Eucharist - Eucharist is the fountain of Christian life: there is no Christian life without the celebration of the Eucharist. The true Christian takes his foundation and his force from it as if otherwise he has no breath for his life. This is true and the testimony for this is evident from the beginning of Christian faith and life: o The First Christian Communities gathered to “break the bread” – to celebrate Eucharist – for they knew that it is the only source which keeps them united and makes them a community (Acts 2:43-47 and 4:32-37). o The earlier martyrs testified it: “Without the Sunday’s celebration of the Eucharist we cannot live” was the testimony of the martyrs of Abitene. A martyr and a saint Felix believed that it is Eucharist which makes the Christian and Christian who makes the Eucharist. St. Leo the Great wrote that our participation in the Body and Blood of Christ transforms us into the one whom we receive. o Even in our times the Eucharist has the same unconditional and unchanging effect on the lives of the Christians. It forms the Church because it is only because of this celebration that all gather together. It is the life of the Christian community. It is for this reason, Vatican II exclaims Eucharist as the fountain and peak of all the sacraments. - We participate in the mystery of Eucharist: How blessed we are for we are given the possibility of embracing the Eucharistic presence of Jesus. When we participate in the Holy Mass, when we queue up for the communion reception, we touch Jesus by our hand, we taste him with our tongue, we receive him with our faith and finally we embrace him with our heart. This is the blessedness we are endowed with through our profession of Christian faith. We practically and really Touch, Taste, Feel and Embrace Jesus the Lord. This is the mystery. Still we become part of the mystery because he hold it tight in our heart. One the one hand, it is the will of Jesus to be with us and it was his desire from the beginning; it is for this he had assumed our human nature so that he can touch us (even wash our feet) and he can make himself our food and drink (even to become our body and blood). On the other hand, we are happy to receive the call of Jesus to participate in this mystery; unlike the hearers who went away failing to understand Jesus’ words (John 6:60-71), we have comprehended well his words and professed our faith like that of Peter “Lord, you have words of eternal life” (6:68) and finally become participants of the mystery of Eucharist. - Our preparation should be adequate: In order that our participation is worthy enough of the efficacy of the mystery we need to prepare ourselves well. There are many questions we have to ask ourselves before entering into the Church for the Holy Mass: where am I going? Am I really ready to receive him? Did I really prepare myself? How is my attitude towards receiving the Holy Communion? Am I worthy and well prepared? The preparation would be adequate for the reception of the mystery only when we are able to give answers for these questions. Our preparation should be sincere and authentic because it is not a joke or a game to receive the Lord himself into ourselves. It needs high attention and spiritual purification. We may receive the communion without good adequate preparation but what happens is: the communion becomes only a white host. It will not have any effect in our life just because we have not embraced it with worthy manner. Let us be alert and let us keep watching well our attitude and our presence around the altar. What we receive in the Eucharist should not go into misuse. We cannot give the bread from table to the dogs under it, Jesus warns. His warning is very applicable if we receive the “bread of life” with inadequate behavior. - Mystery is Open to us but the question is: Are we open to the mystery in the same manner? Let us celebrate the feast but let not the feast just a celebration but A Witness of Mystery of Eucharistic Love of Jesus. Our words must become actions. Our coming into the church must become our reaching out to other. On the entrance door of one of the Churches it is written: “Let us enter into the Church to love God and let us go away from the Church to love our neighbors”. Thus, it is we who have to become the “true Eucharist” and it is we who have to become “the real and visible presence of Jesus” in the Church and in the World.

