The gift of persons

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity-B, 26 May 2024
Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40 ><}}}*> Romans 8:14-17 ><}}}*> Matthew 28:16-20

*Photo by author, the Holy Trinity as depicted at the Parish of St. John the Baptist, Calumpit, Bulacan, March 2021.*

We are now into the Ordinary Time and for the next two consecutive Sundays we are celebrating three important Solemnities in the next three weeks.

First in these series of Solemnities in Ordinary Time is that of the Most Holy Trinity, the highest truth in our faith which is our belief in One God in three Persons. Contrary to common beliefs, mysteries can be explained and understood, but, not fully well. After all, mysteries are not really meant to be solved but simply be lived and enjoyed like the mystery of the person which is in the heart of the Most Holy Trinity: How can there be three Persons in one God?

Moses said to the people: “Ask now of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created man upon the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of? Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live? Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with his strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terror, all of which the Lord, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?”
Deuteronomy 4:32-34

*Photo by author, sunrise at the Lake of Galilee in Israel, May 2019.*

Our first reading this Sunday invites us too to examine ourselves and our lives to see how God has been so personal, so relational with us. As we say in Tagalog, “Sigue nga, paano mo naranasan ang Diyos?”

How did you experience God? Was it not just like the way we experienced other people in our relationships?

Very often when we meet people, our tendency to welcome or accept them were a result of their conduct, of their approach to us. If they are kind and good natured and warm, we are easily disarmed and we feel like knowing them.

That is what Moses was telling his people at that time, including us today: recall how personal was God in dealing with us with all His warmth and love because they indicate relationships and therefore, another person to relate with.

*“The Trinity” (1425-27), an icon by Russian artist Andrei Rublev from wikipedia.org.*

Remember how the books of the bible were written: the first questions the biblical writers asked were not the origins of the world but those asked by Moses today. After they have experienced the kindness and love of God that they eventually asked and reflected on the origins (genesis) of everything on earth and the universe.

In that experience, they felt a relationship with a Father as source of all life like dads giving life as well as protecting life and giving back life to those who may have lost it. That personal experience of God as a Father so loving and caring moved the biblical writers too to ask and reflect on the presence of evil and sufferings as we find in the Wisdom books like the Psalms and the Book of Job.

There is always the primacy of God’s personal relationship and of His conduct towards us humans that prompt us to “know” Him, to believe Him. Like people dear to us, God first revealed Himself to us in the most personal manner through a succession of events and other people we have met and known. That is why when we say “I believe in God”, we not only express a concept but also a relationship. Most of all, in this relationship is a commitment too to get to know God as a person! Before knowing any details about God or people, we first have relationships no matter how little it may be at the start. Later, we get phone numbers and other contact details with people we meet because we feel “committed” to getting to know them more in the future. In a sense, we believe them that is why we keep in touch with them. The same is true with God.

*Photo by author, St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai in Egypt, May 2019.*

The word person means “a conscious relating being”. Whether with God or with others, we experience the person and the relationship unfolding through time. There is always first the experience of a conduct like kindness before questions and details of a person come.

That word “kindness” actually indicates a relationship because its root is kin that means “one of us” or “of same tribe”. When we say “he is so kind to me”, it means he treats me as one of his family or his own. In that kindness and whatever good conduct present, there seems to be an “invisible line” linking us with people we meet. Or with God which the Holy Spirit does.

Of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the most elusive in nature and yet, it is the most frequently and concretely in contact with us. It is the principle of unity in the Trinity and among us as we have reflected last Pentecost Sunday. Today, St. Paul explains to us how the Holy Spirit as a Person keeps these relationships among us and with God united and strong, enabling us to cry out “Abba” or “Our Father”. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the courage to keep our relationships as persons and with God especially at this modern time when some people refuse to recognize God and worst, some are bent in deleting God entirely from life.

That is why in today’s gospel, Jesus instructed His disciples including us today to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt.28:19-20). Persons always presuppose relationships; hence, the need to gather others always like what God did and continues to do in His Church.

