A Trying-Hard God (Trinity Sunday C)

Reciprocity is an essential element in loving. Love cannot thrive in isolation. It naturally transcends itself and seeks and reaches out to a beloved and yearns for reciprocity for its fulfillment.  An unreciprocated love grieves in pain and may eventually perish; if not, it endures the agony of rejection in silence like a mother weeping in secret because of her ungrateful child. But when love is reciprocated, it celebrates with joy.  It throbs with life. It turns itself into a powerful creative force. It becomes life-giving.

God as Trinity of Love.  God is love; and the best way to appreciate this truth is to see it in terms of a dynamic reciprocity of loving within God’s self. One of the analogies presented by St. Augustine for an understanding of the mystery of the Trinity, albeit not his favorite, is the analogy of interpersonal love.  Love requires a Lover, a beloved, and the reciprocal bond of love that unites them. The Infinite Lover, whom we call in human language, Father, reaches out to the object of his self-transcending love, the Beloved whom we call Son. The Son, in turn, eternally reciprocates the Father’s love, hence, giving rise to the mutual love that unites them. We understand this bond of love as the Holy Spirit. Thus, God is a Trinity of love. As such, God’s love is not static. It is dynamic as it is an eternal movement of reciprocal loving.

God’s dynamic self-transcending love provides the ground for God’s creative act and God’s self-revelation. Simply put, God created us and revealed God’s self to us because He is love, because it is love’s greatest joy and desire to share and care for another. Today’s readings point to these two acts of the Triune God-- creation and revelation.

Trinity’s Creative Act and Self-Revelation. The first reading (Prov 8:22-31) alludes to the eternal presence and role of the Holy Spirit in God’s creative act.  Proverb’s personification of wisdom finds her present with God in the entire process of creation. As the wisdom of God, in the language of the Old Testament, the Spirit was with God before the creation of the earth, water, mountains and hills. When the Lord established the heavens, made firm the skies, fixed the foundations of the earth, and set the limits of the sea, the Spirit was there “beside” the Lord as his craftsman (v. 30).

The gospel reading (Jn 16: 12-15), on the other hand, illustrates the Trinitarian act of revelation.  Jesus, the Son, is the Father’s revelation. Everything that the Father has is possessed by the Son.  It is this “truth” that Jesus has spoken of and nothing more.  The Holy Spirit, the Advocate, as promised by the Lord, serves two important functions: to enlighten the disciples in the fuller understanding of Jesus and his revelation; second, to glorify Christ as the sole mediator, the “truth” of God.

Solemnity of the Most Blessed Trinity.  Today’s solemnity allows us to appreciate the truth that God is a Trinity of Love.  And out of love, God acts as a Trinity first in creating the world, the universe, and us. And as if it were not enough, He not only created us, He revealed Himself to us through God’s Word, Jesus Christ, and through the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.

What I see amazes me tremendously.  God has gone out of his way creating us and revealing Himself to us because He is love. His desire is to reach out to us and share God’s life.  God desires to be in relationship with us his people because it is love’s nature. In the book of John, God always does the initiative in loving. God has loved us first. He is a God who offers his love and He is really trying hard.  We probably believe that God does not need us because He is self-sufficient.  So, all too often, we don’t’ take seriously his offer of love.  On this Trinity Sunday, we see a trying-hard God, a God who has done everything in his power to manifest his love to us. We ought to understand, as God’s image and likeness, that when love is offered, it longs for reciprocity.  When it is reciprocated, it rejoices; when ignored or rejected, it grieves. God, I believe, longs for all creation to accept and respond to his offer of love.  No wonder that the Lord Jesus always exclaim that there is much rejoicing in the heavens when a sinner comes back to God’s embrace.

No wonder, too, from among the hundreds of commandments, Jesus points quite easily to the most important of all to guide us: First, love of God and, second, love of neighbor.   The Kingdom of God in its fulfillment is undoubtedly characterized by this dynamic reciprocity of loving, which is, after all, the very nature of the Triune God.

