A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 5, n. 27)
Trinity Sunday, Year C – June 3, 2007
“The Spirit of the Father and the Son”
BIBLE READINGS
Prv 8:22-31 // Rom 5:1-5 // Jn 16:12-15
N.B. Series 5 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year C from the perspective of the First Reading. For another set of reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year C, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US and open Series 2.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
The following story entitled “Half Truths” is humorous, but it can give us an idea of the importance of Jesus’ promise to his disciples concerning the Spirit of truth who would guide us to the fullness of truth.
The first mate had somehow gotten drunk, so that night the captain wrote into the record for the day, “Mate drunk today.” The mate begged the captain to take it out of the record, for it might cost him his job with the ship owners. It was also his first offense. But the captain refused saying, “It’s a fact and into the log it goes.” Some days later the mate was on the bridge and it was his turn to keep the log. He duly recorded the location, speed, and distance covered that day. Then he added, “The Captain, sober today.” The captain protested that this would leave an altogether false impression – that it was an unusual thing for him to be sober. But the mate answered in the very words of the captain, “It’s a fact and so into the log it goes.”
A thing may be true, but the time and manner of telling and the circumstances may give an entirely false impression of another’s action or character. Many of us are languishing in situations of incomplete truth or are suffering the painful consequences of half-truths. Indeed, many lack complete understanding. Our contact with Jesus Truth-Way-Life, the glorified Lord and Redeemer, inspires us to seek the fullness of truth and nurtures in us a faith seeking understanding.
This Sunday’s Gospel reading (Jn 16:12-15), taken from Jesus’ Farewell Discourse to his disciples at the Last Supper, underlines the life-giving promise of Jesus about the coming of the Spirit of truth who will guide his disciples to all truth. Since the disciples could not bear to listen to his foreboding words as a Suffering Servant and were unable to grasp the meaning of his paschal destiny, Jesus avowed: “But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine. For this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you” (verses 13-15).
The role of the Holy Spirit in our life is to make the mission and message of Jesus more and more clear in every age. The revelation of God’s saving love by Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is complete, but our understanding is incomplete. We need the guidance and the memory of the Holy Spirit to enable us to grasp, understand and accept the import, the personal implication and the challenge of Christ’s paschal destiny as a Suffering and Glorified Lord. Through the guidance of the Spirit of truth, we become more united with the Paschal Mystery of the incarnate Truth Jesus Christ, begotten and sent by the saving God, who loves us beyond telling.
The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 7, comment: “The understanding, as well as the revelation of the mystery, depends on a particular intervention from above, concretely on the action of the Holy Spirit, and not on the effort of human intellectual activity. The Spirit of truth adds nothing to the revelation sealed by Jesus, but is given us to guide us to all truth … It bears witness to the Lord – it glorifies him – for it will take from what is the Lord’s and declare it to the disciples in order to open to them an increasingly deeper understanding welling up from within … This role attributed to the Holy Spirit and which it assumes in the Church toward disciples corresponds to its place in the Trinitarian life: it is the One that completes. In the same way as it insures communion between the three divine Persons, it unites believers to the Father and to his Son by guiding them to all truth … Through the Holy Spirit, the Son continues – completes – until the end of time, the mission received from the Father: to lead humankind to eternal life, with the Father, in the communion of the Holy Spirit.”
The Old Testament reading of this Sunday’s liturgy (Prv 8:22-31) presents the Spirit of truth as infinitely creative and intimately united with the creative act of God: “When the Lord established the heavens I was there, when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep. When he made firm the skies above, when he fixed fast the foundation of the earth, when he set for the sea its limit, so that the waters should not transgress his command; then I was beside him as his craftsman” (verses 27-30). St. Irenaeus of Lyons identified “the wisdom of God”, who acted as his craftsman on the day of creation, as the Holy Spirit. All three members of the Most Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thus worked together to fashion the cosmos.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church reinforces the truth that creation is the work of the Most Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In article n. 292, it asserts: “The Old Testament suggests and the New Covenant reveals the creative action of the Son and the Spirit, inseparably one with that of the Father. This creative cooperation is clearly affirmed in the Church’s rule of faith: There exists but one God … he is the Father God, the Creator, the author, the giver of order. He made all things by himself, that is, by his Word and by his Wisdom, by the Son and the Spirit who, so to speak are his hands. Creation is the common work of the Holy Trinity.”
The feast of the Most Holy Trinity that we celebrate today gives us an opportunity to stand back and contemplate the one loving and saving God, manifesting himself in salvation history as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In a context of prayer, it gives us a glimpse into the actual life of love at the heart of the Trinity. It also provides us some of the fuller context of God being three Persons in one nature. This wonderful feast, furthermore, also invites us to celebrate our intimate participation in the life of the Blessed Trinity.
Harold Buetow concludes: “The essential meaning of the Trinity has to do with life generating life. The life energy that is thus generated overflows into the entire universe, creating and renewing the face of the earth … It is within the Godhead that the divine Persons’ relationship is distinct. Moreover, the Persons are intensely active, more active than the energy exploded from nuclear fission. But the three Persons are also one. And their unity is an intensity of love and communication between one another, infinitely more than what may exist within the most lively and loving community we know of our earth. The Father is eternally begetting the Son; the Holy Spirit is eternally proceeding from the Father through the Son. In the First Testament, the Father revealed himself as love. Because of his transcendence, though, he seemed to be awesome and far away. The Son became a human being in order to show the love of the Father and to show us what God intended for us from the beginning. The Holy Spirit manifests to us and in us the life of the Son and of the Father … Our whole Christian life is caught up in the life of the Trinity. Liturgically, we pray to the Father through Jesus and in the unity of the Holy Spirit. And we are taught to imitate the Trinity, which means entering more and more fully into the life of God, a life which is never static or selfish. Many in our tradition have followed this injunction and become saints.”