It has been three weeks since my mother peacefully passed away. People ask me how am I doing. Truth is, I am not so well. I miss mommy so much. It is true we only realize the value of a person after he/she is gone. And it is most difficult with mothers!

*Photo by author, Mt. Sinai in Egypt, May 2019.*

Every time I come home, I have that strange feeling, wondering deep inside me of that great mystery, how did it happen that it was my mom – just one person – who had left us but our home has become so empty? Since May 7, that image of mommy’s empty room after her body was taken to the funeral had remained in my mind and as days passed, I have noticed how our home has been so hollowed when there are still my siblings and niece staying in the house?

That is the gift of person. A person fills not only spaces and homes but most of all, fills us. Every person fills another person in the same manner God first fills us with His love through persons dearest to us. That is why we believe in God.

Let us have good relationships with others so they may experience God too in their lives. Let us gather in the Father’s love in Jesus Christ to celebrate the gift of life together in the Holy Spirit through one another. Let us pray:

God our loving Father,
thank you for the gift of life,
for my gift of person
and for the gift of so many
persons in my life;
dwell in me, Holy Spirit,
fill me with your fire and life,
animate me with the Son's
justice and love
so that in myself
the mystery 
of the Blessed Trinity
be alive.
Amen.

Thank God for life’s mysteries

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity-A, 04 June 2023
Exodus 34:4-6, 8-9 ><}}}*> 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 ><}}}*> John 3:16-18

*Photo by author, sunrise at Anvaya Cove, 19 May 2023*

Our Sunday gospel on this Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity is one of the shortest proclaimed in the year with just three verses that may be finished in just two minutes. And yet, it contains the most popular verses from the whole Bible used in the song “Tell the World of His Love” when St. John Paul II visited our country in 1995.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 3:16-18

*Photo by author at the Anvaya Cove, 19 May 2023*

See how these three verses powerfully summarize our Christian faith of a personal, relating God who is love himself, doing everything in love which is the very meaning of the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity.

The word mystery is from the Greek mysterion, something hidden but now revealed by God. While it is true that a mystery is beyond human reason because it is divine, it may still be explained and understood though not fully. That is why it is described as non-logical or beyond reason but not illogical which lacks reason.

Most of all, a mystery is not a problem to be solved because it simply cannot be solved at all. In fact, we need to keep mysteries like secrets because mysteries give meaning and depth to our very existence, to our lives. This is the problem with so many people these days lacking mysteries in life when everything about them is shown, even overexposed in the social media. Perhaps that is why so many people are losing meaning in life because they no longer have depth as everything is bared and opened. Life has become so artificial for many not realizing that the most wonderful things in life are those hidden and not seen. Like mystery of God!

There lies the beauty of mystery that is not a problem to be solved but a reality we need to accept and embrace, or better, to allow ourselves to be wrapped by it. As we try to learn and understand more of every mystery in life, especially of God and of our very selves, the more we find life meaningful, the more we appreciate it especially our gift of faith.

When we allow ourselves to be absorbed by life’s mysteries, primary of which is the mystery of God in three Persons, the more we appreciate life itself and our very selves who are in fact a mystery too to ourselves. As we move on in life, as we age and mature, we realize life is not about covering distances but going deeper within ourselves, being transformed into better selves and persons like God, loving and merciful. Eventually we realize too that each one of us is in fact an indwelling of the Holy Trinity, an image and likeness of God himself.

Here we find mystery as a call to a relationship, a communion with God and with others that is why Jesus told Nicodemus in the opening verse of our gospel today that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.“

A mystery is a mystery because it is shared. It is nothing if it is merely in itself. We are intrigued with stories and reports because they create relationships in us and with us. That is why God in himself as a mystery is a community of persons. Person implies relationship. From the Latin word persona which is a translation of another Greek word prosopon or the mask worn by stage actors/actresses to indicate their roles in a play or drama.

