June 3rd - Pentecost Sunday (English)
June 10th - Trinity Sunday (English)
June 17th - Body and Blood of Christ (English)
June 24th - Birth of Saint John The Baptist
(English)
Communication is essential to accomplish anything, at least
for human beings. It seems to be the same for animals. Some
scientists even believe that plant life has some kind of communication.
Perhaps it is so important because God created us not to be separate or
isolated, but in union with one another. That can only happen when
we are able to communicate.
Yet, isn’t communication something that is so difficult for
most people? John Gray wrote a book that has been very successful
titled, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. He shares with readers
his insight that men and women come at things from different viewpoints.
Yet, despite the problems often encountered in relationships, satisfying
communication and understanding is possible. Differences in style
happen between generations. Listen in on a conversation several teenagers
are having (if you are my age) or try to find common ground when you are
talking with senior citizens (if you are a teenager or younger).
Obviously when we don’t share the same language communication is difficult,
if not impossible. Those who are deaf or blind have other obstacles
to overcome in communicating. What is needed is a translation or
bridge.
One of the essential qualities of the Holy Spirit is communication.
When human beings try to accomplish anything without the power of God chaos
results. [We heard that in tonight’s reading from Genesis.
Human beings striving to be God ended in disaster when their languages
were changed.] This is so in prayer. How many people have complained
that they do not know how to pray? Often when we surrender to God
we are given the words to pray. Sometimes God allows us to pray without
words, which can get in the way. The Spirit gives us understanding
and insight into ourselves, our world, other people, and God.
The Spirit at Pentecost was given to the apostles for understanding,
but I don’t believe understanding of all things. The apostles were
told to wait for the Holy Spirit to come. They waited. When
the Spirit came down upon them it says that all of the people could now
understand them in their own languages. That’s pretty amazing.
Yet, a few chapters later in the Acts of the Apostles it states that a
problem arose when the Greek speaking widows were not being cared for because
the apostles only spoke Hebrew. The Spirit inspired the apostles
to choose people who spoke that language to minister to them. This
was something new. Jesus hadn’t prepared them for the necessity of
having people that spoke different languages.
During this Easter season we have heard that the Church had
another crisis. What should be done about Gentiles that want to enter
into the Church? Do they need to adhere to all the Jewish laws to
be a Christian or can they simply embrace that which is unique in Christianity?
This was something else that Jesus had not prepared them for. In
the power of the Holy Spirit they see that it is only necessary for the
Gentiles to not give scandal to Jewish converts by eating meat that had
been offered to idols. This decision came through the power of the
Holy Spirit.
In every age the Church has had to confront unique problems.
The Spirit has been guaranteed to the Church. But, we must seek out
the Holy Spirit. We must call on God to give us the power to discern
where unity should come from. In our own age we have seen dramatic
change occur. The Church at Vatican II called each of us to reach
out to our brothers and sisters within Protestantism. This was unheard
of 50 years ago. By our baptism we are to take responsibility for
the Church and it’s ministries. You now have the laity ministering
to the sick, reading at Mass, teaching religious education, and doing many
other things not imagined years ago. This is not because there is
a shortage of priests, but a new understanding in the power of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit facilitates communication and understanding
in other ways too. We have grown in our understanding of the sanctity
of life. The Church has always proclaimed a value for life, but in
our day we see that must also extend to nuclear war and capital punishment.
God continues to inspire and guide us into the truth about what it means
to be human. We grow in our appreciation for the care of the dying.
These, I believe, are the promptings of the Spirit in our day.
Recently the Holy Father went to Syria and Greece. There,
in the name of the whole Church, he held out a hand of peace to the Orthodox
Church and to Islam. Maybe in our time we will see the Spirit reunite
the Orthodox and Catholic Churches after nearly a thousand years being
divided. Wouldn’t that be amazing? God can and does wondrous
works. Today we pray that the Spirit be poured out on each of us
so that we might participate in the wonders God has in store. May
peace, unity, and understanding be granted to every family here.
May God open our hearts to hear and our voices to respond to Him and to
one another in unity and peace. Amen.
I want you to think about a question, “Why are you here today?”
I think that after you ponder the readings today and the meaning of the
feast it will be obvious.
