1. --
Lanie LeBlanc OP
2. --
Dennis Keller
3. --
Brian Gleeson CP
4. --
5. --(Your
reflection can be here!)
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1.
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Most Holy Trinity 2022
In our Gospel reading today, Jesus mentions one of the
names of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. Oh, Holy
Spirit, we do need you now more than ever! Come, Holy
Spirit!
The majority of people in our modern day world have
information of every and any kind right at their fingertips,
literally through the internet. What a wonderful resource,
until..... It is the "until" that has plagued people seeking
truth from the beginning of time.
The very best place to start looking at truth is within
ourselves. As a retired language arts /reading educator and
now grandmother of quite the wordsmith in my 13 year old
granddaughter, we have at times talked about shades of
meaning of very many synonyms and antonyms for truth as a
noun as well as pertinent verb forms. The shades of meaning
are astounding. So are the many ways people try to get away
with getting around "just the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth." Acknowledging where we stand on the
spectrum is important to starting to change ourselves and
the world.
The second place to examine is in our actions as a role
model for others. We are all role models whether we admit it
or not. What we do and say as well as not do and don't say,
influences meaning and, therefore, pure truth. Just a quick
look at the news in any form of the media (not just the
internet) will demonstrate this point. We must acknowledge
bias as we encounter it and as we provide it. Sticking to
the absolute truth as far as humans can decipher it can be
uncomfortable, for sure!
A final place for us to check is what do we do about this
muddy truth problem today and in the future. My answer is
always prayer first, then following the fruits of
contemplation for action. Come Holy Spirit, Spirit of Truth,
come into our hearts and help us renew the face and language
of truth throughout the earth.
Blessings,
Dr. Lanie
LeBlanc OP
Southern
Dominican Laity
lanie@leblanc.one
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Most Holy Trinity June 12 2022
Proverbs 8:22-31; Responsorial Psalm 8; Romans
5:1-5; Gospel Acclamation Revelation 1:3; John 16:12-15
The safest way to preach about the solemnity of the Most
Holy Trinity is just to say, "we cannot understand the
Trinity, only adore and worship God in God’s magnificence."
That would be the shortest homily in the history of
Christianity. It would as well be a significant disservice
to those who come together as Church to repent, to
celebrate, and to share the Body and the Blood of the Lord
so that we may become one.
That we may become one! Now there is a message! In
decades and centuries past, the Eucharist was touted to be
the reward for the righteous ones. But there is more about
this next Sunday when we celebrate another mystery that
baffles theologians and us. That is, of course, the mystery
of the Body and Blood of Christ that makes us one.
The Trinity, as a doctrine, a dogma of the Catholic
Church (of Christianity) is a tenet of faith that was
defined in the third and forth centuries of the Common Era –
that is since the birth of Jesus. There were many
controversies that grew out of the efforts to understand who
Jesus was. Was he God; was he man adopted in some distinct
way by God? Was he real or only a projected image of a man
while being truly God? The swirling controversies regarding
who Jesus was/is caused real conflicts and bloodshed.
Constantine, who allowed Christianity to become the religion
favored by the empire, saw these fights as disruptive to his
power and a threat to his rule. He called the council of
Nicaea (325) to define how Jesus was related to God the
Father – was Jesus’ subordinate to the Father or not? But
even this did not solve the relationship of the union of
transcendence that is God with the human person, a creation
of God. We now say Jesus is truly God and truly man. But
most of us still remain torn between the transcendence –
Godliness of Jesus – and his immanence, that is his
humanity, being one of us. We say in the Creed that Jesus is
truly God and Truly Man and leave it at that. Even so, it is
truly mysterious how this can be.
All the councils that dealt with the Nature(s) of Jesus
were the driving force toward definition of the Trinity as
three persons. A person, defined in philosophy, is an agent,
one who does, who works, who thinks, who judges, who knows,
and who is unique. That is our experience of our own
personhood.
This is really a too short a discussion of those councils
of the Church. These councils were attempts to arrive at
understanding. And the understandings that came from them
were beyond what the human participants could of themselves,
individually, have achieved. Thus, there is evidence of a
Spirit that inspires, directs, and aids the People of God.
Thus, there is Father – who creates and sustains; Word – who
reveals and redeems; Spirit – who energizes, informs, and
leads to wisdom. Thus, three persons. We should remember
these words are human words and arrive to our minds and
hearts from our personal experiences and are understood
based on our personal experience.
