OT XIII [C]: I Kgs 19:16b, 19-21; Gal 5:1, 13-18; Lk 9:51-62

Abraham Lincoln was the finest and most spiritual of all the American presidents. During the Civil War, Lincoln was often criticized for not being severe enough on the soldiers of the South.  On one occasion after a battle, a general from the North asked him, “Why didn’t you destroy the enemy when you had the chance? President Lincoln answered with words adapted from today’s Gospel passage: “Do I not destroy my enemy by making him my friend?” That is exactly what Jesus tells   us in today’s Gospel: destroy our enemies by making them our friends. No doubt the feelings of anger and resentment run deep in many hearts today, and we wouldn’t mind if people who hurt us deeply were punished or suffered from bad luck.

This Gospel passage deals with the beginning of Jesus’ journey from the northern towns of Galilee to the southern city of Jerusalem through the land of Samaria. Jesus encountered obstacles from the Samaritans. The Jews and Samaritans shared a common origin in the twelve tribes of Israel. But they hated each other and refused to intermingle or intermarry because of a long-standing historic conflict between the two nations dating back to the eighth century BC, after the Assyrian conquest of the Jews. Even under Assyrian rule, the Samaritans claimed to have maintained proper worship in their land with Mount Gerizim as the center of their religious life.  They argued that the Jews were the ones who had compromised their religious beliefs during their Babylonian exile. The Jews, on the other hand, with the Temple of Jerusalem as the center of their religious life, accused Samaritans of having lost their religious and racial identity through intermarriage with their pagan neighbors.  They even considered Samaritans as heretical and false worshipers of the God of Israel and detested them far more than they detested the pagans. To get to Jerusalem, Galileans had either to go through Samaria or to take a longer, more difficult route east of the Jordan River.  Jesus chose the shortcut through Samaria. But the Samaritans both refused to honor Jesus as a prophet and violated the sacred duties of hospitality. This infuriated the apostles and two of them, James and John, asked Jesus if he wanted them to command fire to come down from Heaven and consume the Samaritans as Elijah had done in his day (II Kings 1:9-12).  Jesus rebuked them, however, because he was not a destroyer but a Savior with a message of mercy and love.

Jesus' choice to go through the villages of Samaria looking for hospitality tells us that he was extending a hand of friendship to enemies. Tolerance: It is a hard lesson, one that took the disciples years to learn. But, the virtue of tolerance, and tolerance for the right cause, needs to be taught in the church. Tolerance is “showing respect for others who are different than us”. It is giving to every other human being every right that we claim for ourselves.

There are two times in particular when tolerance is very important—one is looking past character flaws and bearing with those who irritate us, the other is being respectful and understanding of the differences between people. Tolerance towards others can be difficult. Sometimes it means being kind and respectful to the people who are really irritating. Being tolerant does not mean you must accept disrespectful or bad attitudes.

Taking advantage of the spread of “political correctness”, intolerant society groups have moved into an aggressive attack. We are going through very intolerant times in society, not just in one country, but I feel all over the world. It will eventually bring to an end our human civilization.

Religion and politics are the two areas of greatest intolerance happening in this world right now. Just last week a young Muslim in India was battered to death for being a Muslim I believe and made him recite the names of Hindu gods during the 5 hour battery on him.

Religious tolerance means that you favor extending religious freedom to people of all faith traditions, even though you probably disagree the validity of their beliefs and practices. Christianity is the religion that takes greatest intolerance from all other religions. Because the message of Christ is universal or Catholic. Catholic means, applicable to all men at all times. It is true in an absolute sense. Obviously then, only one can be universal. All other religions are limited either to one race, language or nation. Jewish religion was limited to one nation. Hinduism is limited to caste system and one has to be born a Brahmin before he/she can finally attain liberation. And caste system is prevalent only in India. Islam, though claiming to be universal is limited to people who can speak Arabic, because one has to know Arabic to understand the words of Allah. One has to pray in Arabic. Quran is not considered holy if it is printed in any other language. Bible, on the contrary was written in more than one language even in the original source and there are no languages now in which Bible is not translated. Bible is Holy irrespective of the language it is printed.  Therefore, Catholics profess in their creed: I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.

