BIBLE STUDY #136
THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST
June 2, 2013
READING 1 GENESIS 14:18-20
In those days, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine,
and being a priest of God Most High,
he blessed Abram with these words:
"Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
the creator of heaven and earth;
and blessed be God Most High,
who delivered your foes into your hand."
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
The Word of the Lord
READING 2
1 CORINTHIANS 11:23-26
Brothers and sisters:
I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over,
took bread, and, after he had given thanks,
broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me."
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying,
"This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
The Word of the Lord
GOSPEL
LUKE 9:11B-17
Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God,
and he healed those who needed to be cured.
As the day was drawing to a close,
the Twelve approached him and said,
"Dismiss the crowd
so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms
and find lodging and provisions;
for we are in a deserted place here."
He said to them, "Give them some food yourselves."
They replied, "Five loaves and two fish are all we have,
unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people."
Now the men there numbered about five thousand.
Then he said to his disciples,
"Have them sit down in groups of about fifty."
They did so and made them all sit down.
Then taking the five loaves and the two fish,
and looking up to heaven,
he said the blessing over them, broke them,
and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.
They all ate and were satisfied.
And when the leftover fragments were picked up,
they filled twelve wicker baskets.
The Gospel of the Lord
Reflection
Jesus is speaking to the crowds about the Kingdom of God, so we are going to hear something important about the kingdom.
The first sign of the kingdom is that Jesus heals. When the kingdom is established in its fullness, there will be no more pain and suffering. Healing is a sign of things to come. It also tells us about Jesus; not only that he has the ability to heal, but also that since sin was thought to cause illness and other physical problems, than healing the sick is tantamount to forgiving sins. Who can forgive sins but God? So Luke is saying something about Jesus’ identity: he must be God if he forgives sins.
The disciples approach Jesus and ask him to "dismiss the crowd so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms and find lodging and provisions; for we are in a deserted place here." Many people try to downplay this miracle by saying that there wasn’t really a miracle of multiplication, but a miracle of sharing. If this is true, why didn’t Luke just say so? Human nature being what it is, there really would be a miracle if Jesus could get all those people to share. But I think this is reading too much into the text. If they had food, why did the Apostles want to send them away to find food? There obviously wasn’t enough to feed everyone. Besides, if everyone shared, would they have brought enough to feed all 5,000 people and have 12 baskets left over? I think not. Let’s not take the sacred, the miraculous out of our gospel stories. We need these things.
In response to their request to send the people away, Jesus tells the Apostles, "Give them some food yourselves." This section of the Gospel, Jesus is beginning to do on the job training: his followers will have to carry on when he is gone. They replied, "Five loaves and two fish are all we have, unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people." They are trying their best, but they need Jesus’ help to succeed. They will learn to always rely on Jesus in their ministry.
The language Jesus uses is Eucharistic in nature (taking, blessing, broke, gave) and makes us think of the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist, where the bread and wine become the Body and Blood, soul and divinity of Jesus.
Feeding is a constant theme in scripture. Elisha fed 100 men with 20 loaves of bread (see 2Kings 4:42-44). Also see Is25:6, Psalm 78:19, and 81:16-17. Jesus feeding is the fulfillment of God’s willingness to nurture his people with food. In Psalms 37 and 132 promises of rich and abundant food were signs of the Messiah.
Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and the fish showed God’s power acting in Him. This abundance of food indicates that a new era has begun in Jesus. He is the Messiah whose body is broken on the cross, raised on the third day, and who leaves us his body and blood in the Eucharist as food for our journey. God fed the people with bread in the Old Testament, but Jesus feeds us with spiritual bread in the New Testament. The 12 remaining baskets shows us God’s abundant love and how much he will do for us.
This passage tells us that we are to bring people to God’s table to be nourished by the Eucharist, so they can be spiritually strengthened on their journey to follow Christ. It also tells us that we need to take care of the physical, emotional, and economic needs of those in need. We who have plenty can’t ignore the needs of those who need our help.
Today’s feast day, The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, dates from the 13th century. It’s had many names over the course of time, but you probably remember it as Corpus Christi. It was celebrated on the Thursday after the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity (Trinity Sunday). It has since been moved to the Sunday after Trinity Sunday.
This feast is largely due to Blessed Juliana of Mount Cornillon, who was born near Liege, Belgium in 1192. She was an orphan at an early age and was educated by Augustinian nuns. She later joined this order and became prioress. She had a great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament from an early age and always wanted a feast in its honor. She had a recurring vision since age 16: the appearance of a bright moon streaked by a dark band. In a dream, our Lord told her the black band denoted the absence of a feast for the Blessed Sacrament.
