June 19, 2011
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
By Rev. Joe McCloskey, S.J.
Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship. Then he said, "If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own." Exodus 34:8-9
Finally, brothers, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the holy ones greet you. 2 Corinthians 13:11-12
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. John 3:16-17
Piety
We give glory to God as Trinity. Our piety is the glory we give to God. Three distinct persons who are one God come to us in the indwelling of the Trinity. The Father speaks the Word for all eternity. The Word is the pure love of the Son for the Father. The Son is the pure love of the Father for the Son. Perfect giving and perfect receiving is the Love that meets as the Holy Spirit. Piety is our perfect giving back of all that we have received. The perfect piety is the way we love one another even as Christ has loved us. God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son so that we might not perish but might have eternal life. Christ is our salvation. Piety is the expression of all that Christ is in all that we are. Perfect love always generates a response. The perfect love of God for us in the Word made flesh is expressed in how we live our lives in the name of Christ.
Study
We are called Christians because we are like Christ. We are created in the image and likeness of Christ. We arrive at the perfect self when we find ourselves entirely in Christ. There is no shortcut on becoming Christ in our lives. We look at Christ in the Scriptures and find ourselves becoming expression of Christ in the ways we imitate him. The paradox of our spiritual journey is the truth that we do not lose anything of ourselves in following Christ. The truth is that when we find ourselves in Christ we will have become the fullness of what God intended for us to be in life. We study Christ in his words and his actions because we realize that Christ is the fullness of human life. Wisdom knows how to be a real Christ in all that we say and do. Our knowledge is the gradual growth in our awareness of how Christ lived his life as the model of who we are meant to be.
Action
The best actions of our lives are seen in the connections we have in what we say and do in Christ. Spiritual reading allows us to discover ways to think like Christ. We put on the mind and heart of Christ by the ways we imitate the good people of our lives. Saints are the updates of Christ in the given ages they lived. Holy people of our day and age are the good people who by their love of one another give reality to Christ’s words in the modern times. We are trying to be transparencies of Christ in what we do and we accomplish that by how we give our lives for each other. Too many people are waiting for something worthwhile to do that they can give their lives whole heartedly to the accomplishing of a worthwhile project. We learn through good people how to live out the ordinary of life in heroic ways. The beauty of the Trinity is fullness of life. Family is the way trinity has expression in the ordinary of life. We find the glory of the Trinity as God’s life lived out in the humanness of the Holy Family and relived in the love we express in our own families. No one is an island if they know Christ. An uninvolved Christian is a contradiction. Trinity is lived out in community. What we share is how Trinity finds expression in our lives. Action speaks louder than words.
