6TH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER: 2010

“There is no living in love without suffering” Thomas à Kempis
6TH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER: (9/04/2010)
Acts 15:-2. 22-29; Ps 66:2-3.5-6.8, Rv 21:10-14.22-23. Gospel 14:23-29
“And we shall come to him and make our home in him” (John 14:23)
Dear Brethren,
The message of the Blessed Trinity dwelling within is perhaps; one which is least understood and lived by us Christians. Yet Holy Scripture again and again comes back to it, because of its importance. In fact it is fundamental to the Christian life.
Every year we celebrate the work of our Redemption with varying degrees of solemnity: Christmas, Easter and other important feasts of the year. We celebrate our Redemption every week on Sundays. We celebrate it on special occasions: Baptism, Marriage and other sacraments. We celebrate our Redemption daily at Mass and in private prayers.
But you and I know that we often we easily stop at the exterior splendor: decorations, good singing, sermon, homily (which is rarely appreciated). Sometimes not even that, but rather our own exterior: the suit I shall wear, the shoes, but these are not important fruit of our Redemption. Christ was not born merely to enable us to have beautiful services. Christ was born and Christ died to bring about a change in our lives.
The purpose of our Redemption was to raise us to higher level of life, from the merely human life, upwards, to share in divine life.
The day you were baptized you were adopted by the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The day you were baptized, the Blessed Trinity took possession of your soul, and you became consecrated to him as his temple. From that moment, as long as you remain in the state of grace, the Blessed Trinity continues to dwell within you. This is the burden of Christ’s message which the liturgy of today reminds us of. “If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him”
Can anyone of us stand up and say that the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity is the focal point of his life? How hard do you try to reflect on it and realize what it means to you to be dwelling place of the Blessed Trinity? The fact that we have no outside sign to remind us of the indwelling place of the Blessed Trinity creates a great difficulty. But how often do you try to remember in a day the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. We Catholics, I speak of Catholics because they are people, I know best, are in great danger of being untrue to ourselves. Our lives often contradict our beliefs. Today we have so many Catholics who work very hard to avoid what is right and good than those who try to avoid evil.
If we genuinely believe that we are meant to remain temples of the Trinity, his dwelling places, could we deliberately and consciously defile them with sin? There Catholics today who feel real pride, not in trying to keep away from sin, but in the number of sins they have committed. God is merciful and no one can set limits to his mercy. But it’s difficult to see how he can forgive us when we do not have true sorrow, when we do not resolve to amend our lives!
Christ makes it clear: “if anyone loves me” and the proof that we love him is to “keep his word” only then will we be loved by the Father and only then will they come to us and make their home with us.
Let us pray. No! Prayer is not enough, let us resolve and pray to return to the life of grace and persevere in it, so that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit may make their home with us.
“God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts”. Ethel Wilcox