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Archive for the month “May, 2021”

29 May 2021

Feast of the Holy Trinity

This Sunday we celebrate Trinity Sunday, which is the celebration of the Father, Son and Holy spirit. When I  was growing up  my Father had a small tin of oil which was called three in one  (Pictured above) and every Trinity Sunday it comes into my mind because it reminds me what the trinity is about  that is three divine persons in one. The Father is equal to the Son and the Son is equal to the Spirit three in one and one in three they are the oil that keeps the faith we profess going. The roots of this solemn feast can be traced back to the early Church.  The feast of Holy Trinity goes back to 12th century England and St Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Historians say the great Thomas celebrated a Liturgy in honor of the Trinity in his cathedral. In the 14th century, the feast came to be observed by the universal Church. The feast of the Holy Trinity invites us to contemplate the mystery of God Father Son and Holy Spirit.  Paul in the Letter to the Romans reminds us that the Spirit of God makes us God’s children, destined to share in the life of God, as Christ does.

The gospel reading speaks of the power of presence and the power of the name. Ancient people placed great weight in presence; the way someone dressed and acted spoke of social power.  Ancient people also chose names carefully; they believed a person’s name defined their strength of character. Both outward presence and inward character are part of the disciples’ experience. When the followers of Jesus  saw the resurrected Lord and heard his command to evangelize the entire world, they saw for themselves the Trinity in action. When we live as followers of Christ, we invite others to join us not because they see nice people living good lives. No, they, too, see the Trinity in action as God works through us. How do we understand the Trinity? We don’t! God, by definition, is beyond imagination, and  language. The Christian belief that God is a trinity helps underscore how rich the mystery of God is and how our experience of God is always richer than our concepts and language about God. On Trinity Sunday we can take the words of St Patrick and make them our own as we say, “I arise today, through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the Threeness, the three in one, through confession of the oneness of the Creator of Creation.”

Each Trinity Sunday, we only scratch the surface of this great mystery of our faith. In gratitude and faith, let us begin and end every prayer with greater faith and reverence as we invoke the Trinity as we say “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

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22 May 2021

PENTECOST

Did Jesus Need the Holy Spirit? — Center For Baptist Renewal

As we come to the end of the Easter Season we celebrate the feast of Pentecost. Last Sunday when we celebrated Ascension Jesus told us in the Gospel that he would send us the Holy Spirit to be our advocate  with the Father. This Sunday we celebrate the decent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the beginning of the apostolic mission to bring the message of Jesus to the world.  By the time John wrote his gospel, Jewish Christians had been excommunicated for their belief in the Messiah. Ostracized and socially persecuted, some Christians reacted in fear, while others boldly proclaimed the gospel. Early Christians needed a sense of stability, a sense of divine peace. Through the words of Jesus, “Peace” was John’s prayer for his readers as we listen to this gospel reading. With the sight of Jesus, fear turned into great joy. Anxiety turned into relief. Desperation turned into vindication. Most important, a lack of spiritual direction turned into a sense of deep spiritual grounding.

The divine presence stood close to them and with the divine presence came divine peace. We too have the divine presence in the Blessed Sacrament and it brings Joy and spiritual grounding to all those who come and Jesus says to each and every one you are welcome.

We can’t ignore the problems that are there and there are many in our own lives and the lives of those around us. Most of the time, the problems just don’t go away by themselves very often we need to stop and think things through.  But If we pray through the problems as well as thinking them through we will find that they are much easier to get through. Gathered at Mass we bring our prayers to God. Each of us have our own needs. Family and friends may be sick.  People we know need work. The Older person who has been central to our lives for so long has died.  We bring these and all our concerns in prayer to God our Father because they remind us of our need and they raise our hopes in the power of God made real to every generation through the Holy Spirit.  Through the Holy Spirit our relationship with God is fruitful, satisfies our longings, and brings us peace.  Because of God’s faithfulness, we give thanks, offer sacrifice, and once again present our needs this Pentecost Sunday as we remember the presence of God with us in all our lives.

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15 May 2021

ASCENSION

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Ascension

In our Gospel reading for the Ascension Jesus tells the disciples to “wait for the promise of the Father”. They cannot go off spreading the news of his resurrection on their own. They are a small, fearful community that has no power. As the Gospels showed, they had a tendency to get Jesus’ message wrong. What’s more, they flee when things get tough. At the Ascension, Jesus was taken up to heaven so that the apostles and everyone since  would receive “the promise of the Father”, the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel reading Jesus told the apostles to “go into the whole world and preach the gospel to ends of the earth.” The gospel writer also reported that the apostles did that “while the Lord worked through them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs. He tells them of several signs by which the world will know they are sent. All those signs have an individual and a corporate application In so many nations and affiliations to political parties or whatever  there is a rise in authoritarianism, popularism and nationalism. Those movements seek to suppress individual dignity and worth. It is noteworthy that Jesus tells his disciples that believers will drive out demons.

 If  we give this some thought, we come to realize there are many demons that inhabit our hearts and minds and the hearts and minds of so many people. There is the demon of racism. There is the demon of self-seeking power. There is the demon that reduces us to the pursuit of wealth as the ultimate value. There is the demon that insists we must be worshipped in order to have worth and dignity when we already have worth and dignity as a son or daughter of God. There is the demon that seeks to enslave by unjust wages there is the crushing demon of poverty. How do we get rid of  these demons? The answer lies in the way we live out the good news of Jesus in our daily lives that other people can see and take as an example of a better way of living. It also means that  a different set of values where we care for and share with one another.  This set of values springs from the revelation of God the Creator. That revelation comes to us in the living out of the Gospel, in the Good News. It is a difficult message to proclaim these days as it runs contrary to our world and our experience of living within it. The words are simple the living out requires much practice, must self-examination, and much changing of our hearts and minds.