Remember the term dramatis personae or list of actors in a play and their roles? To a certain sense, there are three persons or personae, that is, roles in our God as we profess in our Creed: the Father as Creator of everything, the Son as the Savior, and the Holy Spirit as the Sanctifier. With God, his persona is eternal while in drama or play, it is temporary.

The more we enter into relationships, the more we relate with other persons, the more we discover the many mysteries of this life, of God because we sooner or later find out we in our selves and humans are not enough. Things cannot relate no matter how hard Steve Jobs and his successors tried their best to design Apple gadgets that conform to human form to give them a sense of relating. Not even animals nor plants no matter how intimate we grow closer to them. Only God suffices.

*Photo by author at the Anvaya Cove, 19 May 2023*. Though I do not know how to swim, I have always loved the beach where everything and me becomes one in God like the sky that is so far and yet so close. A mystery so lovely!

That is the good news of this Sunday – our awesome and all-knowing, all-powerful God opening himself to us to enter into a personal relationship in him and with him through his Son Jesus Christ who sent us the Holy Spirit to enable us in this sacred mystery.

In sending us Jesus Christ his Son, God took the initiative to be close to us. In fact, closest to us as our breath in sending us the Holy Spirit.

Every time we think of God, when we marvel at him and his creations, the more we find ourselves so different, even too distant from him while at the same time we also feel and experience in the most unique manner how closest we are to him. That is one of life’s most profound and deepest mysteries when are so surprised to our very core of our being that despite our sinfulness and worthlessness, we are still so loved and cared for by God. Difficult to explain but go back to our lowest moments in life when suddenly we sighed for a brief relief that amid our pains and tears, God suddenly comes to comfort us like when Moses met God face-to-face at Mount Sinai.

Having come down in a cloud, the Lord stood with Moses there and proclaimed his name “Lord.” Thus the Lord passed before him… Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship.
Exodus 34:5-6, 8

Note that God is called “Lord” or “Adoni” in Hebrew because the Jews do not speak out loud the name of God spelled as YHWH, or Yahweh as we say. It is interesting to know that the first letter for God in Hebrew, Yoda, is pronounced like a breath, yahhh. Because that is who God is, our breath, our life, so closest to us but we rarely recognize him because we are so busy with our selves and many endeavors.

That is why I always insist until now to everyone especially seminarians to seriously and faithfully do the sign of the Cross which is more than a prayer but an expression of the mystery of the Trinity not far from us. Every time we make the sign of the Cross properly, that is when we let our selves be wrapped by God and his mysteries.

*Photo by author, Anvaya Cove, 05 January 2023.*

In the sign of the Cross, God comes closest to us in our very selves and body, relating to us in our head being the Father who is over and above us always, the creator of everything; as the Son who became human like us born by the Virgin Mary passing through her womb, experiencing everything we went through except sin; and as the Holy Spirit on our shoulders giving us balance in this life.

See that at the resumption of Ordinary Time last Monday, we transition to Ordinary Sundays today and next week celebrating the two most important doctrines and mysteries of our faith, the Most Holy Trinity and the Incarnation of Jesus which is what is next Sunday’s Body and Blood of Christ is all about.

Today we reflect on the highest truth of our faith, the mystery of one God in three Persons to remind us that our faith is more than knowing the teachings but most of all of relating in love and mercy, kindness and service like God. Finding that mystery of the Trinity in ourselves leads us to finding God in others too. Amen. Have a blessed week.

The Holy Trinity, our Life and Love

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, 12 June 2022
Proverbs 8:22-31 ><}}}}*> Romans 5:1-5 ><}}}}*> John 16:12-15

*Photo by Dr. Mylene A. Santos, MD, 2021.*

Surveys worldwide say that for most Christians, to speak of God as the Blessed Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit does not matter that much at all. They simply believe in God, period.

But sad to say, the same surveys say that many Christians are turning away from the Church, imitating those who refused to belong to any religion at all but simply profess they believe in God or that there is God. Their anthem is John Lennon’s 1971 hit “Imagine” that says, “Imagine there’s no heaven… No hell below us… And no religion too.”

