By Martin Jumbam
On Sunday, May 26, 2013, the Church returns to the Sundays of the Ordinary Time of the liturgical Year C. It had been interrupted by the Easter Season, which ended last Sunday with the coming down of the Holy Spirit on the Church at Pentecost. Today, the Church invites us to celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity: God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons in one. The doctrine of three persons in one God, equal in divinity yet distinct in personality cannot be understood by the human mind. It is a mystery.
Three Persons in
One; that is indeed a mystery! A story is told of Saint Augustine, the Bishop
of Hippo in North Africa, who lived in the 4th century after Christ.
Saint Augustine was so preoccupied with the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity
that he wanted at all costs to understand how God could be said to be one in
three persons. One day he was walking along the beach and deeply reflecting on
this matter. Suddenly, he saw a little boy carrying water from the sea in a tiny
cup and pouring it in a tiny hole he had dug on the sand. Back and forth he ran
to the sea and brought back water in the tiny cup, which he emptied into the
tiny hole. After watching him for sometime, Saint Augustine went up to him and
asked him what he was doing. He said he wanted to empty the entire sea into
that tiny hole using his tiny cup. Saint Augustine shook his head sadly and
asked him how in the world he thought he could ever empty the sea into such a
tiny hole. The little boy then asked him how he thought he could ever in his
small head understand the mystery behind God being One in three persons. And
with that, the child is said to have disappeared and it was only then that
Saint Augustine understood that he was faced with a mystery.
Like Saint Augustine, we too are faced
with the immensity of God’s mystery, which we can only understand through the
mind of our faith. When he was on earth, Christ spoke about the Father who sent
him (the Son) and about the Holy Spirit whom he (the Son) was going to send to
strengthen his disciples. The Father gave to the Son and the Son gave all that
he received from the Father to the Holy Spirit. It is this unity of purpose
among the three persons of the Holy Trinity that we are celebrating today in
the readings from Sacred Scripture.
First
Reading: Proverbs 8:22-31
The Wisdom of God cries out: The Lord created me when his purpose first unfolded, before the oldest of his works. From everlasting I was firmly set, from the beginning, before earth came into being. The deep was not, when I was born, there were no springs to gush with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I came to birth; before he made the earth, the countryside, or the first grains of the world’s dust. When he fixed the heavens firm, I was there, when he drew a ring on the surface of the deep, when he thickened the clouds above, when he fixed fast the springs of the deep, when he assigned the sea its boundaries – and the water will not invade the shore – when he laid down the foundations of the earth, I was by his side, a master craftsman, delighting him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere in his world, delighting to be with the sons of men.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
The book of Proverbs is a collection of
wise sayings containing faith in the Lord, the God of Israel. It is perhaps the
most typical example of wisdom literature in the Bible1. Like the wise sayings and adages of most
cultures around the world, these wise sayings seem to have arisen from many
sources, notably the family context, the family being the place where children
received their early training for life. Many of these proverbs were the fruit
of people’s experience, obtained by observing things around them, pondering on
them and then expressing them in sayings of practical wisdom2.
The book of Proverbs contains sayings
attributed to King Solomon, who was famous for his wisdom. The proverbs and wise sayings help us to
discover the ways God enables us to find happiness in the midst of ordinary,
everyday life.
The book of Proverbs should particularly
appeal to Africans because proverbs are still a very important oral form for
imparting wisdom and communicating effectively. Many African writers use proverbs
and other wise sayings to project the human person as he strives to learn and
master his environment. An excellent example of one such writer is the great,
inimitable Nigerian writer, the late Chinua Achebe who describes proverbs as
‘the palm oil with which words are eaten.’ Through proverbs Achebe skillfully
and vividly brings out the world view, philosophy, religion and traditions of
his Igbo people of eastern Nigeria3.
The passage of our meditation is taken
from the first part, the Prologue, which is a lengthy invitation to people to
be open to instruction. It urges us to hold to what we have learned and seek
always to acquire and treasure wisdom. It is a splendid poem in praise of
Wisdom, which speaks to everyone, not just to a privileged few. Wisdom talks
about noble things and about interpersonal relationships that would work well
if wisdom is allowed to do her work.
Wisdom also works outside the sphere of
human relationships. In the passage of our meditation we see her present when
order was imposed on chaos to form the universe as we know it; from the very
beginning, she was present with God at the creation of the world.
Saint John would later use language
similar to that used in this passage to describe the relationship between God
and the Word made Flesh, who is none other than Jesus Christ, the Redeemer (Jn
1:1). The status held by Wisdom in this poem is attributed to Christ in the New
Testament.
What message do we draw from this
passage? We learn that Wisdom is more precious than earthly riches. All
creation is stamped with God’s wisdom. Wisdom is so close to God that it
existed with God before creation. So we all must strive to embrace wisdom, who
is none other than Jesus Christ for all things were made through him and for
him (Col 1:16). We pray for the wisdom to discern the path to follow that will
eventually lead us to Christ, the embodiment of wisdom. Amen.