Our Founding Fathers had lived in a time when wars of religion
were common. The European continent was divided not only by geographic
boundaries, but also by religious ones. Generally southern Europe
was Catholic and northern Europe Protestant. Because of these wars,
it was thought by the intellectuals of the day that the differences in
the religious denominations must be the problem. If one were to sift
out all the particularities of religion and get down to pure religion there
wouldn’t be so many problems. This type of philosophy was known as
Deism.
There is a problem with this kind of thinking. Religion
is more than an experience of the head. It is also an experience
of the heart. We come to understand God personally. We enter
into a relationship with God that touches the very core of our being.
At least that is so for most people. So, the externals of religious
practice are the ways that we go about demonstrating our relationship.
I guess an analogy could be made to marriage. When you
got married and placed a ring on your spouse’s hand that didn’t make the
marriage. If you take off your wedding ring it doesn’t mean that
you are no longer married. But a ring is important. You wouldn’t
want to be without it. If it were lost or stolen you would feel devastated.
You would want to have it replaced. Why? Because it symbolizes
everything that is within your marriage. It is a symbol of the love
that you share and the experiences of life that you have with one another.
The people of Israel could at times understand their relationship
to God in just that way. Of course they could understand their God
by the Law. They knew that God was creator of the universe.
This they could well accept. But they also could think of God like
Lady Wisdom we heard in the first reading. They could imagine Wisdom
dancing and playing on the earth. They could think of Wisdom as being
a companion a friend, a lover, a brother or sister. Later that image
of God as Wisdom personified would be helpful in trying to grasp how Jesus
could be God personified.
St. Paul didn’t worry so much about how it could be so.
He simply knew it from the depths of his being. Before his conversion,
when Paul thought of God he could only think of God intellectually.
Paul was a Pharisee who believed that only through proper adherence to
law could one please God. After experiencing the power of Christ
on the road to Damascus he knew that God was with Him. He knew that
Christ Jesus was there when he faced trial and affliction of every sort.
He even knew that those afflictions could be boasted of because they proved
how faithful God was. Paul knew he was never alone, even in a jail
cell or after being rejected by people. So, Paul began to see that
Jesus was God and had sent the Holy Spirit to guide us and give us courage.
Religion for Paul was no longer simply an intellectual proposition, it
was a relationship of love.
You and I have come to know God with both our head and our
heart. Most of us have been schooled in the Catholic faith.
We were taught about the sacraments, the Trinity, and the life of Christ.
We could answer properly about God. But after that we have come to
know God. Maybe it was through our own trials that we have come to
see that God helped us through. It might have been through the love
of your spouse or children. The miracle of childbirth or the mystery
of death has caused us to enter into prayer and be in communion with God.
Often people have come to know God more personally on a retreat like a
Cursillo or Marriage Encounter. All of a sudden the things that had
been taught about God now are made real.
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity. We
ponder the mystery of God who is one yet understood as three persons.
That mystery is something that we can only know so much about. Saints
and theologians have tried to explain it using signs and symbols.
Most of us accept the Trinity as part of our faith. What we have
come here for is not an intellectual understanding of the Trinity.
Instead we have come to experience the love of God. God has been
revealed to us as a community of persons.
We come here today to experience a God who would love us into
being, redeem us by sending Christ who died on a cross and rose, and then
sent the Holy Spirit so we might find joy. That is what is available
for us. We have come to renew that gift or to discover it for the
first time.
Today is a day to ponder again the mystery of the real presence
of Christ. In some ways Holy Thursday is like that too. On
that day we remember the Last Supper, the institution of the Eucharist
and the priesthood. Today we take time to think of what the gift
of the real presence of Christ means for the Church. We know and
believe that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. We know that
when we partake of the Eucharist we are partaking in the divine life of
Christ. What actually does that presence mean for us?
There are several insights that we receive on this feast from
the scriptures. The first insight is that the Eucharist is a covenant.
A covenant has two parties. God is the first party to the covenant
and we are the second party. Jesus gave Himself fully to us, without
counting the cost. He feeds us with His body and blood just as he
did with the loaves and fishes on the hillside. He asks us if we
want to partake of His life. When we participate in the Eucharist
we are saying that we agree to being in union with God. We agree
to follow the will of God in our lives, to give ourselves to Him without
counting the cost. In a sense, every time we receive communion we
are signing a contract with God to be blessed and broken for God.