Worst, there are some who regard Jesus Christ as just another great prophet who had lived in the past with unusual wisdom and teachings, not realizing that without the Trinity, Jesus would not be Jesus whom we believe.

Jesus said to his disciples: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. 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.”
John 16:12-15

*Photo by author, St. John the Baptist Parish, Calumpit, Bulacan, 02 May 2022.*

Mystery of Trinity as gift of God

For most Catholics including priests, discussion of the Blessed Trinity is shunned because it is a “mystery”, the most difficult to explain and understand of all our teachings that many find so apart from daily life. And that is totally wrong and untrue as we fail to realize that the more we understand or have some grasp of something or someone, the more we find their meaning and relation with our very selves, the more we appreciate life!

That is why on this first Sunday as we resume Ordinary Time, we celebrate this Solemnity of the Holy Trinity so we would have some understanding of this highest truth in our faith and thereby appreciate its meaning and relation with our daily living.

First of all, the Blessed Trinity as a mystery can be explained and understood but not fully. Mystery means something hidden that has been revealed. The Trinity was totally unknown among the Israelites in the Old Testament but its concept have been there in its many books beginning with Genesis and today as we have heard from the Book of Proverbs. It was revealed in and by Jesus Christ who cautioned his disciples then and now that indeed, many of his words cannot be fully grasped right away.

A mystery can be explained and understood because it is something that continues to unfold, revealing its many aspects to us in the light and guidance of the Holy Spirit. And the more we become aware of its nature, the more we realize how the Trinity can concretely evoke the unity and beauty of our lives in God!

Let us take our cue from the Lord himself who tells us today that “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.” Jesus is not insulting us but simply telling us today that learning and understanding the mystery of God is concretely an action of the Holy Spirit and not simply an effort of human intellect. There has to be a lot of praying and studying at the same time. And the most traditional Catholic gesture and prayer we can use in learning more about the mystery of the Blessed Trinity is the sign of the cross which we sadly take for granted.

Our sign of the cross, mystery life and love of the Trinity

Since becoming a priest, I have always insisted to people especially children and youth to make the sign of the cross properly because it is the very mystery of the Trinity. We sign ourselves in the form of a cross to remind us we are the indwelling of God as Jesus told to us last Sunday that “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn.14:23).

*Photo by Sis. Mira Mandal Sibal, August 2021.*

What a beautiful image, of being the “indwelling” of God who is a person, not just a being who relates with us as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

In the sign of the cross we find and experience the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection. It was Jesus Christ who revealed to us, slowly but surely, the mystery of the Triune God in his very life and teachings with its summit on the Cross and later in his sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Notice how every time we are in a tight situation, when we are shocked or surprised at something, we instinctively make the sign of the cross to praise and thank God we are still alive, that we are loved. There is always the unconscious realization of life and love after pulling through a difficult situation and making the sign of the cross.

Life and love are the most common yet most profound and deep mysteries we have as persons. And the more we dwell into its beauty and majesty, the more we are absorbed into the mystery of God as a community of persons relating to us. It is a mystery we are able to grasp little by little of how God fills us with his life and love.

Both the first and second readings show us how God poured out his life (first reading) and his love (second reading) for us. In the Book of Proverbs, we are shown how “at the beginning” God “poured forth” wisdom on his creation and was so “delighted” with man. This wisdom according to Jesus in his teachings is the Holy Spirit, the very breath of God who enlivens us. On the other hand, St. Paul reminds us in the second reading how God’s love was “poured out to us by the Holy Spirit” to be saved in Christ who also promised us with eternal life we all hoper and aspire for.

Like the very mystery of how and why we are alive, why we are loved, these are the very same feelings we have with God as a person we feel and experience as the Father loves us and gives us life, how Jesus our brother forgives us and accepts us, and how the Holy Spirit enlightens and comforts us.

See how these feelings and experience of being alive, of being loved and so in love are difficult to explain and even understand but so very true that we dwell in them and even keep them to relish and enjoy often. If we could just do the same with God as Father and Son and Holy Spirit then we can find our own beauty and unity as a person too. Then we learn to value more our lives, accepting everything good and bad in us as we reach out to others too in kindness and mercy.