The truth and divine origin of Christianity have been made to depend on its supernatural character, and to stand or fall with a certain view of miracles. No other religion has miracles to authenticate their genuineness of the message, except Christianity. Therefore Christianity makes exclusive claims which are hurting other religions to spread and that is one of the reasons the truth of Christianity is always under attack. Most of the social or political issues like abortion, euthanasia, same sex marriages, cohabitation and so on, are hot button issues for the Church. The Church cannot go against truths revealed in the Bible. Then it will not be Catholic any more. Truth is truth for all human beings, not for people in just one country. Tolerance does not mean we keep quiet about these issues because it is going to hurt others’ sensitivity. You are not expected to be vitriolic in expressing your dissent. If you know the right thing and if you are keeping quiet just because it would hurt others’ feelings, you are not a true Christian. One of the spiritual works of mercy is to correct the wrong person patiently. Teach the ignorant. If we keep quiet, it will not probably help people with wrong notion about those issues. Tolerance means not to hate a person on the ground of his or her belief in a particular thing. It is willingness to work with a person of differing opinion or stand. This is what Jesus was trying to teach his disciples in today’s gospel. He did not favor his disciples’ retaliatory attitude. He won the Samaritans over by his tolerance and forgiveness. Therefore the Samaritans were one of the first groups who became Christians en masse soon after Jesus’ resurrection. Let’s learn and practice the attitude of tolerance and forgiveness otherwise we cannot be called Christians.

HOLY TRINITY [C]: Prv 8:22-31; Rom 5:1-5; Jn 16:12-15

The mystery of the Holy Trinity, a doctrine enunciated by the ecumenical councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, is one of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity and the greatest mystery of our Faith, namely, that there are Three Divine Persons, sharing the same Divine nature in one God.   

Richard of St. Victor said: Three are the perfection of Charity. God has to be a trinity. For God to be good, God has to be one. For God, to be loving, God has to be two, because love is always a relationship. For God to be Supreme joy and happiness, God has to be three. Lovers do not know full happiness until they both delight in the same thing, like new parents with the ecstasy of their first Child. If God is only one person, in the pre-state of the creation of the world, God would have been a very lonely person. He would have been craving to love someone outside of Himself. That would show a deficiency in God. But as it is revealed to us, since God is three persons in One God, He was not a person longing to be loved to fulfill His need for love.

Augustine wrote: “You see the Trinity if you see love.”  According to him, the Father is the lover, the Son is the loved one and the Holy Spirit is the personification of the very act of loving. This means that we can understand something of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity more readily with the heart than with our feeble mind.

Three Persons in one God, equal in Divinity yet distinct in Person, is not explicitly spelt out in the Bible. Even the very word “Trinity” is not found in the Bible. But the doctrine of the Trinity underlies all major Christian feasts. All the official prayers of the Church, including the Holy Mass and the Sacraments, begin with an address to the Holy Trinity. We are baptized, absolved of our sins and anointed in the name of the Blessed Trinity.

The Book of Proverbs reflects on Wisdom, a quality which that book identifies with God. St. Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, teaches us that we have peace with God the Father through Jesus Christ, and that the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. 

God has revealed to us three separate functions that are carried out by the Three Persons.  He has told us that it is proper to attribute to God the Father the work of Creation, to God the Son the work of Redemption and to God the Holy Spirit the work of Sanctification.  Since Yahweh, the God of Israel, was careful to protect His Chosen People from the pagan practice of worshipping many gods, the Old Testament books give only indirect and passing references to the Trinity, and the Jewish rabbis never understood them as references to the Holy Trinity.    Genesis 1:26 presents God speaking to Himself:  “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”    Genesis 18:2 describes how Yahweh visited Abraham under the appearance of three men, an event that the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates as the “Trinitarian Experience of Abraham.” In Genesis 11:7, before punishing the proud builders of the Tower of Babel, God says, “Come, let Us go down among them and confuse their language. “These passages imply, rather than state, the doctrine of the Trinity.

Our conviction of the presence of the Triune God within us should help us to esteem ourselves as God’s holy dwelling place, to behave well in His holy presence, and to lead purer and holier lives, practicing acts of justice and charity.  This Triune Presence should also encourage us to respect and honor others as “Temples of the Holy Spirit.”

We are created in love to be a community of loving persons, just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are united in love. We belong to the Family of the Triune God.  The love, unity and joy in the relationship among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit should be the supreme model of our relationships within our Christian families.  Our families become truly Christian when we live in a relationship of love with God and with others.

We are made in God’s image and likeness.  Just as God is God only in a Trinitarian relationship, so we can be fully human only as one member of a relationship of three partners.  The self needs to be in a horizontal relationship with all other people and in a vertical relationship with God.  In that way, our life becomes Trinitarian like that of God. 

