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Tag: Holy Trinity

  • Three-fold ONE

    Three-fold ONE

    May 30, 2021 – Trinity Sunday

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/053021.cfm#subscribe)

    Once a team of mountain climbers were stranded almost near at the highest peak. As the air grew thin and weather got colder – that made them cold and weak, one of them made a fire. So, together they gather around  the fire and contribute whatever they have to sustain the fire. As they started to enjoy the heat, they share food, as well as their stories and dreams with one another that in effect, sustain and inspire them again. One of them decided to be on his own. So, he took a stick with a fire, and isolated himself from the group. Eventually, away from the group, his fire extinguished and he got sleepy and weak.

    With the team, we get strength and inspiration. Away from the team, we get tired, weak, and dispirited.

    As Christians, we praise God in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. We give glory to God Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We proclaim our creed of faith: “I believe in God, the Father…in Jesus Christ… in the Holy Spirit.” At its very core, our Christian faith is Trinitarian – i.e. unlike any other religions, we uniquely believe in God, the Father-Son-Holy Spirit. As we honor today the Holy Trinity, perhaps now we ask: What does it mean to believe in the Trinitarian God?

    First, the word covenant simply would mean, “coming together”. As God making covenant with us, God wants to “come together for us/with us/in us”. In God the Father, we come to believe a “God-for us” who chooses us to be His own people. In God the Son, we come to believe Emmanuel Jesus, a “God-with us” who makes known to us God’s love for us, and how to love God in return. In God the Holy Spirit, we come to believe a “God-in us”, who inspires, directs, and sustains us in life of faith. To believe in the Holy Trinity then is to be in covenant with God, much as God is in covenant with us. Meaning, as God is for us/with us/in us, we must also be people for God, with God, and in God.

    Second, in the Lord’s ascension, we are reminded that the risen Lord is not-finished yet. His mission of salvation for us is still a work-in progress, and is now a product of the concerted-effort, teamwork of the communion of the Holy Trinity. Our salvation is the teamwork and actions OF our God, the Father who chooses us to be His own, THROUGH God the Son who is loving us always, and WITH the God the Holy Spirit who inspires, directs, and sustains us in life. To believe in the Holy Trinity is thus to be IN communion with God. As God acts and works as one for our salvation, so also we must be in sync, in tune with God’s concerted teamwork for our salvation. Thus we not only to give glory to them but also we are to be in sync with the works OF the Father, THROUGH the Son, WITH the Holy Spirit for our salvation.

    Third, as the Lord mandated us to proclaim our faith to all nations, in our gospel today, He particularly challenges us to make disciples in the name of the Holy Trinity. Making disciples while proclaiming our faith to all nations would mean helping ourselves and one another to be in constant covenant with God, and in partnership-communion with God’s work of salvation for us. To believe in the Holy Trinity then is to lead our lives and faith as Church, a Community of faith. As God is and works as Community, we too must also be and acts as Church – a community of Christian faith, living and witnessing God’s being and acting in our lives.

    The Holy Trinity shows us as Church how to be and act as God’s own People. As much as God be and acts together, to have a Trinitarian faith we too must be and act in covenant, in communion and in community with God and one another. As Church then, we must be faithful people for God, with God, and in God – witnessing our faith in sync with the labor of the Father, through the Son, with the Holy, and living our lives as church community making disciples and proclaiming our faith.

    Remember “the community is the bearer of God’s Salvation”. Salvation thus happens in the context of the church, faith-community, and not of individuals. We are God’s own chosen People, not chosen individual. We all are to be in covenant, in communion and in community with Him and His church. With the church, we are strong and inspired. Without and away from the church, we are weak and dispirited. We are to be in His threefold ONE.

    May we, as God’s own, not be separated from the Holy Trinity and God’s church, but instead always be connected and involved with God’s life and labors of salvation for all nations and peoples, even amidst during this challenging pandemic times. Amen.

  • Relationship Status Update…

    Relationship Status Update…

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    June 7, 2020 – Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    Click here for the readings (http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/060720.cfm)

    What is your relationship status? The state of your relationships – your being with others? 