After she became prioress in 1225, she began to speak to John of Lausanne, a learned canon, and asked him to consult theologians about the feasibility of this feast. One of the men he consulted with was James Panteleon who later became Pope Urban IV who promulgated the Bull Transiturus on September 8, 1264 ordering this feast to be celebrated. Pope Clement V confirmed the Bull in 1312, and since then this has been a feast throughout the Roman Church. Blessed Juliana did not see this feast come into existence since she died in 1258. (Thanks to Butlers Lives of the Saints for this information).
Today’s feast celebrates the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. As Catholics, we believe that the Eucharist contains the “body and blood, soul and divinity” of Jesus, that Jesus is truly present in the substance of bread and wine.
The doctrine of the Real Presence asserts that in the Holy Eucharist, Jesus is literally and wholly present—body and blood, soul and divinity—under the appearances of bread and wine. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists frequently attack this doctrine as "unbiblical," but the Bible is forthright in declaring it (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16–17, 11:23–29; and, most forcefully, John 6:32–71); (from Catholic Answers, copyright 1996-2012, on the internet.
Following are several paragraphs form the Catechism of the Catholic Church concerning the presence of Christ in the Eucharist that you may find interesting and informative (the numbers are paragraph numbers in the catechism):
The presence of Christ by the power of his word and the Holy Spirit
1373 "Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us," is present in many ways to his Church: in his word, in his Church's prayer, "where two or three are gathered in my name, in the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned, in the sacraments of which he is the author, in the sacrifice of the Mass, and in the person of the minister. But "he is present . . . most especially in the Eucharistic species."
1374 The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend." In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."
1375 It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. The Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion. Thus St. John Chrysostom declares:
It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God's. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things offered.
And St. Ambrose says about this conversion:
Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated. The power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the blessing nature itself is changed.... Could not Christ's word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.
1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."
1377 The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.
1378 Worship of the Eucharist. In the liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine by, among other ways, genuflecting or bowing deeply as a sign of adoration of the Lord. "The Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during Mass, but also outside of it, reserving the consecrated hosts with the utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession."
1379 The tabernacle was first intended for the reservation of the Eucharist in a worthy place so that it could be brought to the sick and those absent outside of Mass. As faith in the real presence of Christ in his Eucharist deepened, the Church became conscious of the meaning of silent adoration of the Lord present under the Eucharistic species. It is for this reason that the tabernacle should be located in an especially worthy place in the church and should be constructed in such a way that it emphasizes and manifests the truth of the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
1380 It is highly fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to his Church in this unique way. Since Christ was about to take his departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give us his sacramental presence; since he was about to offer himself on the cross to save us, he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with which he loved us "to the end,"[207] even to the giving of his life. In his Eucharistic presence he remains mysteriously in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up for us, and he remains under signs that express and communicate this love:
The Church and the world have a great need for Eucharistic worship. Jesus awaits us in this sacrament of love. Let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration, in contemplation full of faith, and open to making amends for the serious offenses and crimes of the world. Let our adoration never cease.
Fr. Phil
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
BIBLE STUDY # 135
SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY
May 26, 2013
READING 1
PROVERBS 8:22-31
Thus says the wisdom of God:
"The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways,
the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago;
from of old I was poured forth,
at the first, before the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains or springs of water;
before the mountains were settled into place,
before the hills, I was brought forth;
while as yet the earth and fields were not made,
nor the first clods of the world.
"When the Lord established the heavens I was there,
when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
when he made firm the skies above,
when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth;
when he set for the sea its limit,
so that the waters should not transgress his command;
then was I beside him as his craftsman,
and I was his delight day by day,
playing before him all the while,
playing on the surface of his earth;
and I found delight in the human race."
The Word of the Lord
READING 2
ROMANS 5:1-5
Brothers and sisters:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith
to this grace in which we stand,
and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions,
knowing that affliction produces endurance,
and endurance, proven character,
and proven character, hope,
and hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
The Word of the Lord
GOSPEL
JOHN 16:12-15
Jesus said to his disciples:
"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.
He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.
He will glorify me,
because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
Everything that the Father has is mine;
for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine
and declare it to you."