Second
Reading: Romans 5:1-5.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God’s glory. But that is not all we can boast about; we can boast about our sufferings. These sufferings bring patience, as we know, and patience brings perseverance, and perseverance brings hope, and this hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which he has given us.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
Last Sunday, the feast of Pentecost,
our second reading was taken from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans. In the
introduction, I said that Saint Paul wrote his letter to the Romans during the
winter of the year AD 57, in
the comparative quiet of the city of Corinth, as recorded in Acts 20:3. This
letter, Paul’s longest letter to any community, deals with the key aspects of
the teaching and redemptive work of Christ. The authors of The African Bible4 tell me that it is the longest, most
influential and rewarding of Paul’s undisputed letters. It is thought that it
was the last letter Paul wrote.
The Church in
Rome was not founded by Paul but most probably by Saint Peter or by other Jewish
Christians from Judaea, or by Jews who had been converted to Christianity while
on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. There was frequent movement between the eternal
city of Rome and the holy city of Jerusalem in Paul’s days. Paul had never
visited nor evangelized the Church of Rome and he longed to visit them, Rome
being the most important city in his world. He is therefore writing to people
who have already been evangelized by others. Saint Paul is planning to travel
to Spain and hopes he can get some help, financial or otherwise, from the
Christians of Rome.
In the passage of our meditation, Paul
tells us something about the man who has faith. The three divine persons are at
work in the man of faith. God the Father gives the man of faith love and
friendship. When we have faith in the Son, the Father’s favour helps us in our
missionary endeavours. We know this because the Holy Spirit, who comes from the
Father and Son, strengthens our faith as we strive to live a life worthy to
receive the Father and the Son. As Christ himself tells his disciples: ‘Whoever
loves me will keep my word, and my Father and I will love him, and we will come
to him and make our dwelling with him’ (Jn14:23).
The virtues of faith, hope and charity
act in us and help us to grow in the life of grace. Faith leads us to know and
be sure of the things we hope for (Heb 11:1); hope helps us to look forward to
our face-to-face meeting with God when our time on earth runs out; and charity
leads us to express our generosity to the least of the little ones of Jesus.
But faith, hope and charity do not shield
us from sufferings, rather they help us to rise above all obstacles and
difficulties we may find on our way to salvation. A person who lives by faith,
hope and charity realizes that suffering is not something meaningless but
rather God’s design to perfect us for his kingdom. That is why he sends his
Holy Spirit to guide and protect us on our pilgrimage of faith. It is the Holy
Spirit that pours charity into our hearts. Let us pray for the Holy Spirit to
come to us and fortify our faith as we march towards the Father’s house. Amen.
Gospel: John 16: 12-15.
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He will glorify me since all he tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: All he tells you will be taken from what is mine.’
V/ The Gospel of the Lord.
R/ Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.
Comment
Jesus tells his apostles and disciples
several times during the Last Supper discourse that they will understand what
he is telling them only later. When he tells them that where he is going they
cannot come (Jn 13:33), Peter then openly vows to follow him even to death. It
is then that the Lord predicts that he will deny him three times before the
cock crows (Jn 14: 38). Another despondent apostle Thomas asks him to show them
the way so they can follow him (Jn 14: 5) and still another one, Philip, asks
him to show them the Father and they would be satisfied (Jn 14:8).
These are all signs that his followers
are still ignorant of the real purpose of our Lord on earth. They have been
with him for three years already, yet they are not sure of who he really is.
The Zebedee brothers, James and John, for example, are still lobbying for
political positions in what they believe will be Christ’s future government
that will free Israel from bondage (Acts 1:6).
The reason for this lack of understanding of the real role of Jesus is because the Holy Spirit has not yet come down upon them. When he does come, as he did last Sunday at Pentecost, then their mission will make sense and they will no longer wait to be told what to do. The Holy Spirit will empower them and send them proclaiming Christ’s word to the four corners of the world, many of them suffering martyrdom in the process.
When Jesus promises to send the Holy
Spirit on his followers, he is proclaiming the mystery of the divine union of
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He teaches that the three divine persons have the
same nature when he says that everything that the Father has belongs to the
Son, and everything the Son has belongs to the Father (Jn 17:10) and that the
Spirit also has what is common to the Father and the Son. The role of the Holy
Spirit is to glorify Christ and remind and clarify Christ’s followers about
everything their Master taught them when he was with them on earth (Jn 16:13).
When the Holy Spirit inspires us to recognize the Father through the Son, we
render glory to Christ, and glorifying Christ is the same as glorifying the
Father (Jn 17: 1).
The Father and the Son love one another,
and they express their love by giving themselves to us through the Holy Spirit,
who is the mutual gift of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the Father.
The Son makes the Father visible. As he tells Philip, who asks to see the
Father, ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father’ (Jn 14: 9).
What lesson do we take home from this reading? We learn that God’s love flows to us from different personalities: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, three in one. We also learn that God is community. He is not alone, but he is at one and the same time Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Let us therefore learn to live as brothers and sisters of one community. This is a challenge to us to see how we can build a community Church in our Archdiocese of Douala, a Church that would include everyone because the love of the Trinity comes to everyone, men, women, children, the rich, the poor, the marginalized, the orphan, the widow. Amen.
1. The Navarre Bible: Wisdom Books, Scepter Publishers, Inc., New York, 2004, p. 159.
2. ibid, p. 161.
3. The African Bible, Paulines Publication Africa, 1999, p. 1007
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