A Love that Saves (Trinity Sunday A)

(Photo by Rex Features. Caption added.)

What does Trinity mean to today’s man and woman who struggle in life each day trying to make sense of the mess, so it seems, or the brokenness, of our contemporary human existence?

In Manila, I’ve always been intrigued, if not fascinated, by taxi drivers making the sign of the cross whenever they pass by a church. Once I asked a driver about the meaning of his gesture when he touched the crucifix of the rosary dangling in front of him and quickly made the sign of the cross while driving. He replied rather sheepishly, “Sir, we just passed by a church.” He smiled and continued, “I’m a catholic... I have reverence for the house of God. I made the sign of the cross because that’s how we start our prayer.” “You mean you’re praying now?” I inquired. He scratched his head much like what Efren “Bata” Reyes does in difficult circumstance, and answered, “I really wish I’m in the house of God right now praying but, no, I’m driving... Sir, life is difficult... I touched the crucifix and made the sign of the cross because deep within me is a conviction that God won’t abandon me... I believe that God sees me... and has mercy on me... that God loves me and my family... and his love will see us through difficult times...” 

I could have continued the interrogation but I didn’t; honestly, I was awed and moved by the driver’s faith. Much was unarticulated... most part of it was existentially lived out as he stirred the wheel through the thick of the traffic while all at the same time hoping for the best for himself and his loved ones in most of their trying times.

I say that the taxi driver’s faith is attuned to the truth of today’s Gospel reading (Jn 3:16-18) and both can facilitate our reflection on the mystery of the Trinity. The driver believes in the Triune God as he unapologetically makes the sign of the cross—in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. As he makes this gesture, he believes deep down that God is love and full of mercy... that God blesses him and his family.

Today’s gospel reading shows that too: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (vv. 16-17). The gospel announces to us the heart of the Good News: the Father’s great love for us which is effectively manifested through the Son’s redemptive work. God’s love does not condemn. God’s love saves.

The redemptive work of Jesus Christ, the Son, the person in the Trinity who shared our humanity, can be the key to a deeper insight into the mystery of our faith in the Triune God. In theology, the contemporary approach to understanding the Trinity has already departed from a detached and out-of-this-world ontological exposition of the classical approach and has moved towards articulating what is closest to our human experience. The contemporary theology takes, for instance, the paschal mystery of Christ as entry point to a greater appreciation of our faith in the Three-Personed God. I believe this approach can help articulate the taxi driver’s faith in the God of the cross.

For most of us, the passion- death-resurrection of Jesus (or the paschal mystery) is easily appealing. At a recollection for the Eucharistic Lay Ministers (kaabag) of a certain parish, I played Mel Gibson’s film, “Passion of the Christ,” and that did the trick. They were all teary-eyed moved by the sacrificial love of Jesus, the Son. Hence, I didn’t have to belabour the point by an extended boring input! The paschal mystery interests us. Even captivates us. Draws us to an intimate relationship with our loving God.

The sacrificial love of Jesus is manifested in the most sublime way through his passion and death. “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (Jn. 15: 13). His resurrection-ascension announces with joy the victory of the life-giving power of God’s love over the alienating and destructive propensity of sin. Love has overcome sin and death.

Therefore, the greatness of the Father’s love, a love that saves, is made known to us in human terms through the sacrifice and victory of Jesus Christ, the Son. The Father, out of his great love for us, gave his only Son that we may be saved and have life (Jn. 3: 16-17).

The Holy Spirit who dwells in us is the person in the Trinity that enables us to understand, appreciate, and actually experience in a real way the love so sublimely revealed in the paschal mystery we saw above. It is the Holy Spirit that makes us cry out a thanksgiving prayer for being so loved. It is the Holy Spirit that accompanies us in life, giving us the confidence, like the taxi driver, that no matter what, everything’s gonna be fine... that the mess I am in will eventually be alright because I am loved with a love that saves.

The driver touched the crucifix and made the sign of the cross in the name of the Trinity. Such a gesture, in his lack of capacity to articulate the beauty of the paschal mystery of Christ, is a simple act of faith in the unfathomable mystery of God’s love for him and his family. When we gaze at the cross of Christ, we pray to the Holy Spirit to enable us to see in it the greatest love of all. A love that does not condemn. A love that saves. It is the Father’s unconditional love expressed to us in human terms by the sacrificial and redemptive love of the Son, Jesus Christ. It is this love that enables us to trust in life despite its seeming brokenness.

