A Merciful and Gracious God - Trinity Sunday Year A

Having young children can often be a great tonic that soothes the wounds inflicted upon us in the world of grown-ups. Young children often make the same mistakes over and over again, and each time they come to us begging forgiveness and promising to do better in the future. We know they mean what they say, and we also know that they will fail again and the scene of begging forgiveness will once more be played out on the stage of our living rooms. The same is true for us adults in our relationship with God. How often have we entered the confessional promising God to do better, only to find ourselves back in the sin bin a few weeks later confessing the same failures. The readings today for Trinity Sunday help us to maintain this perspective we know so well from our own human experience.

In the first reading we find Moses with God in the great theophany on Mount Sinai. God led his people to this place in order to establish the covenant with them. We must remember that prior to this day, the Israelites had been wandering in the desert continually offending God. They longed to return to Egypt and slavery because the desert was a hardship. They continually grumbled against God for their plight. Even at the moment of receiving the covenant they fashion for themselves a false god to worship. How right was Moses in saying that this is a stiff-necked people, and yet he once again pleads for pardon from God, and God remembers his love and forgives his people once again.

Why does God continually forgive his people? The Hebrew word for love used in the Exodus account here denotes a marital love, an unbreakable bond that exists between two persons. Such a love exists among the persons of the Trinity, and it is this love that God brings to the relationship to which he invites every single person. This love is also the love to which we are called to exemplify in our relations with other people, as Paul notes in the second reading. Paul encourages the people of Corinth to live in harmony and peace, and if we do so the God of love and peace will be with us. Paul uses the word "agape" to denote love in this passage, the Greek term used by Christians to denote the Hebrew notion of love - the love to which we are called in our lives.

We also discover the term "agape" in the Gospel text when Jesus tells Nicodemus about the love God has for the world to such an extent that he sent his only Son not to condemn the world, but rather so that the world might be saved through belief in him. For John, faith is always a verb - to believe means to do the works of Jesus on earth, and so the followers of Jesus are called to live this radical love in every circumstance of life and to every person we meet. Nicodemus comes to realize this love only when he sees Jesus die upon the cross, the ultimate act of radical love.

We saw earlier that the people of Israel were a stiff-necked people. Paul encourages his audience to mend their ways. John records Jesus' admonition that unbelief, i.e. failure to love, leads to both condemnation. We are well aware of our sins - both our individual sins and our collective sins as the institution of the Church. We have promised to do many things, and we have failed to live up to those promises. We have a responsibility to acknowledge those failures and to accept the human consequences that result from them.

At the same time we once again entrust ourselves to the Triune God who provides us with an example to follow as we look to mend our ways and to live as Jesus himself did while on earth. As Pope John Paul II stated in his first visit to the United States, "Jesus gives us his peace accompanied by his justice. He is peace and justice. He becomes our peace and justice. We are bearers of the peace and justice of God! We are not builders of a peace and justice that are merely human, always wearing out and always fragile. Wea re primarily the humble beneficiaries of the very life of God, who is justice and peace in the bond of charity. God's justice and peace cry out to bear fruit in human works of justice and peace, in all spheres of actual life." (Homily in New York City, October 1979)

We therefore pray to be God's justice, peace, and charity in the world: "God of love and mercy, you call us to be your people, you gift us with your abundant grace. Make us a holy people, radiating the fullness of your love. Form into us a community, a people who care, expressing your compassion. Remind us day after day of our baptismal call to serve, with joy and courage. Teach us how to grow in wisdom and grace and joy in your presence. Through Jesus and in your Spirit, we make this prayer. Amen." (USCCB Prayer for the Third Millennium)

Worship and Doubt - Ascension of the Lord Year A

Even in the best of times doubt afflicts the believer. Faith, like all the other virtues, is tested by the struggles and sufferings of life. Courage cannot be tested unless a situation develops where bravery is called for. Temperance exists only in the life of the person who has struggled with their appetites in the various circumstances of life. Faith, too, can only take place when the storms of doubt surround the person and the virtue is required of us. In the life of the Church we find no shortage of tests to our faith, especially her in the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. Scandal cannot but test the faith of every believer, and the readings today provide us with the opportunity to examine our faith in the midst of these trying times.

In the Gospel text we read that the disciples were astonished upon seeing Jesus for the first time after the resurrection. They simultaneously worshipped and doubted, a great consolation for us in these times. Worship does not require perfect faith in order for an act of worship to be efficacious. The disciples doubted because all of their expectations of the Messiah were completely wrong: Jesus was not a political messiah sent to restore the nation of Israel to power and influence. Yet, their object of worship is correct - the Lord Jesus. As long as we fix our attention on Jesus and appropriate his values to our own we will then be freed from our idolatry to power and false images of discipleship.

The first reading provides us with yet another scene where the disciples' attention is focused wrongly. After Jesus ascends into heaven they stand looking at the sky, a posture that receives rebuke from two men dressed in white. Why? Our attention should not be focused on Jesus in heaven, but rather in Jesus among us. We have the promise that Jesus will return and so we have no need to stare at the sky looking for Jesus to be as he was on earth. Jesus calls us to be his presence in the world today, and so our worship is not an end in itself but rather a means to become Christ for others.

This very mission of the Church is precisely the point of Paul's letter to the Ephesians in the second reading. Paul encourages us to know the hope that belongs to the call of Christ we have received. Further on we read that we are the body of Christ and we have received all that he has received from the Father. This identity and mission carries with it an awesome responsibility before the world. Can we say that we have lived as Christ has lived, loved as he loved, served as he served? Our failures in this mission both as individuals and as the collective institution of the Church requires us to seek God's forgiveness, to atone for our sins, to resolve to never more offend the living God, and to do penance for these sins.

In the early days of the Church reconciliation was a public event. The penitent stood before the people of God to accuse himself of sin and to be restored to the people of God by the people of God. While we now celebrate this sacrament in a private manner in our own day, it is perhaps necessary in some way for us to celebrate this sacrament publicly when our sins are public and affect the whole body of Christ. The point of such a celebration is not to create a publicity stunt or even to shame sinners. It is rather to experience the catharsis and metanoia of the action of reconciliation. It is also to hold ourselves accountable to one another and to the world - to set an example for others that we intend to live as Christ's disciples and to restore what has been broken.

As we celebrate the Ascension of Christ in glory, may we seek to follow the Lord Jesus by walking in his teaching and example. We pray: "Father, send the gift of peace into our hearts. You know our efforts to follow the trail that Jesus has blazed before us. Forgive our weakness and infidelity, so that, reinvigorated by your Spirit of peace, we may resume our journey with greater courage until we reach the home where you wait for us. Amen." (Revelation of Love, by David Turoldo).