The Gospel of the Lord
Reflection
This Sunday we celebrate the central mystery of our faith and of our Christian life: The mystery of the Trinity. The dogma of the Trinity is not in scripture, but was formulated at the councils of Nicaea in 325 A.D. and Constantinople in 381 A.D. While it is impossible to understand this mystery, the very essence of God, we do know what God has revealed to us about this mystery.
Every Sunday after the homily we recite the Nicene Creed, a basic statement about our faith which tells us about the Trinity.
Nicene Creed from Revised Roman Missal
I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and became man,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
I’ve reproduced the Nicene Creed for your reflection. We recite it often enough, but do we really listen to what we’re saying? Below is a short reflection on the Trinity so we know some of the basics. I refer you to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 232 to 267 for a more in depth treatment of this sacred mystery. Paragraph numbers below refer to paragraphs in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
We believe that there is only one God, not three, but that there are three persons in the Blessed Trinity; namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They do not ‘share’ divinity, but are whole and complete God’s in themselves. This is called being consubstantial, so the trinity can also be referred to as the consubstantial trinity (paragraph 253).
The divine persons are really distinct from each other. The Father, Son, and Spirit are not just different modes of being divine; each is separate from each other. (paragraph 254). But in the unity of the Trinity, the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and in the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son (paragraph 255).
We believe that Jesus was ‘begotten’ by God; God did not create Jesus, he always was, he is true God, and is also a creator since he was present at, and participated in, the creation of the universe.
The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and is also a giver of life (see Creed above) and is also worshipped as God. It was also this same Spirit that inspired the prophets.
I would like you to notice that God lives in community, that the very essence of God incorporates community. That tells us that, since we are made in the image and likeness of God, we too must be a part of a community. There is no such thing as a solitary Christian. Even Christian hermits are still part of a larger community. A solitary Christian is an oxymoron. Christianity by its very nature is communal. Those who say that they don’t need to go church because they can go in the woods and pray don’t understand what Christianity is about: and I find it is an excuse not to pray at all (who goes regularly into the woods to pray? I’ve never met anyone).
Whenever you are confronted with a group that claims to be Christian and you’ve never heard of them, the first test is whether they believe in the Trinity. Every Christian believes in this dogma. If they don’t, they’re not Christian.
There was a time in the not to distant past where some people wanted to change the sign of the cross to be “In the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sanctifier” instead of “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” What we have to remember is that creator, redeemer, and sanctifier are not meant to limit each person of the Trinity’s power or role, but a way to understand something about each person of the Trinity. For example, the Son is much more than a redeemer; he is also a creator, since he was present at the creation of the world. In our feeble attempts to understand what God is trying to reveal to us, we should never put a limit on God. The Trinity is much greater than the sum of it’s’ parts.
God reveals a little about himself so that we may become more like him. The very essence of God is love, as we hear in 1John 4:8, “Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.” When we are baptized “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” we are brought into God’s love, we share in the divine life of love.
This is the most important part of understanding the Trinity: that God is love and we need to be loving people, also. The Father, Son and Spirit have an eternal exchange of love of boundless measure, and we participate in, as well as share, that love with each other as Christians. It’s nice to be able to understand and speak about all the various theologies about the Trinity, but if we don’t love, we’ve missed the point. The great commandment is to love God and each other, not to be able to plumb the depths of Trinitarian theology.
Loving is harder than reading theology, though, isn’t it. Love makes demands, sometimes great ones, on our time, talent, and even our resources. Theology describes; love acts, because love in its most basic and truest sense is an action, something that we do. If someone said they loved you, but never did loving things for you, would you believe they loved you? I doubt it.
In the Gospel, Jesus makes an amazing statement: “"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.” Jesus is telling us that revelation isn’t a one time event. It is a continual process that never ends. For example, the concept of the Trinity is non biblical, but the Council of Nicea in 325 AD determined that this is a truth revealed by the Spirit. This concept would be foreign to the Apostles, but not to us. We, too, grow and learn from listening to the Spirit. That’s why it’s never good to think that we have ‘made it’ in our spiritual lives, that we have no more to learn. In truth, we have plenty more to learn and we need to keep on growing in our knowledge and love of God...
The first reading from Proverbs is from a section called “The Discourse on Wisdom.” The footnote in the Revised New American Bible for this section states: “Wisdom is of divine origin. She is represented as existing before all things (vv. 22-26), when God planned and created the universe, adorning it with beauty and variety, and establishing it wonderful order (vv. 27-30). The purpose of the 2 cosmogonies (vv. 26-26 and 27-31) is to ground wisdom’s claims. The first cosmogony emphasizes that she was born before all else (and so deserving of honor) and the second underscores that she was with the Lord during the creation of the universe. The pre-existence of Woman Wisdom with God is developed in Sirach 24 and in the New Testament hymns to Christ, especially in John 1 and Col 1:15-20.”