When we look at the cross, meditatively, may our hearts well up with the love that saves—the love of the Father and the Son which we existentially experience, in whatever state of life we are in, through the indwelling of the Spirit.

Lord, thank you for the knowledge and inner conviction that I am loved with a love that saves in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Empowering Spirit (Pentecost Sunday)

I recall an anecdote about the Holy Spirit: A Christian missionary was struggling to explain to a new-found Japanese friend the mystery of the Trinity, hoping to lead him to embrace the Christian life. After long hours of exchange, the Japanese was nodding... He declared, “The Father... makes sense!” He paused and continued to nod and finally pronounced, “The Son... makes sense!” Then he took a long while and, with a quizzical look, said, “What does not make sense...” He paused and quite tentatively continued as if whispering, “...is the dove.”

Among the persons of the Trinity, the representation of the Holy Spirit is the least clear to many of us. Of course, the nature of the third person, as Spirit, poses a great difficulty for representation. Thus, in contrast to the personal images of the Father and Jesus Christ, we are forced to represent the Holy Spirit through impersonal symbols like fire, wind, breath, water, and the “favoured” dove. This difficulty might contribute to the uncertainty, if not ignorance, among many of us Christians about recognizing the activity of the Spirit in our lives.

The Solemnity of Pentecost may be an opportunity for us to “get to know” the dove or the tongues of fire a little deeper and hence to allow his power to operate in our lives. Today’s readings, first, second and the Gospel, lend themselves to our need to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit. The readings, as I will endeavour to show, reveal the Holy Spirit as the principle of empowerment. The Spirit empowers us from deep within, enabling us to live out our Christian calling—as prophet, king, and priest.

The Holy Spirit and our Prophetic Mission. The first reading (Acts 2:1-11), where we are told of the Spirit’s descent upon the Apostles in the form of tongues of fire, recounts how the Holy Spirit emboldened the Apostles to speak of “the mighty acts of God” to all peoples. Hiding because of fear, the nervous apostles were empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to go out of hiding and confidently proclaim the greatness of God revealed in the person of Christ. The Spirit enabled them to be the prophets that Jesus had called them to become.

The Spirit empowers us to proclaim the truth about God’s work in our lives. There’s something about the charismatic groups that I have brushed elbows with. Their bold testimonies of the work of God in their lives amaze me. In contrast, most Catholics, I observe, are timid about their spiritual lives in general. Many are shy to proclaim what God has done in their lives; or more to the point, many are perhaps not even cognizant of the work of God.

Am I timid, shy, or fearful in proclaiming God’s mighty acts in my life? Let me ask the Holy Spirit to embolden me and turn me into a joyful and fearless herald of the Good News to my family, friends, and to the society.

The Holy Spirit and our Kingly Mission. The call to serve is essential to the concept of Christian kingship. Service or ministry is a gift of the Spirit. The second reading (1 Cor. 12: 3-7, 12-13) shows how St. Paul recognized the diversity of gifts and charisms flowing from the same Spirit. These gifts and charisms are meant to unify and strengthen the one body of Christ, the community of believers , the Church. The Holy Spirit then, with his manifold gifts, empowers us to serve in many and varied capacities.

The parish life is a beautiful illustration of this truth. When a pastor is attuned to the gifts of the Spirit in the community, his leadership brings out the best in all its members even among the poor who become dependable committed community leaders. The parish becomes a community of servant-leaders. Oftentimes I would have goose bumps listening to these small communities singing their hearts out, “Parianong lungsod, harianong lungsod... awit pasalamat tibuok nasud.” Oftentimes, the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit in the community is just too palpable to miss.

What gifts and charisms am I endowed with? This is the Holy Spirit’s way of enabling me to serve the community. In what way do I fulfil my kingly mission? In short, in what way do I serve?

