Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Holy, Holy, Holy ...

Let us listen to the Little Daughter of Divine Will as she encounters the Most Holy Trinity:

As I was in my usual state, I seemed to see the Most Holy Trinity. They were looking at One Another, and in those gazes Their beauty was so great that They would remain ecstatic at the mere gazing upon One Another. In this state They overflowed with love, and were as though stirred by that love, to then become more intensely ecstatic. So, all of Their good and delight was comprised within Themselves, and the whole of Their eternal life, beatitude and exercise, was enclosed in this word alone: ‘Love’. And the whole beatitude of the Saints was formed by this perfect operating of the Most Holy Trinity. 

While I was seeing this, the Son assumed the form of the Crucified, and coming out from Their midst, He came to me, sharing with me the pains of the crucifixion. And while remaining with Me, He brought Himself once again into Their midst, and offered His sufferings and mine, satisfying for the love that all creatures owed Them.

Who can say Their delight, and how satisfied They were by the offering of the Son!

It seemed that, since in creating the creatures nothing had come out of Their interior but contained flames of love; so much so, that in order to give vent to this love They began to create many other images of Themselves - only when They receive what They have given, are They then satisfied - that is, love They gave, love They want. So, the most awful affront is to not love Them. Yet, Oh God, three times holy, who is there that loves You?

After this, They disappeared; but who can say what I understood? My mind got lost, and my tongue is unable to articulate a word.

Luisa Piccarreta – Book of Heaven: January 13, 1903

The Spirit of Truth

As Jesus' post Resurrection departure approaches we can sense in the liturgical texts that the focus of attention is slowly shifting -or rather expanding- towards the fulfillment of Jesus promise, the coming of the Spirit.

"If you love me, 

you will keep my commandments.

And I will ask the Father,

and He will give you another Advocate, 

to be with you forever.

This is the Spirit of Truth, 

whom the world cannot receive,

because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.

You know Him, because He abides with you,

and He will be with you." 

(John 14: 15-17)

I don't know how we have managed to make of our Faith a matter of beliefs. Jesus, obviously, presented us with a way of life: "if you love me you will keep my commandments". It is not about having the concepts right. It's about copying the attitudes, the life, the style, the values of Him who said,

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

It is our way of life what will make of us dwellers of the Spirit of Truth -the Spirit of Jesus, and Living Memories, Icons of Christ. 

 TRUTH is not a thing we possess, but a person by whom we must 

allow ourselves to be possessed   

Dialogue And Proclamation 19/V/1991-#49

This Spirit of Truth the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. This is the world we live in, so full of confusion, of lies, of manipulation. But it is not a Creed what makes us to be in the "right" track, rather it is a deep conversion of heart that allows Jesus to take over our lives and live in us. Then He will abide in us and be with us, and we will know the Truth.

"The one who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me;

and the one who loves me will be loved by my Father,

and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

(John 14: 21)

  Let us pray in earnest for our personal conversion and for the gift of this revelation of the Spirit of Jesus to us, to the Church, and to the world:

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               Fill me with life anew,

               That I may love the things You love,

               And do what You would do.

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               Until my heart is pure,

               Until with You I have one will,

               To live and to endure.

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               My soul with grace refine,

               Until this earthly part of me

               Glows with Your fire divine.

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               So shall I never die,

               But live with You the perfect life

               In Your eternity.

                              Amen.          (Liturgy of the Hours -Edwin Hatch -Public Domain)

God's Love: Meek and Humble of Heart

Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. Lk 23:34

Jesus hardly could speak when he pronounced these words. "They" had nailed him to a cross and were now casting lots on his garments and hurling insults at him. He was dying and very short of breath and yet his concern was on his Father's "pain" in the face of what was happening with him, and with the lack of conscience and consciousness of his executioners. He loved these men as they were, they didn't need to change in order to be loved by Jesus, but his love was the most powerful of invitations to making the choice for love and for the change of behavior.