Celebrating the mystery of the Trinity

See how we begin and end each Mass with the sign of the cross, a sign of how we entrust in God everything we are and we have not only in the celebration but in our very lives itself.

When we start the Mass with the sign of the cross with the priest greeting us, “May the grace of Jesus Christ, the love of the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all”, we are reminded that every Mass is a celebration of God’s invitation for us to be in his presence as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This becomes clearer when we realize that every Mass is not just our celebration but a celebration of God’s gift of Self to us in Jesus Christ whom we receive in Body and Blood so that we may become more perfect members of his Body, the Church, animated by the Holy Spirit.

That is why we have to make the sign of the cross slowly and deliberately at the start of the Mass to get the feel of God in person and ask his help that we be able to surrender our very persons to him in the celebration.

At the end of the Mass, we again close it with a blessing by the priest with the sign of the cross again as we are dismissed and sent forth as God’s presence to the world and people we meet. By making the sign of the cross at the end of the Mass, we commit ourselves to continue in our daily life the love and kindness, the mercy and forgiveness we have celebrated. We promise to go forth and share the peace of Christ to everyone by remaining rooted in God who is Life himself, recreating the world in his Love Jesus Christ by fighting the evil and sins that beset us so that we make God’s glory and holiness present in this fractured world in the Holy Spirit.

As we make the sign of the cross especially at the start and end of the Holy Mass, may we realize this mystery of the Blessed Trinity that we are God’s indwelling and presence, his beauty and unity in the world. Amen.

Have a blessed week ahead!

And God said… get real, man!

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Cycle A, 07 June 2020

***Exodus 34:4-6, 8-9* ><)))> 2 Corinthians 13:11-13* ><)))> John 3:16-18***

Our empty church at the height of the lockdown in March-April 2020.

Two young ladies attended our 4:00 PM Mass last Sunday. Just before the Lamb of God, the other lady collapsed and fell on the floor. Thank God she suffered no injury; later after the Mass I checked on her to see if she was sick or maybe hungry that caused her to collapse.

She said she could find no other reason for feeling dizzy and later collapsing except that they have walked two kilometers from their home under the intense heat of the sun that afternoon to celebrate Mass in the parish. She added that sometimes they also ran so as not to be late.

Then, they told me something that really touched me and broke my heart: “sawa na po kami magsimba sa Facebook Live kaya po kami nagpunta sa Parokya para magsimba” (we are fed up joining Facebook Live Masses that we decided to celebrate Mass at the parish).

As I prayed this week, reflecting on this Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, that story from my two parishioners kept on echoing in my head because that is the reality of God in the Holy Trinity: a God who loves because he keeps on giving, without taking anything in return.

The reality of God in the Holy Trinity

Beginning this Sunday as we resumed Ordinary Time in the liturgy, we are celebrating three solemnities successively: Trinity today, Body and Blood of Christ or Corpus Christi next Sunday and Friday after that, the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

In a sense, these three solemnities remind us that God is with us always; hence, on this Sunday as we celebrate his being God in three Persons, he is also telling us to “get real” with him especially in this age of virtual realities and media manipulations.

Getting real with God is like my two parishioners who walked two kilometers under the sun just to celebrate Mass in the parish because they were fed up with online Masses that cannot capture entirely the experience of God in an actual Mass.

Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images, Baclaran Church, 09 February 2020.

When we come to think of it, God does not need to prove himself to us. He simply shows us himself. That is why those two parishioners were willing to sacrifice walking two kilometers because they must have received something, must have experienced something from this God who is so personal, relating and so real that they wanted to experience him personally in the actual Mass.

The same must be true with us all who miss going to actual Masses, who continue to pray at home.

Why do we pray, why do we praise God, why do we ask him for mercy and forgiveness for our sins, why do we ask him for so many things, and the list can go on with one essential question: why do we come to God?