But how can three persons be so uniquely one that they
form one entity, God? If there are three, then would it not
be more appropriate to refer to God as they, them, their? In
all this, it helps to understand that their unity derives
from the power and energy of relationship. A way of looking
at the Trinity might be to think of human marriage. The
comparison limps a lot because we are human, and God is
utterly transcendent. In human marriage, man and woman
commit to each other and in their intimacy that follows
unite and – as Genesis reminds us – become one flesh. That
becoming, that bond between man and woman is what we
identify as love. That love is looking at other and pouring
out energy and full appreciation for the other. Our
marriages lived out are a process bringing growth and
completeness to oneness: it happens over time, over years of
experiencing the other. What happens in a marriage that is
growing is that the relationship brings and makes more of
each person. Amazing that result of the relationship. The
more that is shared, is given the more there is received!
Persons whose spouse predeceased them often describe their
loss of the presence of their spouse as a form of
continuation of the relationship. They continue talking to
them, laughing with them, sharing the day with them,
expecting to find them next to them. In such a fulfilled
relationship, in a marriage that is in the image and
likeness of God’s, there is growth. And that growth lacks
limitations. What starts out as attraction, over time and
practice becomes a unity that defies separation even by
death.
In our humanness, we are accustomed to use images to help
us imagine, to relate, to discover the other that is God.
Images are created with content from the experiences of the
artist. Even so, such images are limited in making God
present. Much of the art depicting the Trinity shows the
Father as a bearded, aged white man. The son, the Word of
God is portrayed by European artists as a young white man
looking more European than Middle Eastern. The Spirit is
shown as a dove hovering over the other two. These
depictions give us something to hold onto. But they also
send a message that is harmful. If God is a white man, then
all other races are somehow subservient. If Jesus is a young
white guy, then all other colors of skin are somehow lesser,
only the male gender has presence and value – even though
Jesus was of Jewish descent and not the white of European
nationals. His treatment of women chronicled in the gospels
and in the letters of the apostles demonstrate a healthy and
high respect for the equality of that gender.
It is a fantastic revelation to gaze on the image of Our
Lady of Guadalupe. That image is obviously not of a woman of
European descent, but dark of skin like the Mexicans to whom
she is such an inspiration. That image of Mary is itself a
revelation of God’s creation of diverse and unique persons.
If we remember the origin of that image, we recall her image
was emblazoned on a peasant’s cloak. Not made of human
artist’s hands. The image came from an artist beyond human
ability. Its beauty and design came as a shock to the
incredulous bishop and to the peasant who though he had
brought the bishop a collection of roses.
We believe that God is transcendent, beyond our
experience. Yet, we are created in God’s image and likeness.
Does that not mean we can discover God, Father, Son, and
Spirit, in our relationships with others? When we hate,
allow bigotry to cloud our perceptions, deny others their
rightful place and assistance to flourish: are we not
blocking and demeaning the image of God that surrounds us?
Many moan and groan: "Oh, that I might see thy face!" But
God’s face is there in all its diversity and glory if we
overcome our blindness and bigotry and superior attitudes.
How can we look away from those in pain, those in terror,
those who lack access to education, to health care, to a
livable wage for work done? The Trinity is a community. When
will we ever come to realize that when one hurts all suffer?
When will we appreciate the achievements of others without
envy or jealousy? When will we see not national origin,
language, gender, race are not indicators of worth and
dignity. Instead the image and likeness is God is forever
created in infinite variations? The sum total of those
images and likenesses fail to even portray in adequate
fashion the complexity and utter immensity of God. Isn’t
that what Jesus came to teach us – to save us from our
smallness, from our ego-centric strivings? His proof of all
this is that Jesus was willing to die on false, lying
charges rather than reject his message of what God is for
humanity and creation! The love of God is our model, is the
path we take if we follow after Jesus. Do we have the
courage to commit again to that path? Well, we do not need
search for that courage. It is offered to us by the presence
of the Spirit that came to us in events memorialized last
Sunday. Pentecost Sunday is the coming of the New Law. We
experience the wonder and effectiveness of that new law
through the abiding present of the Spirit among us. And that
law is actually pretty simple: "Love your neighbor as God
loves you." Pretty tall order that. Are we up to trying to
be that way in our living?
Dennis
Keller
dkeller002@nc.rr.com
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3.
