Feast of the Most Holy Trinity
The Orthodox Churches celebrate Pentecost.
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Feast of the Most Holy Trinity
The Orthodox Churches celebrate Pentecost.
First Reading
Exodus 34,4-6.8-9
So he cut two tablets of stone like the first and, with the two tablets of stone in his hands, Moses went up Mount Sinai in the early morning as Yahweh had ordered. And Yahweh descended in a cloud and stood with him there and pronounced the name Yahweh. Then Yahweh passed before him and called out, 'Yahweh, Yahweh, God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in faithful love and constancy, Moses immediately bowed to the ground in worship, then he said, 'If indeed I do enjoy your favour, please, my Lord, come with us, although they are an obstinate people; and forgive our faults and sins, and adopt us as your heritage.'
Psalmody
Psalm 3
Antiphon
You, Lord are my defence and you lift up my head.
How may are my foes, O Lord!
How many are rising up against me!
How many are saying about me :
'There is no help for him in God.
But you, Lord, are a shield about me
my glory, who lift up my head
I cry aloud to the Lord.
He answers from his holy mountain.
I lie down to rest and I sleep.
I wake, for the Lord upholds me.
I will not fear even thousands of people
who are ranged on every side against me.
Arise, Lord; save me, my God,
You who strike all my foes on the mouth,
you who break the teeth of the wicked!
O Lord of salvation, bless your people!
Second Reading
2 Corinthians 13,11-13
To end then, brothers, we wish you joy; try to grow perfect; encourage one another; have a common mind and live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with the holy kiss. All God's holy people send you their greetings. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Reading of the Gospel
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
John 3,16-18
For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes in him will be judged; but whoever does not believe is judged already, because that person does not believe in the Name of God's only Son.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Homily
The Holy Liturgy today comes to us and suggests that the first steps of the Church born on Pentecost were taken in the name of the Trinity. Everything comes from God, from the mystery of God's limitless love, which moved the Father to send his only Son for the salvation of all peoples. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life" (Jn 3:16), Jesus says to Nicodemus. And the author of the Letter to the Hebrews refers to this love, which is always flowing from God: "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). And after his resurrection, Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit on his disciples, which would lead them to the entire truth. As it invites us to celebrate God's limitless love, the feast of the Trinity has us contemplate the Church, the Christian Community, as the fruit of the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Church, the Christian Community, is not the work of human beings, nor is it the fruit of a simple human project. It is the fruit of God; it is the work of God's love; it is God's great gift to the world. This is one of the great victories of the Second Vatican Council: the Church is above all a mystery of love, a mystery to be contemplated, welcomed, respected, kept and loved. Only in the context of this reality is the Church a community: it is not an institution where only the organization counts. Those who listen to the Gospel with their heart are not only welcomed into an organized community, they are welcomed above all into the Trinitarian mystery, into communion with God. We live in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The beautiful tradition of the sign of the cross, which we are invited to make at the beginning and end of every activity, reminds us of this mystery of which we are part. The Church has a vocation in its very constitution: it exists in service of unity and communion. The feast of the Trinity is an urgent invitation for us to enter into God's own dynamism, to have God's ambitions, to live God's life, and to rejoice in the love that never sets. The Lord, who desires the salvation of all, saves by gathering men and women around himself in a great, borderless family. Salvation is nothing else than communion with God and among men and women. Perhaps it is a naïve dream. It certainly is beautiful. It is God's dream for the world.
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!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
