Saturday, June 2, 2012

Feast of the Holy Trinity, Year B (Gospel: Matthew 28:16-20) We are made in his image


We believe that God was perfectly happy and content, not in need of anything, before He created the universe and the human race.  Wouldn’t it make you wonder why on earth did God bother to create us at all, since we have proved so much trouble?  And God would have known about all the trouble that it was going to cause.  So why did He create us?

Well this is how it makes some sense to me.  Think for a moment of some time when you were deeply happy about something.  Usually our instinct is to share it.  We want someone else to be a part of that happiness.  That’s why most people have a big party at their wedding, because they want others to share in their happiness.  And that is one of the reasons why God created us, simply because in his goodness he wanted others to share in his own happiness.  And so he created the spirit world, that we understand as the angels and then He created the human race, in order that we could share in his own happiness.  The book of Genesis says that we were the last thing that God created which is a biblical way of saying that we were the most important thing, the masterpiece of God’s creation.  And we were created with the ability to love and reason.
 
But there was one ‘catch’ as it were.  That is, that in order for us to be able to love God we had to be free, so that we could freely choose to love God, otherwise it wouldn’t be real love at all.  Real love has to be free, since you can never force someone to love you.  You can encourage them, but you certainly can’t force them.  Love has to be free.  So God had to make us free, and this meant that we would have the freedom to love God and gradually find our way to happiness, or to reject God which would ultimately mean we would lose that happiness that God had intended for us.  It’s a strange paradox.  But in his goodness He created us and gave us the freedom, even though He knew that some of his own creatures would reject him. 
 
I think the most beautiful image we are given of how God loves us is in the story of the prodigal son.  While the Son has gone away and squandered everything his father is constantly waiting and hoping that he will return.  And when he does finally return the father just celebrates.  There is no giving out, no warning that this must not happen again, just celebration and rejoicing.
 
The Lord knows how difficult it can be for us to make the right choices and so He gives us people to guide us, the commandments, the teaching of his Church, his own Word in the bible and many other things to help us along the way, so that we won’t be short of the direction and encouragement that we need.  He also sends us holy people every so often, like Francis of Assisi, Padre Pio, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Theresa, and many others, because they radiate God and they are a real sign to us of the Lord’s presence among us.  These people seem to radiate God and so many people are drawn to them because they sense that presence.  That is why God sends us particular chosen souls every so often, to inspire us and remind us that we are not alone.  I know of several people who worked with Mother Theresa and it completely changed their life, because they met God through her.
 
The feast of the Holy Trinity is a celebration of love; the Trinity is a community of Persons who share total love and joy between themselves, and this Holy Trinity reaches out to us with that same love and invites us to join them.  If we respond to the Father, the Son and the Spirit, then we are gradually drawn more and more into that love.  It starts in this world and it will be fulfilled in the next.
 

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