June 12, 2017
Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
the only way Christians can understand God is in relationship.
God is relationship: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Are a relationship of love one for another.
The idea of God does no one any good
Unless there is a relationship with God.
God, the God who is Trinity, did not make us to know about God
God made us to be in relationship with God.
In his encyclical “On Care for Our Common Home”
Pope Francis takes us one step further, reminding us that
God did not just make us individually;
We are part of an evolving creation that was 4.5 billion years old
Before the first human being evolved.
We evolved as part of the earth and part of the future evolution of the earth.
We exist only in relationship to the earth.
On this Trinity Sunday let’s take a few moments
To reflect with Pope Francis on the sacredness of relationship:
Our relationship with God,
Our relationship with each other
And our relationship with the earth.
These thoughts come directly from
Laudato Si: On Care For our Common Home
Where the Holy Father reminds us that:
God’s love is the moving factor in all living things,
All living things have their own intrinsic value,
All created things live in dependence on each other
to serve each other.
“The entire material universe speaks of God’s love,
his boundless affection for us.
Soil, water, mountains, everything that is,
as it were a caress of God…
to sense each creature singing the hymn of its existence
is to live joyfully in God’s love and hope.”
So what about us? What about human beings?
We are charged with protecting and developing
the potential of the earth, the shared inheritance of all.
Human beings do not have a right
to hoard resources meant to support and enrich all.
We do not have a right to destroy its species,
To destroy the biological diversity of creation,
To degrade the integrity of the earth,
To destroy its climate,
To strip the earth of its forests and wetlands,
To contaminate its waters, its air, its land, its life,
All this is a sin, an offense against love, an offense against God.
This is not about being politically correct
It is about living alongside God.
It is about loving the world as God loves the world.
It is about realizing that as Pope Francis teaches:
“Everything is related
and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters
on a wonderful pilgrimage,
woven together by the love God has for each of his creatures
and which also unites us in fond affection
with brother sun, sister moon, brother river and mother earth.”
Sin is not fake news, it is self destruction.
It places us beyond the happiness God wants for us
It places other people, especially the poor
In a world of needless suffering and deprivation
It places us in a hell of our own construction.
The first gesture we teach our children is the sign of the cross:
“In the Name of The Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
The first thing we teach them is the relationship
That is the love of God.
A love that can only be experienced
In relationship with other people
In relationship with all other creatures
In relationship with our planet.
Each time we make this sign of the cross
We commit ourselves to love
To love God with all our heart soul and mind
To love our neighbor as ourselves
And to love our common home.
Pope Francis prays:
“God of love, show us our place in this world
As channels of your love
For all the creatures of this earth,
For not one of them is forgotten in your sight.
Enlighten those who possess power and money
That they may avoid the sin of indifference,
That they may love the common good, advance the weak
And care for this world in which we live.
The poor and the earth are crying out,
O Lord, seize us with your power and light,
Help us to protect all life,
To prepare for a better future,
For the coming of your Kingdom
Of justice, peace, love and beauty.
Praise be to you!
Laudato Si! Amen.”
Paulist Fr. Mark-David Janus is president of Paulist Press.