Like God the Father, we are called upon to be productive and creative persons by contributing to the building up of the fabric of our family, our Church, our community and our nation.  Like God the Son, we are called upon to reconcile, to be peacemakers, to put back together that which has been broken, to restore what has been shattered.  Like God the Holy Spirit, it is our task to uncover and teach truth and to dispel ignorance. 

The celebration of the mystery of Holy Trinity reminds us that we have to grow in unity   like the perfect Unity that exists in Trinity. The greatest hindrance to unity is selfishness (Phil 2:4). When we strive to overcome our selfishness we will be able to contribute positively to strengthen our relation with the trinity and others.

May God, The Father, Son and Holy Spirit shower their blessings on us and help us to strengthen our bond of unity.

Pentecost: Acts 2:1-11; I Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13; Jn 20:19-23

With today’s feast of Pentecost we conclude the Easter Time. Originally, Pentecost was a Jewish Feast. The word “Pentecost” means “fiftieth”. For the Jews the 50th day after their Passover, and for Christians the 50th day after Easter. There were three main events in the history of Israel which the Jews remembered on the feast of Pentecost. The establishment of the covenant between God and Israel on Mount Sinai; the proclamation of Ten Commandments; and the completion of the grain harvest. On the Pentecost day we too celebrate the establishment of a new covenant; the proclamation of the new law - the command of love; and the pouring down of the fruits of The Holy Spirit.

The Jews who listened to the Apostles were aware of the gifts of the Holy Spirit found in the Book Isaiah (11:1-2). Now they saw them manifested in the Apostles. They saw great wisdom in the Apostles. No one in the group dared to question their wisdom. It illuminated their understanding of Sacred Scriptures. It gave them a profound appreciation for God’s providence. They recalled the teaching of Jesus and boldly proclaimed it. That boldness showed by the apostles was not familiar to the crowd. When Jesus was arrested they ran way. Peter denied Jesus three times during his trial. When Jesus was crucified they went into hiding. When the risen Lord appeared to them, some of them refused to believe it. But now with extraordinary fortitude they stood boldly before the Roman authorities, before the Jewish leaders, and before the crowd, proclaiming Jesus as the Lord.

Those who heard the disciples witnessed them speaking in all languages to the extent that no matter what language anyone spoke, they could understand the disciples preaching about God's deeds of power. Everyone saw something in them beyond description.

A woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without any hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me this precious stone.

This is the gift that the Apostles received on the day of Pentecost. The coming of the Holy Spirit enabled them to give up everything, their family, their possessions, their self and keep them focused only on Jesus. Their outlook changed. While with Jesus they thought what they would get from Jesus. Who would be the first in the Kingdom of heaven. Who would be privileged to sit on the right and left of Jesus? Once they received the Spirit there was a total change in their attitude. Their concentration changed to what they could give to others. Even to the point of giving up their very life.

Today it is our turn to receive the Spirit, and accept the gifts the Spirit pours on us. Saint Paul reminds the Corinthian community that, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (I Cor 3:16).  It is the Holy Spirit who develops our intimacy with God.  “God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, ‘Abba!‘ (‘Father!’)” (Gal 4:6).  “God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (I Cor 12:3).  Moreover, we know that the Holy Spirit teaches us to pray (Rom 8:26). 

Today’s Gospel passage also tells us how Jesus gave to the Apostles the power and authority to forgive sins.  “Receive the Holy Spirit.  For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.”  These wonderful words, which bind together inseparably the presence of the Holy Spirit and the gift of forgiveness, are referred to directly in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  But they have a much wider meaning.  Those words remind us of the Christian vocation we all have, to love and forgive as we have been loved and forgiven, in the world of today, which is often fiercely judgmental and vengeful.

Pentecost is not just one day, but every day.  Without breath, there is no life.  Without the Spirit, the Church is a field of dry, dead bones. The Venerable Fulton J. Sheen once said about the Church, “Even though we are God’s chosen people, we often behave more like God’s frozen people–frozen in our prayer life, frozen in the way we relate with one another, frozen in the way we celebrate our Faith.”  Today is a great day to ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle in us the spirit of new life and enthusiasm, the fire of God’s love. 

The poet William Blake wrote a poem about Pentecost. Part of the poem says:

Unless the eye catches fire, God will not be seen.
Unless the ear catches fire, God will not be heard.
Unless the tongue catches fire, God will not be named.
Unless the Heart catches fire, God will not be loved.
Unless the mind catches fire, God will not be known

And in the same tone Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman prayed:

“Come Holy Spirit
Make our ears to hear
Make our eyes to see
Make our mouths to speak
Make our hearts to seek
Make our hands to reach out
And touch the world with your love.  AMEN.”