In the second reading, Paul tells us that we are justified by faith. Justice in this context is more than fairness. It is Jesus death and resurrection that gives us access to the Father and that saves us; and in Paul’s terminology, justifies us. This justification gives us peace when we join our lives with Jesus and give our lives for others.
Fr. Phil
SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY
May 26, 2013
READING 1
PROVERBS 8:22-31
Thus says the wisdom of God:
"The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways,
the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago;
from of old I was poured forth,
at the first, before the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains or springs of water;
before the mountains were settled into place,
before the hills, I was brought forth;
while as yet the earth and fields were not made,
nor the first clods of the world.
"When the Lord established the heavens I was there,
when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
when he made firm the skies above,
when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth;
when he set for the sea its limit,
so that the waters should not transgress his command;
then was I beside him as his craftsman,
and I was his delight day by day,
playing before him all the while,
playing on the surface of his earth;
and I found delight in the human race."
The Word of the Lord
READING 2
ROMANS 5:1-5
Brothers and sisters:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith
to this grace in which we stand,
and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions,
knowing that affliction produces endurance,
and endurance, proven character,
and proven character, hope,
and hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
The Word of the Lord
GOSPEL
JOHN 16:12-15
Jesus said to his disciples:
"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.
He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.
He will glorify me,
because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
Everything that the Father has is mine;
for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine
and declare it to you."
The Gospel of the Lord
Reflection
This Sunday we celebrate the central mystery of our faith and of our Christian life: The mystery of the Trinity. The dogma of the Trinity is not in scripture, but was formulated at the councils of Nicaea in 325 A.D. and Constantinople in 381 A.D. While it is impossible to understand this mystery, the very essence of God, we do know what God has revealed to us about this mystery.
Every Sunday after the homily we recite the Nicene Creed, a basic statement about our faith which tells us about the Trinity.
Nicene Creed from Revised Roman Missal
I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and became man,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
I’ve reproduced the Nicene Creed for your reflection. We recite it often enough, but do we really listen to what we’re saying? Below is a short reflection on the Trinity so we know some of the basics. I refer you to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 232 to 267 for a more in depth treatment of this sacred mystery. Paragraph numbers below refer to paragraphs in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
We believe that there is only one God, not three, but that there are three persons in the Blessed Trinity; namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They do not ‘share’ divinity, but are whole and complete God’s in themselves. This is called being consubstantial, so the trinity can also be referred to as the consubstantial trinity (paragraph 253).
The divine persons are really distinct from each other. The Father, Son, and Spirit are not just different modes of being divine; each is separate from each other. (paragraph 254). But in the unity of the Trinity, the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and in the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son (paragraph 255).
We believe that Jesus was ‘begotten’ by God; God did not create Jesus, he always was, he is true God, and is also a creator since he was present at, and participated in, the creation of the universe.
The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and is also a giver of life (see Creed above) and is also worshipped as God. It was also this same Spirit that inspired the prophets.
I would like you to notice that God lives in community, that the very essence of God incorporates community. That tells us that, since we are made in the image and likeness of God, we too must be a part of a community. There is no such thing as a solitary Christian. Even Christian hermits are still part of a larger community. A solitary Christian is an oxymoron. Christianity by its very nature is communal. Those who say that they don’t need to go church because they can go in the woods and pray don’t understand what Christianity is about: and I find it is an excuse not to pray at all (who goes regularly into the woods to pray? I’ve never met anyone).
Whenever you are confronted with a group that claims to be Christian and you’ve never heard of them, the first test is whether they believe in the Trinity. Every Christian believes in this dogma. If they don’t, they’re not Christian.
There was a time in the not to distant past where some people wanted to change the sign of the cross to be “In the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sanctifier” instead of “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” What we have to remember is that creator, redeemer, and sanctifier are not meant to limit each person of the Trinity’s power or role, but a way to understand something about each person of the Trinity. For example, the Son is much more than a redeemer; he is also a creator, since he was present at the creation of the world. In our feeble attempts to understand what God is trying to reveal to us, we should never put a limit on God. The Trinity is much greater than the sum of it’s’ parts.
God reveals a little about himself so that we may become more like him. The very essence of God is love, as we hear in 1John 4:8, “Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.” When we are baptized “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” we are brought into God’s love, we share in the divine life of love.