A few moments later Jesus breathed his last entrusting himself to his Father's hands. That was the end of his living among us but not the end of his giving of himself to us. A soldier pierced his side with a spear and, like in any birthing, messy water and blood came forth together with the new life, the Church. This is the beginning of our birthing into the Christ being in the womb of Love, the Love that we celebrate today on the solemn Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Jesus had said, "Who sees me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). Now he was showing us what Love looks like, how God loves, and also what it means for us the invitation "Learn from me because I'm meek and humble of heart".

In St. Paul's Hymn to Love (1Co 13) we learn some beautiful characteristics of Love, but looking now at Jesus we can see that God's Love in a human person is utterly free. Here is where the puzzling mystery of evil and sin become part of the picture as they represent our real choice of saying "no" to Love, to life, and to our existential calling.

What we call the Christian spiritual journey is our life-long gestation of growing into the freedom of this kind of Love, a Love created through God's grace at work with our free choice. It is not an easy journey but knowing the destination may help us get through some of the more trying territories in the way. Because we are to be partakers of God's very being, our transformation is about becoming Love ourselves like Christ and in Christ.

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

Pope Benedict is visiting Cyprus. The event is getting attention from the Media as crowds gather and special celebrations mark the importance of this exceptional visit.

It would make world news if the Pope, the Vicar or representative of Christ and the head of the Church on earth, were to visit my humble Hermitage and grant me a private audience. And yet as significant as that would be, it would not be even close to the privilege I enjoy every day of my life: several hours of private audience with Christ Himself, our Risen Lord and Savior, present in the tabernacle of the Hermitage.

Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, handed over to his apostles a divine invention to allow every human being of every time and place to get in direct contact with Him in that decisive moment and event in human history in which all power on heaven and on earth was given to a human being. (Cf. Mt 28:18)

The power of Jesus of Nazareth risen from the dead is so complete, absolute, total, universal, and perfect as is the power of God. This ultimate power is utterly humble and self effacing, self-giving. It is the power of Love, the power of Humility.

In the mystery of God's Humility, Christ gives his real human-divine person in sacrifice of love for us in this invention called the Sacrament of Thanksgiving, the Eucharist. By uniting through faith our intention and willingness to his power at work in the sacrament, we can be part with Christ in his sacrifice, which happened at a given time and place in human history but belongs in the eternal "now" of God. This is the priestly privilege of our Christian baptism.

But the Eucharist is even more. God's Humility made this sacrament the means to God's becoming food for the insatiable hunger of the human soul. A small piece of bread, a wafer, is at the same time the most ordinary and the most extraordinary -and Divine- of things, it is the Body and Blood, the Soul and Divinity of Christ Himself, of God. As any piece of bread, this Bread too is for us to eat, and as we eat the Body of Christ in the form of bread or drink his Blood  in the form of wine they don't become "us" as it happens with any other food or drink we take, but rather it is us who become Christ, not in a figurative but in a real way. This is, par excellence, the sacrament of our Divine transformation. It is here where the power of God is most available to us in our choice to grow and to mature into the full stature of our nature and our calling. It is up to us to unleash in ourselves and in the world the power of this Gift from potential to operative, from invitation to response, from God's desire to our reality.

God is Love. As a Lover, and as a human (and Divine) Lover, there is still more to the Eucharistic invention. The little piece of Bread is also the place of encounter, of Presence, where Christ is with us [Emmanuel = God-with-us] always, even to the end of the Age (Mt 28:20). The tabernacle of our churches, the Eucharistic celebration and communion, the silent adoration before the Monstrance with the Sacrament of Love is the trysting place where we meet the Beloved and are fed into greater hunger and desire. We don't learn this through readings though; we only get this by direct experience.

Let us respond to this and so much more that God has for us in this Mystery of Presence and Union, and as we drink from the Well let us become what we contemplate, let us be living Eucharist for our brothers and sisters. And let's give God THANKS as we rejoice in the Lord, always.