PERSONAL REFLECTION
By Melinda Pitarre, Spiritual Director
Graduate Student in Catholic Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA-U.S.A.
It is with good reason that we are invited by the Church to read these verses from the Gospel of John on Holy Trinity Sunday! Here, in Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples before he died, he declares that they will be full participants in the Trinitarian life that he shares with his Father. Jesus says: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you to all truth” (v. 13). Note the word all. He also says: “Everything that the Father has is mine … the Spirit will take what is mine and declare it to you” (v. 15). Note the word everything. Taken in the context of the entire discourse (Jn 14-17), this is nothing short of a promise that the Holy Spirit will reveal God’s Trinitarian depths to the People of God!
As I reflect on these verses, I notice that the Spirit will speak what he hears (v. 13). The Spirit hears the Father speaking the words that glorify the Son, the intimate conversation between the Father and the Son in the depths of God. These are the words that the Spirit declares to us, and so we have a share in the fullness of truth, the super-abundance of God’s life, and “the everything” that fulfills our deepest human longings. These longings can only be satisfied as we hear the message of the Spirit, and allow ourselves to be led more fully into this life-giving, Trinitarian revelation of deepest intimacy with God.
Lately, I have been reflecting on the relationship between my own human finitude and God’s infinitude. Today’s Gospel passage begins with Jesus’ words: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now (v. 12). The fact that the disciples cannot bear the full message of Jesus at this moment certainly points to their human limitations and weaknesses, their finitude. I found this verse to be an invitation to ask myself: how much can I bear of what Jesus has to tell me, even as his Spirit is seeking to lead me to “all truth” and the “everything” of the love between the Father and the Son? We know that later in this same discourse, Jesus tells his disciples that soon they will be scattered and apart from him for awhile (16:32-33). Apparently, they too will experience a kind of death, a separation from Jesus, as they have known him. At this moment, when he is most absent, they will experience their own finitude most acutely. Yet, Jesus says they cannot bear it now. This word, too, holds a promise. There will be a time when they can bear all that he has to tell them. The very experience of their own limitations seems to be a part of what will prepare them for receiving this new life that Jesus' death, resurrection, ascension, and glorification will make possible. When I realize my own limitations and shortcomings, this is also the moment when God’s infinitude, “all truth,” and “the everything” can break-in. The border of my limitations is precisely where I meet God and where the Spirit leads me ever deeper into God’s Trinitarian life.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. What is the role of the Holy Spirit in my life? Do I welcome him as the Spirit of the Father and the Son who will lead me to the fullness of truth? How do I respond to the guidance of the Holy Spirit leading me to a deeper understanding and fuller participation in the paschal destiny of Jesus Christ, the beloved Son-Servant of God? Is my personal life immersed in “the truth” of God’s love, revealed by his Son in the Holy Spirit?
B. Do I try to find time and leisure to contemplate the marvelous work of God’s creation? Do I perceive in the beautiful universe the common work of the Blessed Trinity? Do I praise the handiwork of God the Father who created the world in his Son, the Word Incarnate, and in the Holy Spirit, the divine Wisdom and craftsman? What are my endeavors to promote the integration of creation and to manifest the glory of God in a world charged with his grandeur?
C. Do I strive to glean the meaning of the Blessed Trinity as essentially “life generating life”? Do I feel in the created world the energy and grandeur of our loving God? What do I do to make the feast of the Most Holy Trinity more meaningful and transforming? Do I make an effort to respond more fully to the presence and action of the Blessed Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Do I endeavor to participate more intimately in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit? How is my life a “glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
(Cf. Commission Francophone Cistercienne, La nuit, le jour, 108 // Days of the Lord, vol. 7, Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1994, p. 37)
Leader: Unknown God, O you who are a presence in the nights of our history, through you, in our darkness hope dawns. Break the forces of death. With our eyes we shall see you, O unknown God.
Assembly: Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Leader: Jesus Lord, you who were with the Father before the ages, your coming uncovers for us the mystery. Open a trail in our life. We shall walk in your footsteps, Jesus Lord!
Assembly: Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Leader: Spirit of fire, O you who come, take humankind in your breath. You show forth in its weakness your power. Burn with love the children of God. We shall enter into your joy, Spirit of fire.
Assembly: Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. … Everything that the Father has is mine. For this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” (Jn 16:13,15)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray that Christian disciples may welcome more intimately the presence and action of the Blessed Trinity in their life. Endeavor to live a life of truth, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and in communion with Christ, the Word Incarnate begotten by the Father. To give glory and honor to the Blessed Trinity, be diligent in promoting the integration of creation and be courageous in resounding the message of salvation in today’s world that cries out for truth, justice and peace.
B. ACTION PLAN: To help us respond more lovingly and intimately to the gift of the Holy Spirit that has been poured into our hearts, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR (Vol. 3, n. 27): A Weekly Pastoral Tool.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
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Website: WWW.PDDM.US