Year A

Jan 15 2025

Who Are You? What Do You Do?

Once a young priest was giving a blessing in our seminary chapel and he left out the ands separating the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. An older priest loudly whispered: “Modalism!” This was a heresy in the early church that taught that there was one God but not three distinct persons, only three modes or ways of experiencing God. Thus, those ands were important, giving emphasis to three distinct persons. We believe in one God who is three: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Your head can hurt trying to wrap your mind around this mystery. Today’s readings don’t try to “figure it out.” They simply allow God to be introduced. First God gives Moses a name: “Lord.” God then spells out what that means for Moses and a people liberated from slavery. God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.”

The Gospel of John reveals Jesus as beloved Son sent into the world. For “God so loved the world he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have eternal life” (3:16). God really loves creation and all that continues to be created in love.

Finally, Paul’s farewell to the Corinthians refers to the Lord Jesus who graces, the Father who loves, and the Holy Spirit who draws everyone into community. In brief, at the heart of God is found love, grace, mercy, community, kindness, and fidelity. Not a bad introduction. More ways to know the Trinity will be discovered as we move through “ordinary” time.

Consider/Discuss

Do you have a favorite name for God? How do you think of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
How would you “introduce” the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to someone who does not know them?

Responding to the Word

We place ourselves before the most Holy Trinity, praying for a faith that can humbly bow before this mystery, accepting that we have been given to know God as three in one, that God is drawing us ever more deeply into sharing the life and love that flow between and among these three Persons. We pray our lives may witness to this love.

Jan 15 2025

Scripture Study for

The readings for Trinity Sunday do not really explain the mystery of the Trinity. Rather, they underscore several divine characteristics that are relational and that throw light on ways that the Triune God interacts with us. Some of them traditionally have been associated with one of the three persons more than with the others.

In the first reading, though the cloud upon which God descends onto the mountain conceals God, God’s declaration to Moses is self–revelatory: “The Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity” (Exodus 42:6). Moses’ response to this spectacular revelation is worship. He prostrates himself on the ground in profound adoration. In this appearance, God reveals those divine traits that are associated with the covenant, namely, mercy, steadfast love, and fidelity.

Paul promises that if the Corinthian Christians follow his admonitions and live in the way he instructs them, they will experience the presence of God. The blessing with which he ends this letter embodies an early Trinitarian emphasis. It notes the gift of grace that is received through Jesus Christ, the love that God has for all of creation, a love that is the source of all good things, and the community of the Holy Spirit within which believers are rooted. There is no more meaningful benediction that Paul might have chosen.

In the Gospel reading, the extent of God’s love is drawn in bold lines in two significant ways. The first is the scope of divine love, and the second is the price that God is willing to pay because of that love. The passage is remarkable in its explicit declaration of God’s love for the entire world. This love for the world is so deep and so magnanimous that, for the world to be saved, nothing is spared, not even God’s only Son. Those who believe in that Son are saved; those who do not believe in him call down judgment upon themselves.

Jan 14 2025

Three Gifts of Pentecost

The disciples were cowering behind locked doors. Fear has a way of imprisoning, away from the outer world, but also from our inner world, taking away our freedom to hope, imagine, and dream. We can become comfortable working in cramped spaces, isolated and unattached, removed from life and contact with others.

But then along comes the risen Lord, arms outstretched, heart wide open, bearing gifts to transform our lives. The first gift of the risen Lord is peace (shalom), which translates as all good things, physically, mentally, and spiritually—all that is needed to be alive inside. This peace is a gift that the world cannot give.

The second gift is a mission: we are sent, as Jesus was sent, by the Father. Where? To the world. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16–17). Now the Son sends the disciples—us!—to bring life.

The third gift is the Holy Spirit, given for the forgiveness of sins. The Holy Spirit is the gift of the Father and the Son, given to us at baptism, again at confirmation, and whose gifts are given to the church and its members for the good of all, within and outside the church. Primary among these gifts is the gift of forgiveness.

Consider/Discuss

Have I received the gift of the Holy Spirit who brings the forgiveness of my own sins?
Have I made use of this gift of the Holy Spirit who calls me to bring forgiveness to others?

Responding to the Word

During this week, pray the Sequence used at Mass for Pentecost before the Gospel, “Come, Holy Spirit, come!” Notice especially these words: “Heal our wounds, our strength renew/On our dryness pour your dew/Wash the stains of guilt away/Bend the stubborn heart and will/Melt the frozen, warm the chill.”

Jan 14 2025

Scripture Study for

The Jewish feast of Pentecost was one of the three major pilgrimage festivals of Israel. This feast explains why there was a crowd gathered in Jerusalem. This is the crowd that heard a loud noise and was confused, astonished, and amazed. They knew that those speaking were Galileans, yet the hearers could understand the message in their own dialect. The exact nature of this marvel is less significant than its meaning. It was clearly a manifestation of the universal presence and power of the Spirit. The outpouring of the Spirit and the preaching of the gospel to all nations are seen by some as initiating the reunion of the human race and the gathering of all into the reign of God.

The acclamation “Jesus is Lord!” is rich in both Jewish and early Christian meaning. “Lord” was the official title of the Roman emperor. To proclaim Jesus as Lord was to set up a rivalry between the followers of Jesus and the ruling political authority. The title “Lord” is also used in the Greek-language version of the Old Testament as a substitute for God’s personal name. To use this title for Jesus is also to ascribe to him the attributes of God. Paul next launches into a discourse on the varieties of functions within the Christian community. The diversity of gifts is compared to the complexity of the human body. This metaphor exemplifies unity in diversity and interdependence.

John’s account of the risen Lord treats the Resurrection and the bestowal of the Spirit as occurring on the same day. The locked doors, meant to secure the disciples from those who put Jesus to death, also underscore the mysterious character of his risen body. The image of breathing life into another is reminiscent of the creation of Adam (Genesis 2:7) and restoration of Israel after the Exile (Ezekiel 37:9). The disciples are commissioned to go forth, to declare salvation and judgment. With the bestowal of the Spirit, the disciples are authorized to continue the mission of Jesus.

Jan 14 2025

Giving God Glory

There are moments of life that we call “glorious,” special times beyond ordinary experience, that give us a hint of transcendence, a glimpse of glory, whether it is a “glorious day” in spring or a “glorious occasion” like a wedding. Such times lift our spirits and hearts, and we feel transported to a different level of awareness and know a joy beyond words. Such are moments of glory.

We hear the words “glory” and “glorify” five times in the opening verses of to day’s Gospel as Jesus prays to his Father. In John’s Gospel this is the last recorded prayer of Jesus, since John does not have Jesus praying in the garden. Jesus begins his prayer by telling the Father the “hour” has come, that is, the hour of revelation, the time when the Father will give glory to the Son and the Son will glorify the Father. It is the moment when the Son is “lifted up,” which refers to both the lifting up on the cross and the Resurrection. Jesus has said: “And when I am lifted up, I will draw all things to myself” (John 12:32).

This mutual glorifying that characterizes the relationship between the Father and the Son also embraces the disciples. Jesus says at the end of today’s reading that he prays “for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine and I have been glorified in them” (John 17:10).

Consider/Discuss

Do you see your life as one that gives glory to God by what you say and do?
Do you follow the example of Jesus by encouraging others to glorify God?

Responding to the Word

We pray this final Sunday in the Easter season that the prayer of Jesus can also be ours: Father, give glory to your children, so that your children may glorify you. Help us to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. Alleluia. Amen.