This is the most important part of understanding the Trinity: that God is love and we need to be loving people, also. The Father, Son and Spirit have an eternal exchange of love of boundless measure, and we participate in, as well as share, that love with each other as Christians. It’s nice to be able to understand and speak about all the various theologies about the Trinity, but if we don’t love, we’ve missed the point. The great commandment is to love God and each other, not to be able to plumb the depths of Trinitarian theology.
Loving is harder than reading theology, though, isn’t it. Love makes demands, sometimes great ones, on our time, talent, and even our resources. Theology describes; love acts, because love in its most basic and truest sense is an action, something that we do. If someone said they loved you, but never did loving things for you, would you believe they loved you? I doubt it.
In the Gospel, Jesus makes an amazing statement: “"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.” Jesus is telling us that revelation isn’t a one time event. It is a continual process that never ends. For example, the concept of the Trinity is non biblical, but the Council of Nicea in 325 AD determined that this is a truth revealed by the Spirit. This concept would be foreign to the Apostles, but not to us. We, too, grow and learn from listening to the Spirit. That’s why it’s never good to think that we have ‘made it’ in our spiritual lives, that we have no more to learn. In truth, we have plenty more to learn and we need to keep on growing in our knowledge and love of God...
The first reading from Proverbs is from a section called “The Discourse on Wisdom.” The footnote in the Revised New American Bible for this section states: “Wisdom is of divine origin. She is represented as existing before all things (vv. 22-26), when God planned and created the universe, adorning it with beauty and variety, and establishing it wonderful order (vv. 27-30). The purpose of the 2 cosmogonies (vv. 26-26 and 27-31) is to ground wisdom’s claims. The first cosmogony emphasizes that she was born before all else (and so deserving of honor) and the second underscores that she was with the Lord during the creation of the universe. The pre-existence of Woman Wisdom with God is developed in Sirach 24 and in the New Testament hymns to Christ, especially in John 1 and Col 1:15-20.”
In the second reading, Paul tells us that we are justified by faith. Justice in this context is more than fairness. It is Jesus death and resurrection that gives us access to the Father and that saves us; and in Paul’s terminology, justifies us. This justification gives us peace when we join our lives with Jesus and give our lives for others.
Fr. Phil
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
BIBLE STUDY
SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
May 12, 2013
READING 1
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 7:55-60
Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit,
looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
and Stephen said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened
and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
But they cried out in a loud voice,
covered their ears, and rushed upon him together.
They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him.
The witnesses laid down their cloaks
at the feet of a young man named Saul.
As they were stoning Stephen, he called out,
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice,
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them;”
and when he said this, he fell asleep.
The Word of the Lord
READING 2
REVELATION 22:12-14, 16-17, 20
I, John, heard a voice saying to me:
“Behold, I am coming soon.
I bring with me the recompense I will give to each
according to his deeds.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last,
the beginning and the end.”
Blessed are they who wash their robes
so as to have the right to the tree of life
and enter the city through its gates.
“I, Jesus, sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches.
I am the root and offspring of David,
the bright morning star.”
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
Let the hearer say, “Come.”
Let the one who thirsts come forward,
and the one who wants it receive the gift of life-giving water.
The one who gives this testimony says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!
The Word of the Lord
GOSPEL
JOHN 17:20-26
Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying:
“Holy Father, I pray not only for them,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
so that they may all be one,
as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
that they also may be in us,
that the world may believe that you sent me.
And I have given them the glory you gave me,
so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me,
that they may be brought to perfection as one,
that the world may know that you sent me,
and that you loved them even as you loved me.
Father, they are your gift to me.
I wish that where I am they also may be with me,
that they may see my glory that you gave me,
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
Righteous Father, the world also does not know you,
but I know you, and they know that you sent me.
I made known to them your name and I will make it known,
that the love with which you loved me
may be in them and I in them.”
The Gospel of the Lord
Reflection
Jesus is praying for those who already believe in Him and all those throughout the ages who will come to believe in Him that we may all be one, just as Jesus and the Father are one. This implies closeness and a unity of us with the Father that comes to us through Jesus who is the vine that connects us (the branches) to the Father. We are drawn into communion with the Father through Jesus and participate in the love that the Father and Son have for each other. We share in the glory of Jesus which is the richness and power of God’s life which God gives to His Son.