This Sunday, let us heighten our awareness of God’s offer of love.  Our God, the Triune God, longs that we love him in return.  When we are not ready, know that He, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, will do everything to draw us close to Him until we love him freely.  He is a God who really tries hard.

The Miracle of Pentecost (Pentecost Sunday C)

When God closes a door, He opens up another.  Just as the ascension of our Lord practically put a closure to the mission of the historical Jesus, the Pentecost event opened up a new era—the era of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit, of course, has always been active in the life and work of Jesus; but the powerful event of Pentecost announces quite dramatically and distinctively the unique and empowering role of the Holy Spirit in elevating to a new level the same mission of Jesus Christ, this time, through the ministry of the Church.

Pentecost Sunday reminds us of two significant events that transpired as the work of the Holy Spirit: One is the “universalization” of the message of Jesus and, another is the launching of the Church on mission.

The Universalization of Jesus’ Message. Jesus lived and preached in a particular place and time. His message was necessarily couched in the symbolisms and literary styles of a particular culture. Needless to say, his message could have been meaningful only to the locality where he was situated. At Pentecost, however, the Holy Spirit universalized his otherwise localized message.  The power of the Holy Spirit overcame the “limits” of the human condition through which Jesus revealed his Father’s love.

Pentecost was originally one of the greatest feasts in Jewish calendar commemorating the giving of the Law of Moses in Mt. Sinai. Jews and foreigners coming from different countries did their pilgrimage to Jerusalem on this great feast.  So that on Pentecost day, as we have it in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11, the Spirit moved the apostles to proclaim “the mighty acts of God.”  They spoke in a foreign tongue; but to the astonishment of the hearers who were from different nations, they heard and understood the message in their own language!  As recounted in Acts:  “Full of amazement and wonder, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that we hear them in our own native language?” (Acts 2:7-8).

Such is the miracle of Pentecost.  Christ’s disciples were understood by people from different nations. Indeed, as promised by Jesus, we should not let our hearts be troubled. The Holy Spirit, sent by the Father as the Paraclete, brings understanding. The Holy Spirit sees to it that Jesus’ message will be understood by many.  The Good News is now actually preached to all the ends of the earth. The Good News of God’s love is for everyone regardless of race, gender, socio-economic status. Thanks to the Holy Spirit.

The Launching of the Church on Mission. The era of the Holy Spirit is also the era of the Church. Jesus Christ has passed on to his followers the baton of responsibility to preach the Good News to all peoples. Pentecost is the moment when the Holy Spirit gave birth to the Church. It is through this community of believers that repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed. The Church is on mission.

Pentecost Sunday reminds us that the Church’s being and mission is essentially dependent on the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that guides the Church to proclaim the truth of God’s love; it is the Holy Spirit that empowers her to forgive sins; it is the Holy Spirit that animates the Church with manifold gifts for various ministries. It is the Holy Spirit that draws together people of diverse cultures and it is the Holy Spirit that incorporates them into the one body of Christ.

Understanding the indispensable role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church brings a sigh of relief to pastoral agents facing great challenges in continuing the mission of the Church.  Pastoral work, after all, is not about the work of the pastor. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. Those who are working in the Church should not commit the mistake of believing that the Church’s work is their own personal project. If they do, they’ll be impoverishing the community, reducing the ministry to a pathetic display of their self-proclaimed expertise, oblivious of the manifold gifts of the Holy Spirit present in all the members of the community.

Today is Pentecost Sunday.  Let us pray for the miracle of Pentecost:  May the Holy Spirit once again embolden and inspire the Church  to preach the gospel of Christ with a renewed conviction and enthusiasm; and may through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Church proclaim effectively the grace of repentance and forgiveness of sins and welcome into her warm embrace those who enter the Holy Door of God's mercy.