GROWING IN THE AWARENESS OF THE TRINITY


TUESDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

2 Cor 8:1-9; Ps 146:2,5-9; Mt 5:43-48

Our Growth in the Awareness of the Trinity

Through seeing the will of God the Father in everything, we exercise our faith in him by accepting every condition and event as coming from his loving hand. The insight gained in this exercise of faith brings us to the mystery of the Father as the origin of all things, visible and invisible. The salvific insight has its source in the paschal mysteries of Jesus Christ. His paschal mysteries are the source of divine light that illuminates every darkness in the world and our individual lives and experiences. We understand that he is the way, the truth, and the life in this sense. Everything in existence: entities, events, and processes are from the Father, who is the unoriginated origin of all creatures. Everything comes to be by his will, which we comprehend only through his word. Hence, the exercise of faith in the Son of Man is the admittance of divine light that illuminates every darkness; above all, it is the generation of the life and mind of the Son with which we comprehend the Father’s creation. Therefore, our individual experiences contain the will of the Father for us, but they are sealed or coded in spiritual meaning. The Holy Spirit helps us understand the will of God the Father for us. He recreates the mind of Jesus Christ in us by training our spirit to grow in Jesus Christ through feeding on his mysteries or the daily bread from the Father.

To foster the growth and development of the life and mind of the Son, Jesus teaches us to call God our Father in prayer daily. The Holy Spirit helps us to put into practice the teaching of the Lord when he joins with our spirit to pray: ‘Abba Father.’ The daily training of our sonship improves our minds to the mind of Jesus Christ. It increases our capacity for self-sacrifice for the good and salvation of others; It enriches our awareness of the presence of the Father through understanding his holy will expressed in everything. These make the Holy Spirit more active in our lives, pouring the love of God into our hearts. The activity corresponds to the illumination we receive from Jesus Christ about the loving will of the Father in our lives. Saint Paul confirms these in the lives of the members of the churches in Macedonia. “Now here, brothers, is the news of the grace of God which was given in the churches in Macedonia; and of how, throughout great trials by suffering, their constant cheerfulness and their intense poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity.” Our acceptance of the will of the Father in our different situations of life makes us an offering or sacrifice similar to the Son of Man, the Lamb of God, for the salvation of men. As Paul stated, “they offered their own selves first to God and, under God, to us.”

These offerings demanded by the will of the Father are most effective in transforming us into the Son of Man and the temple of the Trinity. “Remember how generous the Lord Jesus was: he was rich, but he became poor for your sake, to make you rich out of his poverty.” Our Lord himself teaches that the offering of ourselves in love to fulfil the will of God in every situation, especially in painful and trying conditions, makes us children of the heavenly Father. “You have learnt how it was said: You must love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; in this way you will be sons of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on bad men as well as good, and his rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike.” The Gospel invites us to live the life of Jesus Christ. To be in the state of grace is to own the life of Jesus Christ, guided and guarded by the Holy Spirit. Since this life is that of the Son of God, the Father has care of it and sends the Holy Spirit to produce and care for it in us. He sends the daily bread for its nourishment and growth. The Father feeds our spiritual life by his will, which is our daily bread. The Trinity is within us as our spiritual life. “You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Let us pray: O God, our strength and our hope, graciously hear our supplications, help us to understand our utter weakness and inability to do anything in our spiritual life, furnish us your grace in abundance, that we may follow your word in all things and please you by our faithful resolve to accept your holy will in everything by our self-sacrifice. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

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