This unity also has implications for the Christian community. The life and love of the Father through the son is also present in the community. Participating in the Christian community means sharing in God’s life and love. This sharing should have a radical affect on our lives. The oneness of believers is not just spiritual in nature (that is, our love for the Father), but is concretized in love for one another.
The purpose of this community of love is not just for us, but “that the world may believe that you sent me.” This love has an apostolic dimension since we are to proclaim the Good News with our lives. We are to bring others into this community of life and love.
Jesus has one final request in this long (chapters 13-17) Farewell Discourse. This life and love we share with the Father through Jesus has another effect: “that they may be brought to perfection.” Being part of the community of life and love helps us to grow in the knowledge and love of the Lord so as to overcome sin in our lives. Living in the community is a promise of eternal life to come.
In the first reading, we see Stephen filled with the Holy Spirit, the Advocate that Jesus promised to send to guide, direct, and inspire us. He is participating in the life and love of the Father that Jesus proclaims in today’s Gospel. He witnesses to Jesus and is stoned for his words. Saul, who is to become St Paul, witnesses this martyrdom. Even as he’s dying, he asks for the Lord to forgive the people who are killing him. That is pretty powerful; I don’t know if I would be able to do that. But with Christ, all things are possible.
Fr. Phil
SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
May 12, 2013
READING 1
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 7:55-60
Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit,
looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
and Stephen said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened
and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
But they cried out in a loud voice,
covered their ears, and rushed upon him together.
They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him.
The witnesses laid down their cloaks
at the feet of a young man named Saul.
As they were stoning Stephen, he called out,
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice,
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them;”
and when he said this, he fell asleep.
The Word of the Lord
READING 2
REVELATION 22:12-14, 16-17, 20
I, John, heard a voice saying to me:
“Behold, I am coming soon.
I bring with me the recompense I will give to each
according to his deeds.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last,
the beginning and the end.”
Blessed are they who wash their robes
so as to have the right to the tree of life
and enter the city through its gates.
“I, Jesus, sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches.
I am the root and offspring of David,
the bright morning star.”
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
Let the hearer say, “Come.”
Let the one who thirsts come forward,
and the one who wants it receive the gift of life-giving water.
The one who gives this testimony says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!
The Word of the Lord
GOSPEL
JOHN 17:20-26
Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying:
“Holy Father, I pray not only for them,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
so that they may all be one,
as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
that they also may be in us,
that the world may believe that you sent me.
And I have given them the glory you gave me,
so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me,
that they may be brought to perfection as one,
that the world may know that you sent me,
and that you loved them even as you loved me.
Father, they are your gift to me.
I wish that where I am they also may be with me,
that they may see my glory that you gave me,
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
Righteous Father, the world also does not know you,
but I know you, and they know that you sent me.
I made known to them your name and I will make it known,
that the love with which you loved me
may be in them and I in them.”
The Gospel of the Lord
Reflection
Jesus is praying for those who already believe in Him and all those throughout the ages who will come to believe in Him that we may all be one, just as Jesus and the Father are one. This implies closeness and a unity of us with the Father that comes to us through Jesus who is the vine that connects us (the branches) to the Father. We are drawn into communion with the Father through Jesus and participate in the love that the Father and Son have for each other. We share in the glory of Jesus which is the richness and power of God’s life which God gives to His Son.
This unity also has implications for the Christian community. The life and love of the Father through the son is also present in the community. Participating in the Christian community means sharing in God’s life and love. This sharing should have a radical affect on our lives. The oneness of believers is not just spiritual in nature (that is, our love for the Father), but is concretized in love for one another.
The purpose of this community of love is not just for us, but “that the world may believe that you sent me.” This love has an apostolic dimension since we are to proclaim the Good News with our lives. We are to bring others into this community of life and love.
Jesus has one final request in this long (chapters 13-17) Farewell Discourse. This life and love we share with the Father through Jesus has another effect: “that they may be brought to perfection.” Being part of the community of life and love helps us to grow in the knowledge and love of the Lord so as to overcome sin in our lives. Living in the community is a promise of eternal life to come.
In the first reading, we see Stephen filled with the Holy Spirit, the Advocate that Jesus promised to send to guide, direct, and inspire us. He is participating in the life and love of the Father that Jesus proclaims in today’s Gospel. He witnesses to Jesus and is stoned for his words. Saul, who is to become St Paul, witnesses this martyrdom. Even as he’s dying, he asks for the Lord to forgive the people who are killing him. That is pretty powerful; I don’t know if I would be able to do that. But with Christ, all things are possible.
Fr. Phil
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