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Daily Scripture

+ 21st Week in Ordinary Time

Every day is a gift and a blessing.

Readings: I Corinthians 1:1-9 Psalm 145:2-7 Matthew 24:42-51

I give thanks to my god always on your account for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus, that in him you were enriched in every way, with all discourse and all knowledge, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gifts as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” [I Cor 1:4-5, 7]

My mother used to say that every day is a gift and a blessing—an opportunity for grace indeed, many graces.

I suppose it’s all according to one’s perspective. The greatest challenge in life is to find something to be thankful for every day. This is particularly difficult during stressful times and certainly during illness of one kind or another.

I think I may have shared difference between a hermit and a nightclub performer. The hermit wakes up at dawn and says, “Thank you, God!” The nightclub entertainer wakes up at noon and says, “Good God, morning?”

There is so much going on in the world at large and in our own particular worlds to bring anxiety and stress. It’s hard work to maintain balance. An active spiritual life based on the confidence that nothing can happen today that can defeat us if we are grounded in the belief that God’s presence is abiding but it’s difficult and sometimes terrifying to let go.

I still remember the first time I road my two-wheeler bike without my dad holding on to the seat. We started off—I, confident that he hand was firmly attached to the seat. I had ridden almost a full block before I realized that he had let go and there I was, gliding down the street. It’s that way with God. We just need to remain conscious that God’s ‘hand’ is not a crutch but that God’s grace within us is real.

Some days it seems as if we are starting all over again.

Feast of the Holy Trinity 'A''

Sunday May 18, 2008

De Deo Uno et Trino

When I was a seminarian almost fifty years ago, the treatise on the Trinity was the introduction to our study of theology, “De Deo Uno et Trino,” translated, “About God, One and Three.” It was considered a foundational course. If we could grasp the Trinity, then we would be able to master all the other disciplines in our theological pursuits over the remaining three years of theological training.

Incidentally, it was also assumed in those days that we would learn in four years, everything we needed to know for a lifetime of priestly service.

I don’t know who was more naïve, students or professors!

It is not that the doctrine on the Trinity is unreasonable; it is beyond reason and beyond human explanation. We need to enter the mystery through the protocol of prayer.

Perhaps this is why so many of us fall short of the mystery. Although preachers may feel compelled to unpack the doctrine, they would do better to write poetry and tell stories, which enable believers to ponder the reality of God’s life breathing within in us and in all creation.

But poetry is rooted in prayer. The 12th century Benedictine Abbess, Hildegard of Bingen was one among many mystics who expressed her belief in the Trinity through prayer:

To the Trinity be praise!
God is music, God is life
that nurtures every creature in its kind.
Our God is the song of the angel throng
and the splendor of secret ways
hid from all humankind,
But God our God is the life of all.

These words may seem a bit archaic to us who thrive on technology in our attempt to master every mystery, futile though that may be.

Contemporary thinker, educator, poet and mystic, Michael Fox, places his prayer through the lens of another world view: God as parent—father and mother or better, God as partner; Jesus as the revelation of divine love, and Holy Spirit, bond with God and all humanity, as sanctifier and wisdom unsurpassed.

Of course, each of us must pursue our unique relationship with God through our own unique personality, which also renders our prayer unique and special. Who is God for you? Who are you for God? Of course, you are everything to God.

Though God is real, God is also mystery and known only gradually, moving in time and space; in our own time and space. The great theologian, Karl Rahner, so influential on the thinking of Vatican II wrote about the God who communicates not just to our minds but to our hears.

But say not that God is in my heart. Say rather that I am in the heart of God.

The encounter of Moses with God shortly after the destruction of the golden calf described in the first reading today was not his invitation to God but God’s invitation to him, an expression of God’s desire—no, of God’s promise to walk with Moses and the Hebrew people and with us. It is God, who breaks through the mystery, not we.

Saint Paul addressing himself to a very messy “Christian” community that makes our present church crises seem small in comparison, ultimately pleads with the believers to succumb to God’s grace not as a cover up but as an ultimate admission and confession that peace can be found only within the realm of the divine.

Within the life of the Church there can be no hierarchy other than that of the Trinity—Giver of life, source of love, Jesus, the beloved of God and Holy Spirit and whatever does not correspond to God’s life must be jettisoned and cast away—honors, title, pomp and power. Only through our surrender to the ‘Mystery’ can we find our strength. As the Church comes to accept its political weakness in the face of raw worldly power, will it come to know its strength in the presence of God.

Finally, in his Gospel, John the Evangelist presents the core of the message—divine love, expressed through agape, total self-giving love; pure unadulterated love flowing from the divine, eternal energy that we do not grasp but which enfolds us, envelops us in life as an introduction to the next life.

John tells us this is nothing more or less than the gift of eternal life to which we are introduced on this earth. It is ours for the asking, actually it was given to us as gift at Baptism, unmerited grace, unlimited potential for good, unrestricted access to God— if we ask, we shall receive and if we receive it wholeheartedly, it will change us and if it changes us, it will eventually change our Church and our world.

The earth proclaims the greatness of God
and all creation exults in God’s glory.
Jesus remains the perfect exemplar and everlasting covenant
who unites heaven and earth
and all humanity to the eternal Father.

Holy Spirit,
life-giving breath of God, ‘ruah’
that permeates the fiber of our being
giving strength to the weak,
courage to the fainthearted,
hope to the hopeless,
joy to the sorrowing,
may we succumb to the grace of this feast
and be for all humanity,
a sign that we have not given up on God
but more so, that God has not given up on us.

It was for this reason St. Paul concluded his second letter with these words:

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit
be with you all!”