The second insight we learn is that we are bonded to one another
in Christ. After Christ was teaching the crowds on the hillside he
told the apostles to feed them. They thought that he must have been
joking. How could they possibly feed this large crowd with just a
few morsels of food? Christ did intend the apostles to feed the crowds.
They didn't think they could do it. They didn't know how to do it.
After experiencing the miracle of loaves and fishes they discover that
with Christ they can do amazing things. After the resurrection Jesus
will send forth the disciples and then they won't question if or how they
will do it. They know that Christ will be with them. They will
know that they will be poured out as bread and wine for the people to bring
joy and hope into people’s lives.
We also learn that since we are bonded to one another the
real presence of Christ is found not only in the bread and wine that are
consecrated. But, with the insight of the Church we believe that
the presence of Christ is also found in the Word of God, the scriptures.
There is a real presence to be found in the Presider at Eucharist and in
the assembly too. In other words, Christ is to be found everywhere.
When you think of it isn’t it pretty amazing that God would come to dwell
among us in the flesh? Then, he wanted to dwell with us forever so
he makes his presence known in simple elements of food; bread and wine.
Then, God trusts us so much that he has made us holy. Whenever we
eat and drink of the Eucharist we are made holy before God.
We have so much to be thankful for. Christ lives among
us in the Eucharist and His people. He has given us everything we
need to attain everlasting life. Because we have so much to thank
God for we ask Him to show us how to make a return to Him. Amen.
In the Church’s liturgical calendar virtually all of the saint’s
feast days are celebrated on their date of death. The reason for
this is that the date of death is believed to be the day at which the saint
entered everlasting life. So, it is a day of great celebration.
In fact, for over a century Easter was celebrated in the Church, but not
Christmas.
There are only three people whose birthday we celebrate liturgically:
Jesus, Mary, and John the Baptist. The ironic part is that we are
uncertain of the exact date of birth for all three. So, why is today
selected as the day we remember John the Baptist’s birthday? John
was a herald lighting the path for Jesus. We celebrate his birth
at the brightest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. From
now until December the days get shorter.
John came into the world to prepare the way, but when Christ
made his appearance John knew that he must diminish so that Christ could
increase. When Christ is born, at the darkest time of the year, every
day after Christmas the days get longer. Christ is born into our
darkness to enlighten us. Symbolically the light of John has diminished
to make way for the brightness of Christ.
How did John know that he was to be the great prophet preparing
the way for Christ? Perhaps his parents told him that great things
were said of him at his birth. Maybe he heard that God granted Zechariah
and Elizabeth a special blessing to have this child in their old age.
But, like you and I he would have to discern how to use those gifts.
John would need to spend time in prayer asking God how best
to use him. He might have tried several things before he understood
that his role was to call people to repentance like Jeremiah or one of
the prophets of old. But like you and I he discovered God’s will
by doing it. As he began preaching and teaching along the banks of
the Jordan he realized that he could do that. Then, he saw that people’s
lives were being changed by his words. They sought out baptism because
they wanted to show their change of heart and mind.
Probably the biggest challenge for John was letting go of
the fame that he was attracting when Jesus arrived on the scene.
Some scholars think that John and Jesus may have been together for awhile
in the desert. But soon their paths would go in separate directions.
Jesus understood his role not as the prophet shouting out in the desert,
but as the gentle shepherd who would guide his flock to the Father.
John would continue challenging the status quo all the way up to the king.
This would win him a martyr’s death.
You and I are called by our baptism and sacraments of marriage
and holy orders to prepare the way for the Lord. We might be the
only light that someone else will recognize. We have been given a
precious gift in knowing love and the power and freedom that love gives.
Now is the time to share that with others.
Probably the hardest thing for us is the same as it was for
John. Can we be humble to say, “Lord, you must increase while I decrease?”
In other words, we must constantly turn away from our pride and selfishness
and realize that every good gift we have comes from God. And, those
gifts then are to be used for others and God’s glory. The more that
we use our gifts, the more that we are honoring John the Baptist, and Jesus
whom he ushered into the world. May God bless us richly to fulfill
what the Lord has called us to.