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Our Sunday Reflection - May 26, 2024
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I am with you always.
John 28:20
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Introduction to the Liturgy of the Day
“Did anything so great ever happen before?” Moses asks in today’s first reading. After celebrating Easter and then Pentecost, we may ask the same question. Throughout Easter Time, which has just come to a close, we recalled how the Son made the ultimate sacrifice for us, the Father raised him from the dead, and then they sent the Holy Spirit to be with us always. Indeed, as we celebrate the Holy Trinity today, we realize that nothing so great as all this has ever happened before. And that those events of two thousand years ago continue to happen for us each day.Introduction to the Liturgy of the Word
In each of today’s readings, the speaker points out God’s remarkable uniqueness. Moses tells the people that no other god had ever done all the one-of-a-kind wonders that the LORD had done for them. Paul writes that through the Holy Spirit we have been adopted as God’s own children, a relationship with God that is like no other. In telling the disciples to make disciples of all nations, he commands them to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, a new way of baptism. How fortunate we are to receive the grace we do from our unique God.Reflections
- Because God is Father, Son, and Spirit—three persons in one God—God is by nature relational. Also, each relationship among the three persons is unique. For instance, the relationship between Jesus and the Father is different from the relationship between Jesus and the Holy Spirit. When God created the world, God created humans in God’s own image. This means that we are also relational beings, with a unique relationship to each other, as well as a unique relationship with God. We imitate God when we treat others with love and mercy, for God treats us with love and mercy. But more than that we imitate the relationship of the three persons of the Trinity.
- Sad to say, in Ancient Rome, infants who were found abandoned were as likely to be “adopted” as slaves as adopted as children. So when Saint Paul writes to the Romans that they received a “Spirit of adoption,” not a “spirit of slavery,” he is distinguishing between two different ways in which children could be brought into a family (8:15). Indeed, he says those who have “adopted” Christianity, so to speak, can call God, “Abba, Father!” (8:15). That is, they can use the words children would use to address their own fathers—their birth fathers or adoptive fathers. The bond between the Christians of Rome and God is a bond of love, like the bond between children and parents.
- This too is our bond with God. We are bound to God with love, as we are with our own parents, or children, or spouse. These bonds of love suggest the bonds between Father, Son, and Spirit. When we were baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we were bound with all three persons in God. Called to live out that bond, we express it with the love that in turn binds us with others. Bonded with those we love and with those who love us, we form an ever-widening family, rooted in the bonds of the Trinity.
Question of the Week
Who is someone I am strongly bonded with? How is our bond suggestive of those of the Trinity? Who is someone I’m barely bonded with? How can I strengthen and nurture that bond?
-from Pastoral Patterns
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readings of the mass
LISTEN HERE to the Audio Recordings of the Readings of Sunday, May 26, 2024
SELECT HERE for the Readings of Sunday, May 26, 2024
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Offerings
The Sunday offerings are a portion of our blessings that we give to God (Church) in gratitude to what God has done for us...ONLINE GIVING OPTIONS -
Reflections on the readings
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News from the Vatican
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