Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity, Year B, May 26, 2024

“Believing in a Triune God means believing in a hospitable God, who welcomes us and allows us to dwell in the communion of his love.” Happy Sunday!!!

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Deut 4,32-34.39-40; Psalm 32 (33); Romans 8,14-17; Matt 28,16-20; Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity, Year B, May 26, 2024)

“I am with you always, until the end of the world” (Matt 28,20). The great promise of Jesus, with which the Gospel according to Matthew ends, resounds again this year in the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. It is good for us to listen to it, for at least two reasons. First of all because there is a word of consolation in a time of crisis and confusion. Jesus addresses it to the disciples who, after having all abandoned him, are reunited again by a word of forgiveness and peace, now offered to them freely. The evangelist writes that, “when they saw him, they fell prostrate. But they doubted” (28,17). The contrast between these two verbs outlines a Church that is still relevant today. The faith that prostrates itself in adoration, the faith that doubts. The Christian community has always been like this, and it is precisely to a community like this that the Risen One promises his presence: I will be with you, who are at the same time capable of adoration and of little faith.

In addition to consolation, the word of the Risen One is a word of judgement, which requires discernment. I am with you. His way of being remains with us, continuing to judge our life and calling us to conversion. What are the signs of transformation that the love of the Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of communion wish to bring about in us? The word of God that we hear this year helps us to focus our gaze on at least three fruits of this Trinitarian action in our personal and community existence.

Deuteronomy reminds us that the first fruit is listening to the word of God. “Was there ever such a great thing as this?”, asks Moses, “that a people heard the voice of God speak and remained alive?” (Dt 4,32-33). We too, like Israel, can listen to the word of God and remain alive; that is, we can listen to the word of God and find in it an inexhaustible source for our life in order to live well and to achieve a happy, fulfilled life.

The second fruit reminds us of prayer about which Paul writes to the Romans. We too have received the Spirit through whom we cry: “Abba! Father” (see Rom 8,15). We can pray to God and call him Father in the mentality of children. Only Jesus can truly say: “Abba”, but by abiding in the love of the Trinity we can also say: “Father”.

The third fruit, given to us by Matthew, is discipleship: "Go and make disciples of all nations" (Mt 28.19). We are disciples and we are sent by the Risen One to allow others to become disciples in turn, like us.

These three fruits qualify our remaining in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. They identify our being a Christian community that dwells in the Trinitarian communion. They give us three fundamental attitudes to live in our own community relationships, whether in a religious community, or in a family community, or in a parish community. By listening, we mean, the ability to welcome and to take care of each other; truly listening is not only listening to the words that the other says to me, but also to his need, his desire, his effort, his hope. Prayer, helps me in recognizing that I need not only God, but also others, the brother of my community, my father, my mother or my son. Praying to God should educate us to live in trust not only towards the Father who is in heaven, but also towards one another. Finally, being disciples means living in the awareness that until the end of our lives we always need to learn from each other, because no one is enough in himself/herself and everyone must look at the other as someone from whom he/she can receive something and who in turn can donate something. They are three very simple, everyday dimensions, which however, if lived with sincerity and coherence, can truly change the life of a community, a family, a parish. And they can allow us to say truthfully: we are gathered in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Believing in a Triune God means believing in a hospitable God, who welcomes us and allows us to dwell in the communion of his love. We (Matthew reminds us again) have been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and by virtue of the baptism received we live every moment of our lives immersed in the love of the Father and of the Son and of the Spirit. We are in God. We live in God. And in the space of this love we are never cramped, it is a very large and hospitable space, in which there is room for everyone; from which no one is excluded or prevented from entering. Jesus reminds us clearly in the Gospel of John: “In my Father's house there are many mansions. If not, would I have ever said to you: "I'm going to prepare a place for you"? When I am gone and have prepared a place for you, I will come again and take you with me, because where I am you may be also” (John 14,2-3). Jesus wants us to also live where he dwells, that is, in the love of the Father and in the communion of the Spirit. Obeying the word of Jesus which is given to us today by Matthew, going to all the peoples of the earth to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit means precisely this, going and announcing this beautiful news to everyone: we can enter and dwell permanently in the love of God. + John I. Okoye.

(graphics by Chukwubike)

Pentecost Sunday, Year B, May 19, 2024

 
“The Spirit unifies our body, overcoming and resolving the internal conflict that we so often perceive between the desires of the flesh and the desires of the spirit. We become one in ourselves.” Happy Pentecost Sunday!!!

 DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Acts 2, 1-11; Ps 103 (104); Gal 5,16-25; John 15,26-27;16,12-15; Pentecost Sunday, Year B, May 19, 2024)

 “The Spirit of truth will guide you into all the truth” (Jn 16:13). This is what Jesus promises to his disciples. There is a gradual progression of revelation: God gradually lets us know the truth of his face, and we understand it better and better if we let ourselves be guided by his Spirit. The feast of Pentecost itself testifies to this progression in the history of salvation. Originally, it was the harvest festival, in which God was thanked for the first fruits of the harvest. With the Exodus, Pentecost becomes the feast of the alliance, in which Israel thanks God for the gift of freedom and the Torah. With the Pasch of Jesus at Easter, on Pentecost, the gift of the Spirit is celebrated, which offers us true freedom and is the only law of the believer, not external, but internal; not freedom as a simple liberation from constraints and chains, but freedom as the possibility of loving, in joy and peace, in fidelity and meekness... that is, in all those manifestations of the Spirit that Paul lists writing to the Galatians.

God's gifts for our lives are many. First of all, there is the gift of the fruits of the earth which nourish our body. Then, there is the gift of freedom and of law that guides our actions, so that we do not remain slaves to our own selfishness and wrong passions. Finally, as a synthesis and fulfillment of all the other gifts, there is the gift of the Spirit, which makes us participants in the very life of God.

 The first gift of God is the fruits of the earth which we nourish ourselves with. We are a body and God takes care of our body. He nourishes it, makes it grow, does not leave it prisoner in a tomb of death; he resurrects it, glorifies it, making it a participant in the resurrection of Jesus. What is a glorified body, already participating in the resurrection? It is not simply a body that no longer knows death, that lives forever. Paul, writing to the Galatians, states that “the flesh has desires that are contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are contrary to the flesh; these things oppose each other, so that you do not do what you would like” (5,17). We understand these words easily, because we all have a life experience of them. We are inhabited by multiple and conflicting desires, which divide us, pushing us here and there, preventing us from doing the good that we would like to do. A glorified body is a unified, pacified body, in which the many desires of our existence converge towards a single direction, that of life and a life to the full.

 The second gift of God for which we give thanks is the gift of freedom and of law that guides our action, offering it criteria, points of reference to anchor itself on. We are not just a body; we are a body that acts and relates to others; we have desires that must continually confront and meet, sometimes clash, with the desire of others. God also takes care of our relationships and his gift allows us to understand each other, even if we speak different languages, as happens in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is one, but (Luke narrates in the Acts) is divided into many tongues of fire, which rest on each one, so that the many spoken languages return to being a single language, in the fire of love, which is the Spirit.

Finally, the third gift, which summarizes the previous ones, is the gift of communion with God. The Spirit leads us into a full and happy life because it makes us participants in the very life of God. Jesus recalls this in the Gospel of John, when he states that the Spirit "will take from what is mine and declare it to you" (16,14). And what belongs to him, Jesus explains immediately afterwards, when he states: "All that the Father has is mine" (v. 15). What Jesus possesses and shares with us is the very relationship that he lives with the Father, the exchange of love that always exists between the Father and the Son, their communion. The Spirit introduces us into this same relationship of love, he ensures that what belongs to the Father and what belongs to Jesus also becomes ours.

 Here are three gifts of the Spirit to invoke; three different gifts but united by the same common thread, that of unity and communion. The Spirit unifies our body, overcoming and resolving the internal conflict that we so often perceive between the desires of the flesh and the desires of the spirit. We become one in ourselves. The Spirit unifies our relationships, allowing us to understand each other despite the diversity of languages spoken by each. We thus become one among ourselves. Finally, the Spirit unifies by weaving bonds of communion between us and God, until we become one thing: we in God and God in us. We become one with God.

Walking in the Spirit means walking towards the truth of this unity. The works of the flesh are plural and shatter the heart; on the contrary, that of the Spirit is a single fruit that unites by weaving communion. Luke says that the disciples were all together in the same place when the Spirit came upon them. Where there is the Spirit, there is communion; where there is communion, the Spirit can manifest the abundance of its fruits. + John I. Okoye

(graphics  by Chukwubike OC)