Mark 10:45

Tag: Lord

  • When Words Fail

    When Words Fail

    The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Cycle A

    Exodus 34:4b–6, 8–9; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; John 3:16-18

    When in your life have you ever been left speechless – when words just wouldn’t come? I don’t mean sports teams letting you down or movies that were so bad you couldn’t find words. I mean profoundly important moments when words were simply inadequate.

    In my own life, words have escaped me most often at times centered around love: As a child, feeling my mother’s embrace; as a husband, my wife sitting by my hospital bed; as a father, seeing our newborn children; as a son, burying my parents. I think it’s true for all of us that there are times when love renders words useless.

    That is exactly where the Trinity is encountered, and the readings help us see it.

    In the first reading, God descends in a cloud and stands with Moses. To understand the real power of the moment, remember when this occurs. Moses has already seen the burning bush, led Israel out of Egypt, crossed the sea, and received the Law. After all those mighty acts, God finally reveals His Name — and Moses falls silent before love.

    From this we learn that while God’s relationship with His people includes powerful deeds, rituals, laws, and covenants – and those are important – that is what God does. Far more important than that is who God is: faithful, merciful love. All encapsulated in one Name: Lord.

    That reminds me of something St. John of the Cross once said: “In giving us his Son… [God] spoke everything to us at once… and he has no more to say.” Jesus isn’t one of God’s communications to the world, he is the communication; the highest revelation of Almighty God to the world.

    And once again, it’s all about love. “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.” Jesus, the Father’s one Word, handed over. Not spoken into the air, like “Lord,” but placed into history; made flesh, laid in a manger, nailed to a cross. Jesus – the Father’s love made visible – is the name made speakable whose love still defies all speech.

    The Holy Spirit is a little more difficult to understand, but Church Tradition helps. From it, we learn that the Holy Spirit is the living love between the Father and the Son — a love so real, so perfect, that He is not merely a feeling or force, but a Divine Person.

    If you don’t understand that, you’re in good company. The relationship of the Trinity is a supernatural mystery. But we don’t have to understand it. St. Paul didn’t. Notice, though, what he did do: pray it: “the grace of the Son, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit.”

    Grace. Love. Fellowship. Those we can understand. And those are the essentials of the Trinity, the very pattern of divine love into which we are baptized and called to live.

    And I do understand this much: the love we feel in those speechless moments — the embrace, the newborn, the grave — is an icon, a symbol, of the love that has been happening within God from all eternity.

    If we take nothing else away on Trinity Sunday, let’s take these two things:

    First, the Trinity isn’t some abstract, theological formula. It is the original and greatest love story, of which every true human love is a participation and a reflection.

    Second, every time we trace the Sign of the Cross on our body, we are doing what Moses did on Sinai — falling prostrate before the greatest Love of all time. Not explaining it. Not debating it. Just receiving it.

    So let it be a moment of silence. Let words fail. That is exactly where the Trinity is.

    —

  • Ripple Effects

    Ripple Effects

    Friday of the 9th Week in Ordinary Time
    Memorial of St. Ephrem the Syrian, Deacon and Doctor of the Church

    Tobit 11:5-17; Mark 12:35-37

    In 1970, a teacher noticed that, if he asked one student to stop an annoying or distracting behavior, other students also stopped it; conversely, if he failed to reprimand a student for that behavior, other students began doing it. He called this the ‘ripple effect,’ a term we still use to describe how the behavior of one person affect others, who then affect others, and so on, like the ever-widening waves produced by a stone dropped in a pond.

    We see examples of this in the readings. Tobiah’s return is one example. His mother, tense for most of the story because his return is so overdue, had turned that tension on her husband; three times so far, she has been very short with him. But upon Tobiah’s return, she rejoices; as a result, she takes a softer tone with Tobit. Then there is how Tobiah’s return affected Tobit. Tobiah has brought healing; once healed, Tobit first joyfully blesses God, then bonds even more closely with his son. Finally, Tobiah’s new wife, Sarah, appears; this causes Tobit and Anna to rejoice, then their joy spreads to all the Jews of Nineveh. In the gospel, our Lord’s preaching is another example. He quotes Psalm 110:1, which first delights his hearers, then went on to delight the early Church. In fact, it delighted her so much that the authors of the New Testament cited that verse more than any other in the Old Testament in support of Jesus as the only begotten Son of God. That’s a ripple effect so large it’s almost beyond measure!

    We also see ripple effects in the life of St. Ephrem, who we remember today. One troublesome stone in the pond was his temper; ultimately, it so adversely affected those around him that he ended up in prison. Once there, though, Ephrem cast a much more productive stone in the pond: contemplation. Taking the time prison gave him to reflect on how his behavior affected himself and others, Ephrem promised God that, if he was released, he would make each day count. The ripples from that stone were impressive; once out of prison, he composed hundreds of hymns, was ordained a deacon, became one of the first to incorporate music into the sacred liturgy, to use women singers in the choir, and was foundational to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

    Of course, this should prompt us to take a moment to consider the ripple effects in our own lives, both the good and the bad. First, think about how the good we have done has allowed others to do good, which has in turn allowed still others. Imagine the positive impact we have made on all those people! What better reason is there to praise God, as the psalmist sings today? Yet, at the same time, what better reason to ask God’s mercy, for if the good we have done has rippled through the world in a positive way, what have our sins done? While this is a sobering thought, it is key to any good examination of conscience. In the end, only God knows, and may well reveal at our judgment, how the good we have done and the sins we have committed have affected the destinies of other people.

    The book of Tobit makes clear that there is a supernatural element to all of this. Therein lies a warning; we know the torment the demon inflicted on Sarah in the story, and we know the accuser is still among us, whispering in our ear. But on the other hand, therein also lies the best news of all: That, in his infinite love and mercy, God will come to us as Tobiah and Raphael came to Tobit and his family, heal our brokenness, and bring us joy that radiates outward and touches all we come in contact with. All we have to do is ask, for the prayer of a contrite heart yields the greatest ripple effect of all time: the merits of the cross and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. As St. Ephrem once said,

    “Glory be to Thee, Who laid Thy cross as a bridge over death, that souls might pass over upon it from the dwelling of the dead to the dwelling of life!”

    St. Ephrem, pray for us.