The Holy Spirit and our Priestly Mission. Prayer and forgiveness are at the heart of the priestly mission. Both can only be done authentically in the Spirit. The second reading reminds us: “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). Our prayers, if they are to be authentic, have to be inspired by the Spirit. How often we feel that our prayers and liturgical celebrations are mere recitations of formulas and mechanical sequence of gestures born out of habit! Transformative prayers and touching liturgies are way beyond human habits. They are the fruits of the inspiration of the Spirit. They are the expressions of a human heart whose longing is intensified by the Spirit.

Forgiveness too, they say, is a divine activity. But the Spirit empowers the human to forgive. This is crystal clear in today’s gospel (Jn. 20: 19-23): “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them...” It is from here that the Church’s ministry of reconciliation flows. It is from here that I can forgive, to my amazement, an otherwise unforgiveable offense committed against me and the community. It is because of the Spirit that a hardened heart can gradually listen, understand, and finally forgive.

So, as we celebrate Pentecost today, let us recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in us and allow him to empower us to become Christ’s true disciples. Let us allow the Spirit to turn us into bold prophets announcing with joy the greatness of the Lord, into humble kings who serve one another untiringly, into prayerful priests who are agents of peace and forgiveness in this increasingly broken world.

I Am With You Always (Ascension Sunday A)

Little Tonton was spending the weekend with his grandmother after a particularly trying week in kindergarten. His grandmother decided to take him to the park on Saturday morning. The weather was good and everything was beautiful.

His grandmother remarked, "Doesn't it look like an artist painted this scenery? Did you know God painted this just for you?"

Tonton said, "Yes, God did it and he did it left handed."

This confused his grandmother a bit, and she asked him, "What makes you say God did this with his left hand?"

"Well," said Tonton, "we learned at Sunday School last week that Jesus sits on God's right hand!"

Today is the Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension.Indeed, we always profess that Jesus “ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”

The gospel of Matthew, particularly today's reading (Mt. 28: 16-20), does not give an account of Jesus’ departure. What he does assert is that Jesus has been given “all power in heaven and on earth” (v. 18). Second, Jesus shares this authority to his disciples by commissioning them to make disciples of all nations through baptism; and third, Jesus assures his disciples of his presence at all times and until the end (v. 19-20).

Jesus' Victory. In the light of Matthew’s account, our belief in the ascension of our Lord is not so much about the “how” of this event as it is about the fact that the risen Jesus has now returned to the very life of God and hence, shares the omnipotence of the Father. This assures us that our humanity, in the person of Jesus, the God-Man, has now fulfilled its destiny, that is, to share in the very life of God. In Jesus, the human being has now been incorporated into the being of God. The ascension event is, therefore, the ultimate victory of Jesus, demolishing the distance wrought by sin between God and the human.

Jesus’ victory is ours too. We can now look forward to the day that we shall live in the very heart of God’s being... in perfect intimacy... forever and ever.

Our Mission. While looking forward to that day of salvation, we are commissioned by the Lord to make disciples of all nations. There is just so much good news here that we ought to announce. The Lord wants us to share this good news to all peoples by making them his disciples. We are to be his witnesses to the ends of the world. We are to invite people to participate in the victory that is stored for us by the Lord. Hence, the ascension event is not just about Jesus’ departure; more importantly on our part, it signals the passing on unto us of his mission of proclaiming God’s love to the world. In other words, we are sent to let people know that, in Jesus, the unifying love of God has triumphed over the alienating effect of sin; in Jesus, the human being is now reconciled with the loving God.

Let us then continue to tell the world of God’s love... even if it continues to reject God’s invitation.

The Lord's Intimate Presence. Again, the Ascension of our Lord is not really about his departure. On the contrary, it is the assurance that the risen Jesus is ever more present in us in the most intimate way. “I am with you always” (v. 20). The Ascension is not a moment of feeling orphaned. Our belief in this event instructs us not to keep on looking at the sky as if to hope for a last glance of the disappearing Lord; instead, it makes us train our senses into experiencing the intimate indwelling of God in us here and now.

Celebrating the solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord is an invitation for all of us, his disciples, to be ever more sensitive to the presence of God in every moment of our lives.

Lord, I thank you for assuring me that you’re with me always. Let my life be a proclamation of your love to those who feel empty, alone, and unloved.