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GOD IS ONE AND GOD IS THREE: MEETING GOD THE TRINITY
Proverbs 8:22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15
One of the most fascinating things about being alive is
the other people in our lives. Just as fascinating is the
fact that the more we know them, the more there is still to
know. Husbands and wives regularly report that even after
more than twenty years together they are still getting
glimpses of new things about the other. So, it’s only bit by
bit that they can revel and rejoice in all the different and
charming things about the other, who will always remain
something of a mystery. It’s the same with our knowledge and
love of God – of God as Father, of God as Son, and of God as
Holy Spirit. While God is anything but a closed book, it may
take years of keeping company with God before we become
deeply aware of particular pieces in the puzzle of who God
is.
There are at least three ways of delving into the Mystery
of the Trinity. One is to search for how something that is
one can also be three. In this approach, it might help to
compare the Trinity to a tree. The Father is like the trunk
of the one tree, the Son is like a branch of the same tree,
and the Spirit is like the fruit the same tree produces. Or
we might compare God the Father to the sun in the sky, the
Son of God to its rays, and the Spirit of God to its heat.
Or we might think of the three as like three musical notes
played together as one harmonious chord.
Another approach is to concentrate more directly on the
relationship of the Trinity to us. The first thing that has
to be said about this is that strictly speaking, God is
self-sufficient. In the interpersonal relationships that
have existed forever among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God
has been completely and perfectly happy and satisfied. But
it is God's overflowing goodness that has led God to create
us human beings in God’s image and likeness. It is God's
overflowing goodness that has led God’s Son to become a
human being like us and live his life completely for others.
It is God's overflowing goodness that has led God to give us
our beautiful world to both preserve and develop in a
harmonious balance. And it is God's overflowing goodness
that has led God to destine us for everlasting life with
Godself on the other side of this life.
The next thing that needs to be said is that the
interpersonal relationships of our three-in-one God, show us
that to be a person we need other people in our lives, other
people to love us, and other people for us to love. In the
1960s there was a popular song that said: ‘I am a rock. I am
an island. And a rock feels no pain. And an island never
cries.’ That message is a lie. For while there are times
when healthy human beings like to be alone and deliberately
choose their own company, there is something wrong if
they're always saying like the famous Swedish actress, Greta
Garbo: 'I want to be alone.’ This is because we need the
company and influence of others to animate us, draw us out
of ourselves, challenge and comfort us, and complete us.
It's not for nothing that in the Genesis story of the
creation of woman, God says: ‘It is not good that the man
should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner’
(2:18).
Some time ago I heard about a man who was so utterly
alone in this world that nobody ever shook his hand, patted
his back, gave him a hug, a friendly dig in the ribs, or
even a wave. He became so desperately lonely that the only
thing left for him to look forward to was a monthly visit to
his hairdresser, where at least for a few minutes someone
would touch him and care for him.
Loneliness can be a sad and cruel experience. This is
particularly so for people placed in solitary confinement. I
read a while back about a particular prison ward. The
prisoners were given enough to eat. But they were not
allowed to talk to each other. They were not allowed to work
together because work leads to contact and conversation.
They were not even allowed to listen to others on the radio
or watch television. And of course, they were never allowed
even one visitor. After months of this cruel treatment,
there was not a single prisoner with even a skerrick left of
self-esteem or self-confidence.
I hope and pray that none of us here will ever feel so
isolated or alone, especially when we have to face that
particular human experience, which no one else can face for
us - our death. What happens on the other side of that
experience? What will we find there? Our faith tells us,
that whatever else there will be, we will enjoy the company
of other human beings. And more than that, on the other side
of our death God will be waiting for us. The God who is
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The God who made us through
our human parents. The God who loves us, understands us,
forgives us, and keeps us going. The God who finally takes
us to Godself, and forever.
This is what we are celebrating in our feast of the
Trinity. This is why we are giving praise and thanks to God
in the Eucharist for the feast. Because God is not alone,
and because we are not alone, and never will be. And so let
us pray together and mean every word we say: ‘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.’
"Brian
Gleeson CP" <bgleesoncp@gmail.com>
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5.
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Volume 2 is for you. Your thoughts, reflections,
and insights on the next Sundays readings can influence the
preaching you hear. Send them to
preacherexchange@att.net. Deadline is
Wednesday Noon. Include your Name, and Email Address.
-- Fr. John Boll, OP