    Social media netizens nowadays have the option to post in public their own relationship status in their profile. This is more than just about their usual civil status of being single, married or separated, but more so about the description of the present state and quality of their relationship with an-other special person: be it in-love, complicated, available, committed and others. (perhaps same way as MU: mutual understanding and SS/DU: Sikit-Sikit/Dili Uyab, as we used to describe before).

    As others may concern about their relationship status, we might as well consider our relationship status at the time of social distancing in today’s pandemic world. Quarantine and social distancing have rendered us nowadays isolated and distance from others and with one another. And surely this has affected the quality of our relationships with others: be it too/less close or far; too/less deep or hollow, too/less presence or absence. Social distancing during pandemic has deeply and uniquely affected our social relationships. While it may have shaken and threatened our family, community and love life to possible break-up, dryness and dying, we could not deny also that our distance from and/or being “stuck” at-home with them may have also re-ignited, rekindled, renewed, and deepen our relationships with another. So also as we consider our relationship status during these times, healthy for us to consider our faith status – our relationship with our God: on how social distancing have affected the state and quality of our relationship with God.

    Today, first Sunday after Easter Season, is Solemnity of Most Holy Trinity or simply called Trinity Sunday. More than just a reminder of our Christian faith in the Triune (the three in one) nature of our God, our celebration today invites us to reconsider our relationship status with God. 

    In our gospel, (as the key text and core message of St. John’s gospel), Jesus gives us the description of the status and quality of God’s  relationship status with us. God is so in-love with us that He gives us His Son to believe and follow, for us not to be condemned in life but to have eternal life with Him. With these words, we can highlight here two points to describe the quality of God’s relationship status with us: God is in covenant with us and God is in collaboration with us. 

    The word covenant roughly  means “coming together”. To describe God’s relationship status with us as “in-covenant” would mean that God “comes together” with us – God is one, in community, in loving marital relationship with us, because He is so in love with us. Moreover, the word collaboration would also roughly mean “working together”.

    To describe then His relationship with us as “in-collaboration” would mean that God “works together” with us – God is in sync, tandem, partnership with us  by offering us to adopt and be co-responsible for His Son in our life and faith. By His Love for us, God is in relationship with us, and by giving us His Son, God is responsible for us and with us. This is how blessed we are and should be, for God is in covenant relationship and in collaborative commitment with us. 

    Now, what is and should be our relationship status with God? 

    Moses wished that though we may stiff-necked and wicked, God may “come along in our company” and “receive us as (His) own”. Paul prays that “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, BE with all of Us.” It is thus the hope and prayer of the forefathers of our faith, and still now, that we also may be “in covenant” and “in collaboration” with God – that our faith, our relationship status with God is in sync also with God’s status with us – however righteous, limited or stubborn we might be.

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    A wise man once said, “Each one of us are but angels with one wing. We can only fly by embracing one another.” True enough, this saying not only affirms our limited human nature of being one-winged, but more so highlights our spiritual nature of being angels. Our present life then is and should be in relation, in sync & in tandem with God and one another, so that we can sore and rise above to the occasion of living our lives to its fullness as we journey back to our heavenly home, and share in God’s offer of eternal life with Christ. 

    Ironically to protect and keep us safe, our pandemic world rendered us now limited, restricted, set apart and distanced from one another. However, our natural longing to be social – to be one and together with one another and God offers us breath, life, hope and support in the during these trying and difficult times. And putting value anew, upgrading and working out to improve the quality of our relationships status (our being with God and others) could somehow alleviate and bring more purpose and meaning to our present predicament.Though limited angels with one wing may be and due to pandemic realities now set apart from one another, may we always keep the faith, and come and work in one – together with our Triune God, as He is forever in covenant and collaboration with us. Amen. 

    (By: Fr. Aphelie Mario Masangcay CSsR, a Filipino Redemptorist  Missionary stationed in Gwangju South Korea, though now still stranded in Cebu until further notice for available flights.)