We believe
that God was completely fulfilled, perfectly happy and content, not
in need of anything, before God created the universe and the human
race. Wouldn’t it make you wonder why God created us at
all, since we have proved to be so much trouble? And God knew
about all the trouble that it was going to cause. So why did God
create us?
Think for a moment of some time when you
were deeply happy about something: a wedding, a birthday, the birth
of a child. Our instinct is to share it. We want others to be a part
of that happiness and so we celebrate these times of happiness. That
is one way to understand 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
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. We are God’s
greatest creation! God also created us to be like him, with the
ability to love and reason and above all with free will.
However,
there was one ‘catch’ as it were. In order for us to be able to
love God we had to have free will, 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, or it isn’t love. So God made us free, which 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
the happiness that God intended for us. This is a great mystery.
God created us and gave us freedom, even though He knew that some of
his own creatures would reject him.
A friend of
mine, a very devout Catholic, after he was married and had children,
said to me one time that when he looks at his children he couldn’t
believe that God, who is so loving, would let people go to hell; that
God would create hell. How could any parent allow their children
deliberately to suffer? But the paradox is that no matter how much we
love our children, we cannot force them to love us back. You know the
pain of falling in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, or
pushes you away. Hell is the pain that people who reject God end up
with, because they reject the only one who can give us total
fulfillment. If you push away total happiness, you get total misery.
If you reject all joy, then you end up with all pain. That’s what
hell is: losing all that can fulfill us and bring us joy. God doesn’t
send us to hell. We choose it if we reject God. If we have real
freedom then hell must also be real. If heaven is guaranteed for
everyone, then we are not truly free, because to be truly free means
we have the choice to love or not to love.
Here is the famous icon of the Trinity, known as 'Rublev's Icon', painted in the 15th
century by Andrei Rublev. Icons are not just paintings, they are
meant to be a kind of window into the other world. There is a whole
ritual of prayer that goes with creating one and everything in the
icon has a meaning. I just want to mention a few things in this image
which are beautiful. In the Old Testament there is the story of
Abraham making his journey, when three men suddenly appear to him.
They are angels and he realizes after talking to them that he is
talking to God. They represent the Trinity. The colors of the three
figures tell us something. On the left is the image of the Father. He
wears the color of gold, but it seems to be changing. No one can know
the face of God. The Father is pointing to the Son who is in the
center. He is wearing a dark cloak, the color of earth and a bright
blue cloak the color of heaven. Jesus unites heaven and earth by his
death and resurrection. Jesus is fully human and fully divine. Jesus
is pointing to the Spirit on the right. He is wearing light blue of
the sky and light green of the ocean. The Spirit is the who brings
order to the Father’s creation of heaven and earth. But the most
interesting part of the icon is the space at the front. That is the
space that is kept for us. God invites us to be part of his life. Our
ultimate goal is to be united with God in heaven and the house in the
top left, is the symbol of the Father’s house where there is a
place for us. The image is also telling us that God is with us on our
journey, which is long and tiring. So we rest with God and we also
share the Eucharist to give us strength. The Eucharist is represented
by the bowl in the center of the table, which contains the lamb. We
are invited to be part of God’s life and God is with us every step
of the way.
I think the
most beautiful image we are given of how God loves us is in the story
of the prodigal son. In this story, a father has two sons. One of
them demands his inheritance before the father has died, which is the
equivalent of wishing him dead to his face. He then goes off, wastes
all the money and comes back to his father ashamed. While the Son has
been away, 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 story of the prodigal
son is teaching us how God is with us and how God sees us. No
condemnation, only God’s desire for us to find happiness.
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, Pope Francis and many others, often people we know,
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 them, 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. The greatest way that we
imitate God is by loving the people around us, sacrificing ourselves
for others. That is what God did for us and that is what God invites
us to do for each other.
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.
Please note, I will be away for the next three weeks, so no homilies. God bless,
Murchadh
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