In that effort and action, we experience the presence and the love of the God who is source of all life, happiness, meaning and purpose. The challenge  for us as followers of Jesus as we celebrate the Ascension is are we prepared to get rid of our demons  so that we will be an example of faith and love in all we do and say. As a result of being people of  faith and love the people out there will see how we live our lives and they will want to know where we are going as followers of Jesus and go with us to that place..

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08 May 2021

6th Sunday of Easter

6th Sunday of Easter (Year B)

We continue our journey out of the COVID restrictions and as we do that we remember all who are affected especially those in India and other affected countries.  Our Gospel for this Sunday is  a reading from the gospel of John in which Jesus tells us ‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love. This is my commandment: love one another, as I have loved you. The love of God is easy for those who see God as a loving and faithful Father. St. Therese of Lisieux,  who was a master of the spiritual life tells us about the love which is its essence. She taught the “little way” of childlike simplicity and obedience to God as the way to grow in love.  “It seems to me St. Therese said that there will be no judgment for victims of love, or rather, the good God will hasten to reward, with eternal delights, His own love which He will see burning in their hearts.” Love of God is tied to the commandments, because the commandments are the love of God in action.

Those who love God long to be holy as he is holy and so live by the commandments.  But they do it out of love not because they have to. “In the heart of the Church I will be love,” St. Therese exclaimed upon discovering her true vocation. Though bound by the walls of her cloister, she knew unlimited freedom to reach the heights of holiness through courageous devotion to charity.  We too are students of the love of God. The commandments that Jesus gives are valuable  lessons by which we master the love of God our Father in thought, word and deed. Jesus chose his followers to carry out God’s plan of salvation. By allowing us to participate in his work of redemption, he gives us a personal stake in the Kingdom of God. “Love is the best way to become his “co-worker,” since it reveals the reason he came into  the world and affirms our friendship with the creator. Love changes everything it touches. It tells us to stop bragging about this or that. It enhances our reputation. It denies the power of position and wealth which we sometimes feel is ours by right, it raises us up as true leaders.

It might take away the advantage of our personal ideas on any topic. However, It connects us in unimaginable ways to God and to one another. Divine love transcends mere emotion. It becomes our lifeline to God. And it forms the basis of real community where everyone is valued and no one is left out. It is inexplicable in theory, yet easily seen in action. Wherever God loves, he acts. Wherever he acts, he is there with us. He is with us because he loves us and the love of God knows no bounds.  we remember the love that God has for each and every one of us each time we look at the Cross. We also remember that Jesus the son of God who gave up his life on the Cross out of love for us is our saviour who will show us the way to bring the love of God the Father into our lives so that we will pass it on to other people.

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01 May 2021

5TH SUNDAY OF EASTER

This weekend we celebrate the 5th Sunday of easter as we continue to come out of the COVID19 restrictions. As we get back to Normal we shouldn’t forget all the places in the world who are still battling the COVID pandemic. In particular we pray for the people of India who are being hit hard with the virus as well as many countries throughout the world. In our Gospel reading we hear the story of the vine and the vinedresser of course Jesus is the vine and the Father is the vine dresser and the fruit of the vine that we are hearing about is our faith. The noise that the pruning shears make do not sound very pleasant, in fact, it sounds quite stark, threatening and maybe  painful. I think that I would be saying keep the vinedresser from my door in case he cuts me down .  From the time of Moses, the Hebrew people thought of their nation as the vine that God had taken from Egypt and transplanted into Palestine. There in the fertile valleys and plateaus the nation thrived and grew, as does a vine that is well tended. When we believe in Jesus Christ, partake of his mysteries, and keep his commandments, the Saviour himself comes to live in us, his Father and his brethren, become our Father and our brethren. His person through the Spirit, becomes, the living and interior rule of all we do and say.

The branches exist to draw life from the vine so as to bear fruit. Failing to do so they are useless: cut down, thrown out, good only for fuelling the flames of a fire. So that we may live as fruitful branches in union with Christ, the true vine, he has given us the faith we profess as members of the Church, his true body in the world. Our Lord warns us, as he warned his first followers, to abide in him, that means that we should remain closely united with him, as the branch is joined to the vine. He promises us that if we remain closely united to him, by keeping his commandments he will be ever ready to answer our requests, and to listen our prayers. Let us take courage. Jesus also  tells us “Without me you can do nothing,”. But we know that with him we can do everything. If we remain with him, we can ask anything of the Father and it will be given to us. While we remain healthy branches of the vine, we will be on the road to heaven. Our daily tasks, our work as well as our prayer, our recreation as well as our rest, our joys as well as our sorrows, all of them will  give glory to God and prove that we are worthy to be called disciples of the Lord. So the main question for us today is are we going to remain close to Jesus?  

The story of the Vinedresser is our call to remain closely united with Jesus, as the branch is united to the vine. Or will we be cut down by the vinedresser and thrown on the fire or the  rubbish heap. I would hope that all of us will remain united to the vine so that we will bear much fruit so the world will know that we follow Jesus by all we say and do.

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