June 16, 2019: Homily for the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity - Love is the Essence of Trinity

Today we celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. We worship God who manifested himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We worship three persons in one God: God the father, the creator of the world, God the Son the Savior of the world and God the Holy Spirit, the sanctifier and the one who leads us to all truths. Today also we celebrate Father’s Day, a day we give thanks to the fathers in our lives, who with their wives and in cooperation with the Triune God brought us to birth in this world. We thank them for their love, their protection and for providing for our wellbeing. May God the father, and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit bless, protect and reward you all accordingly.

The aim of this reflection is not to give a theological expose on the Trinity but rather to aid us in making the Trinity a part of our life. We begin every prayer by calling on God the Father, the Son and the Spirit to dwell in us help us live good and saintly lives. We were baptized into the life of the Trinity and on the day of our death, our coffin and grave will be blessed and marked by the sign of the Cross. We begin and end every prayer calling on the blessed Trinity, to be the beginning and end of all we do or say and to guide our steps in the right path. The life of every Christian is marked by the Triune God dwelling in and through us.

The Trinity is a mystery that presents us with a God of closeness, communion and intimacy. We see God who desires community, communication and love within the persons of the Trinity. According to William J. Bausch, “This is an initiating God, an outgoing God, a creative, life-giving God who stamps his communal life on us. We are in relationship because God is, we are made in his image and likeness”. There is absolute love, respect and understanding within the persons of the Trinity. The unity of mind and purpose is enjoyed and expressed in the Trinity. God loves the world so much that he gave his son to redeem the world. In giving his Son, God the Father also gave himself because the Father and the Son are in perfect communion. They are one in Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the origin of the mutual relationship and expression of love between the Father and the Son. The mystery of the Trinity is seen in the intimate relationship between the person where each person is perfect transparency of the other. In this love relationship there is no hiding places, none of the three keeps anything as his own and no one takes particular pride in individual achievements. The success of one is enjoyed by all; everything is shared, communicated, given and everything is welcomed. Nothing and no person of the Trinity is ever taken for granted. The love seen in the Trinity is not a jealous love, not conceited and certainly not boastful. It is a reciprocal love where the duty of one is the duty of all. Therefore, in the act attributed to God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are equally present and cooperated in the execution of that task. The love of the Trinity is transformative and redemptive, creative and generative. It is salvific love that assured humanity redemption from decadence and despair. This is agape love.

This is the kind of love that should be experienced in the family, among husband and wife and the children are the expression of that love. Let us pray that we may demonstrate the love of the Trinity in our dealings with one another, in our relationships and even in our ministries in the Church. We pray that the Trinity may teach the leaders of nations to be civil in their utterances, that there may be mutual respect and tolerance among people and nations of the world. May the Trinity teach us that whatever we do is done not for ourselves but for love of him who created us. May the Trinity teach us to love as they love themselves so that we may show our love in the service to humanity and in our Church. Amen.

June 09, 2019: Homily for Pentecost Sunday - Why Is Our Church Not on Fire?

Today is Pentecost, the birthday of the church. Today the Holy Spirit came down on the Apostles like flames of fire. The first reading reported what happened, “When the day of Pentecost came, all the believers were gathered together in one place. Suddenly there was a noise from the sky which sounded like a strong wind blowing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then they saw what looked like tongues of fire which spread out and touched each person there. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other languages, as the Spirit enabled them to speak” (Acts 2:1-4). Pentecost completes the saving work of Christ and enables the Apostles to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. The Holy Spirit set the Apostles on fire to preach the Gospel without fear of intimidation and transformed them into martyrs of the faith. Peter’s pedagogy on Pentecost day, was so powerful that those who heard him “were deeply troubled and said, “what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). Many of those who heard him “believed his message and were baptized, and about three thousand people were added to their group that day” (Acts 2:41).

The apostles needed the fire of the Holy Spirit to shake them up and transform them into warriors for the faith. Christ is present in his apostles through his spirit. Like Charles Shultz once said, “The whole trouble with you is, you don’t know what the whole trouble with you is”. This feeling of not knowing our need for the Spirit makes us weak in faith. Our Church does not resemble the Church of the day of Pentecost. If it does, how come the Church is on fire and we are not consumed? One of the reasons, in my opinion, is that there is too much emphasy on money. We spend fewer minutes talking about spiritual things but a whole lot of time is spent on talking about money and raising money. This, for sure will take away the power of the spirit from the church. To the lame beggar, Peter said: “I have no money at all, but I give you what I have: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth I order you to get up and walk!” Now we have too much money and no fire of the Spirit to effect changes in the lives of our people.

We need the Holy Spirit to put into our hearts the fire for tolerance, fire to fight indifference, fire that is constructive and fire to build the community of God’s people. The fire we need in our hearts is not a destructive fire of pettiness, apathy and jealousy, not a fire for bigotry or hatred, not a fire burning to destroy one another nor a fire for mistrust and misunderstanding: it is the fire of love that will recreate the face of the earth: Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of the faithful and renew the face of the earth. Come and conquer the indifference in the world, to fight the battles of our hearts, the internal battles of the flesh such as: “immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies and the like” (Gal. 5:19-21).

Send us the fire of the Spirit to plant in our hearts the fruit of the Spirit such as: “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal.5:22-23). The fire of the Spirit will guarantee us its seven gifts of: “…wisdom and understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge and fear of the Lord and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord” (Is. 11: 2-3) This is the fire that we need and until we have this fire in the church we will be ineffective; the oxygen will be withdrawn from our lukewarm fire and it will be blown away and instead of heat we have coldness, in place of warm we feel weak, empty, miserable, sad, unhappy, lifeless and dead. Erma Bombeck told a story about a little boy at church with his mother. He was a good boy, quiet and well behaved. He didn’t cause any problems. But every once in a while he would stand up in the pew, turn around, look at the people behind him and smile at them. His smile was infectious, and soon everybody behind him was starting to smile back at him, too. It was all going fine until the mother realized what the little boy was doing. When she did she grabbed him by his ear and twisted it a bit, told him to sit down and remember that he was in church. Then he started sniffling and crying, and she turned to him and said, “That’s better.” That’s the kind of church many of us are comfortable with, a sad and lifeless church, a church where everyone would sit with drawn and sad faces as if we are in mourning. And that is why our churches are dead, empty and uninteresting.

People no longer go to church because we don’t seem to have something to offer them, we preach a gospel without good news. Our preaching is without content and poorly delivered, putting everyone to sleep instead of putting fire in their stomach for action. The joy of the gospel is not on our faces because we have no fire of love in our hearts. Those who go to church are no more burning with zest, zeal and fire, the type that was blazing on the day of Pentecost. When the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit they went out and preached the Word, living the life of the Spirit and bearing the fruit of love. People saw their lives and the audacity of hope they preached, they followed the Lord and were converted to the faith. They listened, they heard, they saw the joy of the Gospel in their lives and the hope in their eyes, being filled with joy at all times, they were impressed by what they saw and heard and so were convinced that the Lord was calling them to change their lives and experience what they apostles had: they wanted Jesus in their lives. They heard the apostles as they spoke in tongues and realized that they were speaking the language of love in praise of God. That is what we need in our church today without which our church cannot and will not be on fire.

Let us pray that we may be filled with the fire of the Spirit and be transformed into people of faith; courageous preachers, lovers of God and lovers of God’s people. Help us to go out and make a difference in the world, for a different world cannot be built by indifferent people and same is true of our church. If we do not have the fire of love in ourselves, what was said of Christ will be said of us: He saved others, but he cannot save himself. God bless you!