God is Love

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Mystery: the Lover, the Beloved, the Love

Would love be love if it could be reduced to some logic?
Is it not the mystery of how lover and beloved
meet, become one, grow and sustain each other
that makes love the ultimate experience that it is?
Yes, I deepen my intimacy with my beloved
by growing in my understanding
but even more so by surrendering, losing myself to the mystery
of what I do not know in the other or in our relationship.

Avoiding Idolatry

You might think that idolatry has very little to do with us today. After all we are not inclined to worship gods of wood or stone. Yet the temptation to idolatry remains a real threat to our lives, because at its heart, idolatry is accepting as God something that is not God. It is worshipping a false god, rather than the true God. Although we do not tend to worship idols of wood or stone, every time we accept a false idea of who God is, we create a false god and we engage in idolatry. Such a temptation is real. We are always inclined to create God according to our own image. We would like to believe that God thinks the way we think, that God would make the same choices that we would make, that God would view the issues of the world and evaluate them as we would evaluate them. But the truth is, God is different than us and greater than us. God is pure spirit. God is all-powerful. God is eternal. God does not think the way we think or make the choices that we make. God does not evaluate everything in the world the way we would evaluate it. Yet, every time we try to shrink the idea of God down to a size that we can understand or control, we create a false god and engage in idolatry.

Divine Love is Redemptive

[In 2020,] the violent demonstrations due to the murder of George Floyd by police officers in the US city of Minneapolis is an example of what might befall us in the absence of God’s Love. Irrespective of the political and the social interpretations of his death, you will agree with me that we are reaping the harvest of the closing down of churches. [At the time, I had] updated my Facebook account with a quote that reads; 

George Floyd Protests: The spiritual void left by the shutdown of the church for the last two months, for the sake of saving people from the Coronavirus, is now visible.

A Mystery of Power and Love

Many priests and deacons look towards this Sunday’s homily with dread. They ask themselves, “How do I preach on the Trinity, when it’s a mystery we will never understand?” I have decided to hit the mystery head on.

I want to begin this way. During the last week or so, I have been focusing on this beautiful paradox: Knowledge leads to mystery, and mystery leads to knowledge.

Consider this on the human level. The more that we know someone, the deeper we enter into the mystery of whom that person is.

God is Not Looking to Punish You

We used to hear about a distinction made between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament.  The God of the Old Testament was said to be vindictive while the God of the New Testament was said to be merciful.  This is ridiculous on several levels, but suffice to say God cannot change, so He clearly did not decide to give up being vengeful and suddenly begin being merciful just because Jesus came into the world.

Living the Mystery

If we are to be signs of the Trinity in today’s world, then we must be people who are able to live with mystery. In other words, we must remind the world that there is more than meets the eye, that there is a greater truth than that which is revealed by science – it is God. We are also called to be witnesses of the Trinity through our way of life. We must strive to build communities where we can live in unity and peace and in mutual forgiveness. When we are able to express this in our actions and words, the Trinity ceases to be a mere concept but becomes alive in each of our lives.

Clergy E-Notes

Pro-life reflections and intercessions related to the Sunday readings

Unlocking the Puzzle

The central theme of this Trinity Sunday is found in the Gospel, talking about love. In effect there is a perfect communion of life and love in the Trinity which is God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are called upon today to learn from this perfect communion of life and love. This harmony can be for us a great challenge in our world where two brothers can no longer eat from the same pot. The puzzle therefore can be unlocked by the key word LOVE. The love God the Father had for the redemption of the world, the love with which He sent His Son Jesus to save us and the Love promised us by the Son to dwell in our hearts and to “Teach us Everything”. May this same love be for us a healing balm in this broken world.

What is Heaven?

Bottom line: With such a future, with such a hope, we can take to heart St. Paul’s words.

This world exists to make souls – beings like you and me capable of eternal union with the Trinity. In heaven knowledge will not lead to competition and pride as it often does here below. Knowledge and love will be one. We can see that in the Trinity itself. Jesus is the Father’s Word. The Holy Spirit is the Gift, the Love of Father and Son.

How we get to heaven we will see next Sunday as we celebrate Corpus Christi – the Body and Blood of Christ. This Sunday we underscore our goal: knowing and being known by God, Father, Son and Spirit. With such a future, with such a hope, we can take to heart St. Paul’s words:

RELATED HOMILIES:

2017:  Life in Christ Week 9: Invitation
2014:  Who Look Into the Depths
2011:  Origin and Goal
2008:  Family as Origin and Goal
2005:  Alone Again
2002:  An Excellent Question
1999:  A Capacity for God

Drawn into the Love at the Heart of the Trinity through Baptism

There are many events occurring in our world that disturb us. Try to imagine the opposite of that. Try to imagine the biggest amount of love that you can. Try to imagine the most beautiful relationship that you can. That love and beautiful relationship exists and is a reality; it is the love and relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Holy Trinity: Three Reflections

I offer three reflections for this central feast. The first is my own homily. This is followed by two reflections by Father Kevin O’Shea CSsR, one of Australia’s leading theologians. The first is from an earlier date. The second is ‘hot off the press’. He kindly gave me permission to include them here. Hopefully you might find the reflections complementary.

In Name of the Father

I wonder if the “Father” of the Trinity is more strategic for humanity than it is for the Trinity? Our problem may not lie so much in what we assign to God as in what many people associate with failed fatherhood.

In our own time we hear of uncaring and abusing fathers, “dead-beat, absent dads,” and “fatherless kids.” The lost father is lost relationship, broken promise, torn covenant, lost Trinity. The disappearance of fatherhood is the disappearance of intimacy.

Divine Love for a Stiff Necked People

On the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, we marvel and wonder at how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be three and yet indivisibly one. Maybe this doctrine of the Holy Trinity is exactly what we really need right now as a human race. Just as Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be three and yet indivisibly one, perhaps it is time for the many diverse people of our country and world to start seeing each other as “one” as well. What would that look like? It looks like a disciples who pray for each other, even when we are surrounded by a stiff-necked people. It looks like stubbornly loving each other as well, even when this requires us to embrace a cross. The world will not find unity or find peace until we return to that image and likeness of God, which includes learning how to forget ourselves out of love for others. What could that look like at home? What could that look like at work? What could that look like in our community? What could that look like in the coming week, if we all really worked at it?

Knowing the Trinity

Today, we as church, reflect on that most profound of mysteries – the Trinity. As Christians we believe and we profess that God is one and that God is three. We are not Unitarians and neither are we Jehovah Witnesses – both of which deny the Trinity. Through the revelation of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit we have been brought to the realization that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God.