TRINITY SUNDAY - Year B

TRINITY SUNDAY – Year B (Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40; Rom 8:14-17; Math 28:16-20) Theme: We are generated in and by the Love of the Trinity Reflection: End of the Paschal mystery – Beginning of our journey of Faith in the name of the Trinity - We have completed the celebration of the Easter Time with the Solemnity of Pentecost – the descent of the Holy Spirit. The disciples are empowered and led to the truth as Jesus has promised. Jesus promised that when the Spirit comes he will bring his disciples into the understanding of the truth. Holy Spirit has arrived and rested on them in the form of tongues of fire. Fire symbolizes both purification and recreation: purification by burning what is of old nature and re-creation by making one into a new being on the other. Such work of the Spirit has already begun in the disciples. Their old nature of fear is burnt away and thus they are purified of their mind. They are created anew with the gift of courage and fortitude. And the effect is seen immediately in the preaching of the apostles and their testimony of life even to the extent of dying for their Lord, Jesus Christ. - After such a great celebration of the Paschal mystery with which we have to begin our true and daily journey, the Church admonishes us to begin the Ordinary Time of the Year by reflecting once again on the great mystery of God and his love for the humanity. As a result of this desire of the Church we celebrate in the coming Sundays, including today, the feasts of the Lord: first, the Trinity, then, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and finally the Sacred Heart of Jesus. - In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: We start, thus, this Sunday and the days in the rest of the year, in the Holy Name of the Trinity. We require such a celebration of the Trinitarian mystery because Triune God is the foundation of our faith, life, journey and our final destiny: “we live, move and have our being in HIM.” What happens when we invoke the name of the Trinity? We become mindful of the PRESENCE and EFFECT of the Three Divine Persons who is, in a mystery, the Holy Trinity. There are Three Divine Persons and all existing as one God; we may attribute and distribute particular events and interventions to each of the Persons, such as, the creation to the Father, the redemption to the Son and the sanctification to the Holy Spirit. We may do it in the human logic and human understanding, but in reality and in mystery, they are not divided and they remain an inseparable unity. Indeed, each particular event is the common act of the three persons together. Trinity in Perfect Unity – unveiled in the mysteries of creation, salvation and sanctification - We can revise once again the mystery of the unity of the Trinity in relation to the creation, salvation and the sanctification of man and the world: o in the creation, though it is attributed exclusively to God the Father, there is the presence of the Son in form of the Word spoken and there is also the presence of the Spirit hovering on the waters; o in the redemption, though it is attributed exclusively to God the Son, there is the presence of the Father in form of the Will fulfilled and Plan accomplished and there is also the presence of the Spirit which has led the Son to carry on the mission that the Father has commissioned him; o and finally in the sanctification, though it is attributed exclusively to God the Spirit, there is the presence of the Father who is the fountain of all sanctity and holiness and there is the merit of Son’s death and resurrection through which the purification and sanctification flow and to give full completion, the Spirit who sanctifies comes from the Father and the Son and therefore, there could not be the Spirit except in and through the Father and the Son. - The Trinitarian Unity is the Source for the unity of whole creation and whole humanity: o We find it hard to prove, in the human level and in the human concepts, the mystical union of the Three Divine Persons. But in the revelation of the Scriptures, both in the Old Testament or in the New Testament, we observe the presence and the effect of the united work of the Trinity with regard to the whole creation and humanity. o In the Old Testament we see the undivided design of God for the salvation of man. The whole plan of God and all the events that take place within this view go hand in hand as the many rings of the same chain. The chain is unbreakable from the creation to the intervention of God in choosing for himself a people and till the extension of the promise to whole humanity. It is the one and same mystery of God within the framework his promise of salvation. o In the New Testament we see the continuation of the same redemptive design of God. It is not something that starts newly with the New Testament but what whas already initiated by God in the form of promise is brought to its fulfillment. The only novelty is that this fulfillment has taken place in the perfect and eternal manner. But the unity of the chain continues. The will and design of God has been fully obeyed and brought to the completion (“It is accomplished” – the final words of Jesus on the cross) by the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. This is the mystery of God in the process of salvation. o In the Time between the salvation and eschatological consummation, that is in our present time of the Church, the unity of God’s plan continues. We see the presence of the Holy Spirit who inspires and sanctifies and leads all to the communion in God. Even this is not a divided mystery but the same mystery of the Old and New Testaments. Thus, the unity flows from the beginning of the creation to the ultimate end of it on the last day. This is the mystery of God in the progress of salvation. o In this way, it is the whole Trinity who has worked for the salvation of man and creation. Not just single person but the totality of the Three Persons who is the cause of creation, redemption and the sanctification. - The presence of the Trinity in the work of salvation: o The project of salvation: it is the Father who promises the savior, it is Son, who is present in every Word spoken by the prophets and it is the Spirit who is present in transmitting the word by the Father; o The Incarnation: it is the Father who has sent the angel Gabriel to Mary with the good news of salvation and blessings of grace; it is the Son who has taken human form in her womb; and it is the Holy Spirit who has come down upon her. o The Paschal event: the passion-death-resurrection of Jesus Christ: it is the Father who wills, it is Jesus who obeys and completes it and it is the Spirit who strengthens Jesus to accept and fulfill this will of the Father for the salvation of humanity. o The Pentecost: we have seen already in the last week about this: it is Father who sends the Spirit in and through the merits of Jesus Christ his, Son and finally it is the Spirit who descends to initiate his mission of sanctification