Matthew 28: 16-20
The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052624.cfm
Back in the first year of my
priesthood, I had the chance to share with other priests a pilgrimage to
Greece, Israel, and Rome. I was excited
of course by the whole journey and we shared much along the way. But one unexpected experience on a city bus
in Jerusalem, gave me pause.
A couple of us were going to
move on to the museum of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem and so we
caught a city bus, very crowded with Israelis. As we squeezed through the crowd
towards the back of the bus suddenly, I heard a loud cry from a little Jewish
boy behind me, I would say around eight or nine years old, who was clearly frightened
as a child is when they lose sight of their parent; in this case his father. He cried out, “Abba, Abba” which of course
means “daddy, daddy” as I turned, I noted he reached out his hand. The little
boy had gotten separated from his father in the crowd and he was desperately
looking for him down the packed isle of the bus. I remember the boy’s father was standing in
front of me so he called his son’s name and he reached around me as I let a now
calmer little boy pass and they were quickly reunited.
Immediately what came to my
mind were the words of Jesus, mentioned by Paul in our second reading this
Sunday from Romans: “. . . you received a spirit of adoption through whom we
cry, “Abba, Father!” Hearing that little boy yell out for his daddy made those
words of Jesus even more personal and startling. God is like a Father to us; we are reaching
out to connect with him, to find him because we are his adopted sons and
daughters. And so, this Sunday’s Feast
of the Most Holy Trinity, I think in that simple example, brings it home. Jesus
used such an everyday word that was spoken even in his own time to open for us
a window to the nature of what God is like. In fact, we might want to call
today’s feast, the one of “what God is like.”
Not an easy concept, indeed. What is God like?
After the wonder of Pentecost and the sound of wind, the startling appearance of “tongues as of fire,” the bold proclamation of formerly indecisive disciples, and the conversion of thousands, we are stopped short in our tracks. We’re tempted to take our faith from the tangible to the abstract and theological as we reflect on the meaning of the Trinity. We desire to wrap our head and heart around this great truth that all Christians profess. It’s the stuff of shamrocks and united triangles and circles to explain the unity of the Trinity. However, we will always fall short for God is pure mystery in his fullness.
How did we come to believe
and profess this great, yet mysterious, truth about the nature of God as three
persons yet one? Well, it didn’t come
about instantly. Sure, our Lord implied
in his teaching of what God is like and we are many centuries after the final
composition of what is called the “Nicene Creed” spoken each Sunday at
Mass. But it was through the lived
experience of the Christian faith that the early Christians began to see and
understand the meaning of the words of Jesus in the Gospels. By living out the teachings of Jesus in their
everyday life, by hearing the teaching of the Apostles and then St. Paul, gathering
in prayer and reflection, the Church gradually over time began to formulate
this central doctrine of Christianity. Jesus used, and Paul remind us, that God
is an “Abba” to us, tells us something about what we hear in the first reading
as the author of Deuteronomy writes. He
has a relationship with us that is akin to a parent and a child, and
particularly a desperate child in search for his Abba.
In short, Deuteronomy
reminds us of what God has done in creation, that God has reached out to
communicate with us and with a people he specifically chose to reveal himself
to, and that no other “god” can compare to the true and only God who has proven
his love to his people through mighty works and a covenant of laws he has
handed on to us. That God is searching for us like that child and father
searched for each other. This is not a Trinity of Persons who desires to remain
distant and mysterious but a God who reaches out to communicate and make
himself known to us.
These readings and the
experience of the Church over time showed them the deeper implications of
Jesus’ teaching about the Father and the Spirit. So, by the time the now common Creed we
proclaim at Mass was written, three centuries later, it simply reflected and
finally clarified what the Church had come to know and already believed about
the nature of God. The threat of the Arian heresy was the immediate push that
compelled the Bishops to gather but they finally clarified the truth of God in
the Creed we recite every Sunday.
Our Gospel from Matthew
brings this all home for us and forever sets the mission of the Church forward
to proclaim to the entire world, for all time, not only who God is but that he
desires to gather us to himself in community with one another and with him. Jesus approaches his disciples before his
ascension and sends them out to: “. . . make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you . . .”
Each time we gather for holy
Mass, we direct all our prayers to the Father, through his Son in the unity of
the Holy Spirit. To imagine that we
share in the life (love) he enjoys, that the second person of the Trinity,
Jesus himself, comes to us in the intimate and real presence of the Eucharist
is to bow in adoration of his mystery as his spiritually adopted sons and
daughters. We encounter him in an awesome, yet what appears very ordinary, sign
of bread and wine.
So the next time we bless
ourselves before and after entering into prayer, let’s be reminded about a God
of family, communication, relationship, and a God who listens for our “Abba”
when we run to find him, we can give thanks for this divine life extended to
us, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
AMEN!
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