Is it not because he comes first to us? He makes himself known to us by giving himself to us, showering us with many blessings both material and spiritual, surprising us with so many wonderful things and sights like sunset and nature that we praise him? Most of all, he is so kind and loving that we feel sorry when we are mean with others, when we choose to do wrong, when we are not that good like him?

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
John 3:16

That is the essence of God, a personal and relating God who gives everything because he loves us. Only God can adequately “speak” of him to show us he exists in ways so marvelous we cannot even dissect yet jump into conclusion right away that “it is the Lord!” like Peter in Lake Tiberias.

When we speak of a Trinity, of Persons, we speak of relationships that presuppose giving and loving. That is God in himself that he poured out this love in him by first creating everything (Father), then giving us his Son to save us after we have turned away from him, and to ensure that we never get lost again and find our way back to him, gave us the Holy Spirit as Advocate and Counselor.

Here we find God is more than a concept or an abstract and structure in our minds that we have construed or created. He has always been there. He has no need of proving himself to us, unlike us who always have to prove ourselves with others.

God is the giver and the gift himself because he is perfect and complete unlike us who can only give gifts and things as representations of our very selves.

And there lies more the mystery of the Holy Trinity — in his being both the gift and the giver, God remains perfect and one even if he keeps on giving and giving without taking anything for himself, a mystery he shares with us by asking us to be like him in giving so we would remain full like him.

Photo by Mr. Jim Marpa at Carigara, Leyte, 2019.

Something’s got to give

This mystery of the Trinity, of a relationship of persons that only gives yet never depleted or exhausted reveals to us what we must can and must always do as created image of the loving God.

Time and time again we have proven in history and in ourselves that it is only in giving when we truly receive, when we are truly human, truly loving.

This pandemic is telling us in no uncertain ways that our lifestyle of having and gaining has led us to more wanting and more wasting, more destruction and more separation.

God is telling us in the midst of this pandemic that we get real — learn to give and forgive, to let go and let God!

We are all linked together as one, a community of beloved, saved and forgiven though imperfect and sinful. On Mount Sinai Moses saw for himself this God giving everything despite his people being so stubborn, that he asked God to accompany them in their journey.

Since then God has always accompanied us in our journey in life though we always turn away from him, wandering off in the wilderness, following other paths that we end up more lost, more tired.

What are we willing to give up in this life to experience fullness in God and with others?

Getting real is giving up ourselves so we may be filled by God so we may experience life’s fullness in him and in our relationships with others and even with nature. Amen.

Our closed church but open hearts willing to give, willing to sacrifice will enable us to go through this crisis, more complete, more fulfilled.

Dance with My Father

The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul

Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity, 16 June 2019

Proverbs 8:22-31 >< )))> Romans 5:1-5 >< )))> John 16:12-15

I know.

You must be saying our title is from a hit song by the late Luther Vandross Jr. with Richard Marx, “Dance with My Father”.

Since its release in May 2003, I have always loved that song. Like Vandross Jr., I sometimes ask God to return my father even for a while not only for me but most especially for my mother who was celebrating her birthday when he suddenly died of a heart attack in 2000.

Though my father did not dance much like Vandross Sr., one of the things I miss so much from him were how he would discuss so many things to me especially whenever I would join him in our library. And when I could not understand everything, he would always tell me, “paglaki mo maiintindihan mo rin yan, anak” (you will understand that when you grow up, son).

Eventually those words came to sound like music to me as a I grew up until later in life I realized that indeed, I have come to understand the many things we have discussed when I was still a child! Most of all, now that I am a grown up man still having a hard time comprehending many things in life, my father’s words still soothe me. Although he is no longer around, I always tell myself when facing difficult situations or questions that someday, I’m going to understand this – “paglaki ko maiintindihan ko rin yan”.

Jesus said to his disciples: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.”
John 16:12-13

Jesus during his Last Supper Discourse telling the Apostles his departure and sending of the Holy Spirit. From a depiction found on the Maesta in Siena by Duccio (1308-1311). From Google.

