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Liturgy of the Sunday
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Liturgy of the Sunday

Feast of the Most Blessed Trinity
Feast of St. Charles Lwanga who with twelve companions suffered martyrdom in Uganda (1886). Memory of Blessed John XXIII
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Libretto DEL GIORNO
Liturgy of the Sunday
Sunday, June 3

Homily

On this first Sunday after Pentecost the Church celebrates the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. This is not a random connection that binds the Church, which is taking its first steps on the day of Pentecost, to the mystery of the Trinity. The disciples, after receiving the Holy Spirit, leave the narrow and close walls of the house where they were "for fear," and they start communicating the Gospel and baptizing the first people who converted to the faith. They were obeying what Jesus ordered them to do before leaving: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Mt 28:19). On the day of Pentecost, the confusion of the languages and the division of human beings, symbolized by Babel (Gen 11:1-9), were defeated by the Gospel preaching, which, without destroying the differences of languages, gathered the peoples of the earth into one family of God.
On the feast of the Trinity, God tears down the veil that covers his mystery, breaks the silence on his life (the Greek word "mysterion" means actually "to be silent") and he makes us understand the truth of a world that is made in his likeness. Every page of the Scripture underlines the impossibility of knowing God’s mystery. He lives in an insurmountable light, that "no one shall see and live." God himself breaks the silence - and only He could do it - to reveal himself to men and women within history "by trials, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm," as today’s reading from the first of the three solemn speeches from Moses in Deuteronomy. And not only: "Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son" (Heb 1:1-2), the Letter to the Hebrews adds. And on the day of Pentecost, from heaven the Lord God poured the Holy Spirit on the disciples so that, as Jesus said, the Spirit may lead then to all the truth.
Well, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that today we contemplate in the Trinity, are the root, the fountain and the support of the Church born on the day of Pentecost, a sign of unity for all of humanity. The Church does not grow from the ground-that is, it is not the result of the confluence of interests of the people who form it, it is not the fruit of commitment or of the drive of generous hearts, it is not the sum of many individuals who decide to be together, it is not the association of people of good will who want to realize a noble goal. The Church comes from on high, from heaven, from God. More precisely, from a God who is a "communion" of three people. They-as we try to babble some words-love each other so much that they are singularly one thing. From this communion of love the Church is born and towards that communion it walks, pulling along the entire creation. The Trinity is the origin and end of the Church as it is the origin and end of creation itself.
For this reason, the Church is above all else a mystery; it is a mystery to contemplate, welcome, respect, cherish and love. And, it is a mystery of communion. Only from this perspective can we understand the Church as a community, as a structured body. Therefore, those who listen to the Gospel with the heart are not only welcomed into an organized community, but above all are gathered up into the very mystery of the Trinity, in communion with God. We live in the Father, in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. This is a great and inestimable gift, but one which also comes with responsibility. The Church that is born on Pentecost is not neutral; she has at the heart of her constitution a vocation: to be at the service of unity and communion. While the world in which we live seems bewitched by the egoism of individuals, groups and nations that do not know how (and often do not want) to look beyond their own specific situation, beyond the so-called national interests, the Church of Pentecost, born of the Trinity, has the task of mending the lacerated flesh of the world and knitting back together the communion among the peoples. The Spirit infused in the community of believers gives it a new energy, as Paul writes in the Letter to the Romans: "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption" (Rom 8:15). And Jesus, before sending off the apostles, tells them: "I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Mt 28:20).
The strength that the Lord gives his children heals humanity’s flesh, wounded by injustice, greed, oppression and war, and generates the energy to get up and walk towards communion. This has been God’s plan since the beginning. There is, indeed, a correspondence between God’s creative process and his internal life. What God said is not without meaning: "It is not good for man to be alone." Man-initially, it meant both man and woman-was not created in the image of a solitary God, but of a God of love. Each individual person, as well as the entirety of humanity, will not and could not be themselves outside of this communion. Only within this communion will they be able to save themselves. For this reason, and rightfully so, the Second Vatican Council reminds all believers that God did not want to save individuals singularly, but by gathering all of them together in one holy people. Born from the communion to which it is also destined, the Church finds herself engaged in the living history at the beginning of this millennium as the leaven of communion and love. This is a high and urgent task that truly renders petty (and culpable) our internal quarrels and misunderstandings. The quarrels within our communities and the divisions within our Christian churches cut deep at the communion among peoples. Those who resist the energy of communion become accomplices to the work of the "prince of evil", who is the spirit of division. For this reason the apostle Paul, making us sense the urgency of communion, can repeat again today: "Do not let the sun go down on your anger" (Eph 4:26). The feast of the Holy Trinity is a pressing invitation to each of us to place ourselves within the very dynamism of God so as to live his life. The Lord realizes salvation, as Vatican II says, by gathering together men and women around him in a large and boundless family. Salvation is called communion with God and among all peoples.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
 The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR