June 11^th 2017. TRINITY SUNDAY

Gospel: John 3:16-18

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Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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Gospel: John 3:16-18

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.
Whoever believes in him will not be condemned,
but whoever does not believe has already been condemned,
because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

THIS IS THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Trinity Sunday reveals that God’s very nature is love. In the first reading from Exodus, we hear that the Lord’s deepest name is mercy and graciousness. The love of God is not a sentimental love that leaves us as we are, but a love that pardons our sins and transforms our lives. Left to ourselves, we waste our lives and destroy ourselves. We allow our intelligence to degenerate. We abuse our bodies and lead lives without meaning. God shows us the true value of our lives by sending his son to die for us. In Genesis 22, Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son, but God did not want that kind of sacrifice at all. The sacrifice he wanted was that Abraham give his very paternity over to the Lord. It was Abraham’s heart that the Lord wanted. And to win our hearts God gave his only son to us. We took that son, crucified him and killed him, and in this way we discovered that God’s mercy is infinite, extending even to the humanity that destroyed his son. In all of this, God’s motive is to draw us into the life of communion of the Trinity. All we need to do is accept God’s mercy and his invitation to enter into relationship with him. It is not energy or action that God seeks from us, but abandonment. We are condemned – not by our actions – but by our proud rejection of the mercy and pardon of God which seeks to draw us into the life of the Trinity.

The very nature of God is love and mercy. And it is not a superficial or impersonal love and mercy. God’s mercy brings authentic salvation to us. It liberates us and brings us to life

This Sunday we read the marvellous passage from John 3 which tells how God gives his only son so that the world might be saved. We are prepared for this Gospel by the celebrated passage from Exodus 34 in which God fully reveals his name to Moses, announcing also that the covenant must be re-established in the aftermath of the destruction wrought by the Israelites with their worship of the golden calf (Exodus 32). Pope Francis has written a book with the title “The Name of God is Mercy”. This title does not simply arise from some desire of Pope Francis to underline the merciful nature of God. In Exodus 34, God describes himself as "a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity."  The first two terms, “merciful” and “gracious” are synonyms and  speak of the loving nature of God in both its paternal and maternal aspects. Mercy is fundamental to the nature of God. It is not a feature of a partial viewpoint on the Lord where we accentuate one of his attributes. When God reveals himself he shows himself to be love, and he cannot do otherwise. This love is not a sentimental projection of human love. The love of God is salvific and the salvation is not superficial, vain or sentimental. It is not a salvation that leaves everything as it was previously. It is not a pardon that is general and impersonal. It is not like icing on an inedible cake that remains as it was regardless of what is covering it. The salvation of the Lord is real, eternal and indelible. It liberates humanity from evil, but allows man the liberty to refuse this salvation or embrace it.

We destroy ourselves. We waste our intelligence, our time and our energies. But we are precious in the eyes of God and he sacrifices himself to show us how much he loves us. God wants our hearts and is ready to go to the extreme to show us his mercy and enter into relationship with us.

“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.” So much in our way of life perishes. The human being is incredibly wasteful and destructive in so many different ways. One of the important lessons we must learn in life is to distance ourselves from self-destructive attitudes. One of the open wounds in the heart of man is his tendency to destroy himself. We take our intelligence and allow it to degenerate. We use our corporeality in the wrong way and turn it into something utterly banal. We allow our lives to develop in grey and meaningless ways. In order to halt this self-destruction we need to comprehend the value of our lives. On this feast of the Trinity we hear the proclamation of the words of the Gospel which demonstrate that our lives in the eyes of God are so precious that God puts himself on the line for us. He will go to the extreme so that we do not perish. Recall in  Genesis 22 that Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son to the Lord. The Lord asks Abraham to open himself completely to God, to the extent of sacrificing his beloved son. In reality, God does not want this sacrifice from Abraham. What he really wants is Abraham’s heart, and Abraham gives that by consigning his very paternity to the Lord. In the end, Abraham does not lose his son but becomes the father of a great multitude. God, by contrast, does the opposite. He offers us his son and we take him, crucify him and take his life away. Our impoverishment and doubts prompt us to take things to this awful extreme. But it is only by sinking to this absurd level that we discover that the name of the Lord is mercy. God accepts our bad disposition towards his tenderness. He allows us to crucify his son and then offers us the new life of the resurrection.

Salvation means to be drawn into the life of communion of the Trinity. It does not require a big effort on our part, but abandonment. We are condemned, not by our sins, but by our proud refusal to accept the love and mercy of God, the mercy that draws us into the life of the Trinity

The Gospel goes on to say that whoever believes in Jesus will be saved. In order to be saved we do not need to do anything dramatic. We just need to entrust ourselves to his mercy. This is the greatest challenge: to believe in his love. This belief does not require energy on our part, but abandonment. It requires a type of serene receptivity. No other salvation exists apart from that which we receive, not earn. The secret of God is relationship. This Sunday we proclaim the truth that the interior life of God is one of communion, a life of interchange, gift, gratitude and love. The Holy Spirit is the love that exists between Father and Son. The terms “love”, “union”, “communion” and “fraternity” are vain attempts to express that which is fundamental to God. But intellectual expression is not our goal. The Lord wishes to draw us into this communion and in order to do so confronts that which is the lowest, most distorted, and ugliest in man - his sin. Condemnation does not result from our waywardness and destructiveness but from our refusal to allow ourselves to be loved and pardoned. Our pride keeps us outside of communion with the blessed Trinity. When we allow ourselves to be loved and pardoned, we are introduced into the divine life which is a life of communion. Relationship is our salvation. Solitude is the inferno.