On this Eleventh Sunday in the continuation of our Ordinary Time after Lent and Easter, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity. In the past Sundays we have been slowly introduced by the Lord in his teachings about the Holy Spirit. Today we come to full circle with this celebration of the Holy Trinity, the highest mystery in our faith that there are three Persons in One God.

For many Christians, especially Catholics, they feel that believing in One God is enough. To speak of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – matters very little for them that they fail to see what the mystery of the Trinity evokes concretely in our lives.

It is true that we cannot find an explicit statement in the whole Bible telling us there is One God in Three Persons. It is a doctrine that slowly unfolded in the Sacred Scriptures reaching its highest point of revelation in Jesus Christ’s Incarnation and sending of the Holy Spirit.

This is the essence of Christ’s farewell discourse during their Last Supper together: the Holy Spirit will not introduce anything new to them. The Holy Spirit will just enlighten and bring out to the open the many dimensions of the teachings of Jesus that were mostly found also or rooted in the Old Testament. Sometimes in life, there are so many realities already present but we do not recognize right away because of so many factors that hide them from us. But the moment we discover some new dimensions of life’s truth and reality, the more we find its beauty! That is why we have to somehow understand the Trinity to fully appreciate the beauty and wonder of God in our lives.

In the Old Testament, God did not speak about himself being a Person per se, as a full, conscious relating Being like humans. Moreover, God never spoke about his being One in Three Persons to the people at that time because they would never even feel such mystery as they were surrounded by polytheistic nations. It was enough at that time to insist on the people that there is only One God who relates personally like humans, seeking intimacy.

thus says the wisdom of God: “…then was I beside him as his craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the human race.”
Proverbs 8:22,30-31

In the first reading, God presents himself as a person, one who relates with others personified in wisdom juxtaposed in two images equally evocative, as an artisan or creator and as a child happy and proud to be around his parent.

Here I find Luther Vandross Jr.’s “Dance with My Father” so applicable: he was seven and a half years old when his father died of complications in diabetes. But his fondest memory of him was how he would dance with his mother at home and would always pull him to dance with them!

Isn’t that beautiful, three people dancing together like one entity?

Incidentally in theology, we also have this explanation of the Trinity as a “circle dance” called perichoresis. It is a way of seeing the Trinity as action than definition. If you ahve been to Turkey, you must have visited Cappadocia where once lived great thinkers of the Church called Cappadocian Fathers who thought of perichoresis.

According to the Cappadocian Fathers, in perichoresis, each Divine Person is like a dance partner who contributes and has a specific role in the choreography so that what they do together make up the dance. The Persons like partners in the dance pull and push against one another, not in resistance or force but in support and unity. The dance is in constant motion and the partners are not focused on themselves but on the others. Likewise as we experience in “club party”, the dance circle is never closed so that more people are invited to join in the celebration until each becomes a part of the dance, sharing in the joy and unity.

In perichoresis, the Trinity is presented more as a relationship of Persons: the Father is the Creator, the Son is the Redeemer and the Holy Spirit is the sanctifier. Applied to us, we are all children of the Father who are brothers and sisters in Jesus as indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Blessed Trinity invites us to their dance of life and grace as we find here the gist of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans today that through our faith in Christ, we have found the peace of God through the outpouring of so many gifts upon us by the Holy Spirit that we now have a relationship of friendship and trust in him, culminating in participation “in the glory of God” (Rom.5:2).

This Sunday, we are all invited to join in the dance of God, the dance of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In that dance, the Father reveals to us his hidden plans for us in Christ through the Holy Spirit of how he wants us to live to the fullest in him. It is only in dancing in him and with him can we know this mystery of God, mystery of self, and mystery of life in general. Though we cannot fully understand his mystery, God slowly unfolds to us his many dimensions that little by little, we see more of him, nmore of ourselves, and more of others.

That is when we find GUIDANCE, for God-U-and-I Dance.

When there is guidance, we find direction and do not get lost.

A blessed week ahead to everyone. Amen.