of the world and leading it the Father. o The Eucharist and other Sacraments: in the Eucharist, the fountain and culmination of all the sacraments, it is the Word of the Father that is Spoken, it is the Deed of the Son enacted and it is the Power of the Spirit that effects the fruit of salvation: It is the Father who sends the word. It is the Word/Son who is spoken. It is the Spirit that speaks. Therefore, in our time, it is the Eucharist which is the fullest manifestation of the Holy Trinity and we can contact and interact with God the Trinity in our daily Liturgy. o The Church: the Church is a mystery and therefore, we can see the presence and effect of the Holy Trinity in the Church too:  Church is the People of God, the Father (the people who are chosen/elected, bought and redeemed and in a word, the people that God called for himself)  Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, the Son (the body which has Jesus as its Head, the Spouse who is washed and prepared by the Bride-groom for himself)  Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit (the temple in which the Spirit pitches his tent, the holy place in which the Spirit dwells, the holy edifice where the Spirit acts).  Church is One because it is Trinitarian. Church is Holy because it belongs to the Father who is Holy. Church is Catholic because the redeeming act of Jesus has universal character as he has died for all. Church is Apostolic because it is the succession that is transmitted by the power of the Holy Spirit. God in One and Three – a mystery of the Trinity - Is God one or many? in other words, Is God monotheistic or polytheistic? In the Christian Faith God is One but not monotheistic as in the Jewish and Islamic belief. Judaism and Islam believe that they only one God, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God is not even polytheistic in the Christian understanding just because there are Three Divine Persons in the Godhead and each of them being God in himself, constitute only one God. This is the mystery. Mystery which remains a mystery for the human logic. Still it is mystery revealed and manifested in the Second Person Jesus Christ: o We cannot simply bypass the mystery of Trinity because Jesus himself proclaims it in his word and deed when he says that:  He is sent by the Father (it is Father who sent me and I am in the Father and the Father is in me)  He himself is the witness of the Father (I have not done what is mine but what my Father has told me to do)  He promises the Spirit who will be sent after his return to his Father; o In the baptism of Jesus once again the Trinity is revealed as it was in the Incarnation:  Jesus who has gone to river Jordan to be baptized  Father speaks about his son: “he is my beloved son, listen to him”.  The Spirit comes down on him in the form of a dove. o Therefore, if we really believe in Christ, we believe also his words and we accept his deeds with faith in which there is the manifestation of the Trinitarian God. So Our God is neither monotheistic because there are Three Individual Divine Persons (God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit), nor he is polytheistic because these Three Persons are not three God but one God (Triune God). He is the Triune God: God in three divine persons. Trinity is Unity of Love – the only way to know him is Love - Trinity is Unity and Community in Love o Trinity is Unity: as we have reflected the Three Persons in Godhead are United just because they are in Love and they are the love; o Trinity is the Community: Three divine person, not being divided, creates the community:  Trinity is a family without borders of hatred and heredity;  He is a society without barriers of race and color;  He is a world without limits of war and aggression. In this way, the Trinity stands as a model for the family-society-world and on the whole: to the whole humanity and creation itself. o This is in the bond of Love: love is not an act of a single person; there should be at least three elements which constitute love:  One who loves (the Father)  One who is love (the Son)  The love that passes from one to the other (the Spirit) - The knowledge and understanding of the Trinity is possible only in Faith and Love: o Ideas fails because they are personal (each one has his own idea and his own background for thinking and finally the personal thinking is always limited to the self) o Philosophy fails because it is not objective (each philosophy has its reasons when the reason has limits and cannot go ahead it concludes that ‘the object’ doesn’t exist just because it is not conceivable, tangible and do not fall in the spheres of knowledge) o Theology also fails because it is only a search towards the Objective Truth (theology can really go beyond the reason and really work hard to search and can coin many words: for example : hypostatic union in the matter of Christ’s humanity and divinity; consubstantiation: to explain the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist; it is nice to see the progressive aspect in the theology but it has its limits to reach and to express the ultimate Truth) o Only Faith understands it and Only Love reaches it:  In Faith: we leave aside our own limited ideas, leave aside the philosophical reasoning, leave aside also theological failures and we can, more than knowing God in concepts and words, Adore him as he is;  In Love: as we have seen, love has no limits either personal or not even common (because majority believes it need not be true in the matter of God); it reaches beyond; it lives this moment of unity and community; - To Believer and to Love - Our immediate action and is the only secure way: o Keeping aside thinking how God looks like, how is he and where is and all (all the questions are only in the human mind; God has no questions, instead, stands as an ANSWER for all; o Living in faith and love: We are not in the capacity to come out of our own mind to understand others giving them the chance of talking. We are not in the capacity to come out of our own homes to meet others giving them the chance of entering. Still further, we are not in the capacity to sacrifice our own life to give other a chance of living. This is our human limitedness. In such a finitude of our being, how can we presuppose to understand the mystery of God and his presence and effect in us; we need to transcend our finitude and give way to the faith and to the love. - The only way we have before us is: TO BELIEVE AND TO LOVE. The faith keeps the human logic aside to give way to the embrace of a mystery. Love makes the one to totally surrender himself to the mystery without any doubt even if it costs his very life. And in Christian understanding both faith and love are the two aspects of the same coin and two realities of the same mystery. - Therefore, acknowledging that we are born out of the love of the Triune God, let us take glory only in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and glorify him saying: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end, Amen.