Beginning of time – wisdom

Wisdom, truth and love seem to be the themes of readings today, and that love will lead to hope.  It’s a confusing sort of feast, as we cannot understand the truth of the Trinity, but we can ‘hit’ it from different angles.

The wisdom of God has been born before the beginning of time. Somehow wisdom is essential to God – and is presented very often as female. In celebrating the Trinity we celebrate and ask for wisdom, which comes from the heart of God. So, this wisdom is the sort of wisdom that comes from love.

Love is ‘poured’ into our hearts by the Spirit. Connected with love are qualities we would want to live by – courage and hope. These are the gifts of the Spirit as wisdom may be the gift of the Father.

Jesus is presented by the gospel as the source of truth. His also is the truth of love, as his truth is best seen on the cross, in his self-sacrificing love.     The most famous icon of the Trinity by Rublev, well-known to us now as our parish icon, has the Trinity at a table and an empty space at the table for us all. In one sense, they are not completed without us! We are part of their love, and their life of wisdom, truth and love, which they wish to share with us.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, As it was in the beginning,  is now and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen

Called into following Christ

Pentecost is really something new! The first reading has no blarney, no recrimination for the death of Jesus – only a new call and new mercy. The gospel is about the coming of the Spirit and the main sign of the Spirit is forgiveness.

There was a lot of need for forgiveness around in the first group of Jesus’ followers. They had let him down and had let each other down. They looked around, and like any group, felt memories of hurt, shame, let-down, injury and harm. They saw those who had abandoned Jesus and tried to cover up the sin; or they saw others who just knew they had done wrong and were sorry. All were forgiven.

And all are now called into the following of Christ. We follow Christ with all sorts of personal gifts, talents and sins in our back-pack. Like people on pilgrimage, we are cluttered. The Holy Spirit opens our hearts to let this baggage just fly away! We are people of freedom and of a new song.

What song do I sing in the presence of the Lord? One that brings me back into misery like singing of shame and misery or one that brings me into the freedom of the Alleluia? Can my heart dance with the joy and hope of Pentecost?

Ask this day for what gift of the Spirit you really want, and maybe include always the gift to be able to let go of hurt we have suffered from others or inflicted on them, – to open the heart to all, and – to forgive or if we cannot quite manage that, – to want to forgive.

Holy Spirit, forgiveness of God, give me your true freedom

Donal Neary SJ

The Ascension of the Lord

In the famous crucifix of San Damiano, the Lord ascends with a smile on his face. It is over, his mission is accomplished, and he has conquered death, and is now with us all days to the end of time. His earthly mission is accomplished, but not his mission of love for his people. He is with us now.

Jesus often talks of joy, often the joy of God in forgiving a sinner.  The big joy of God seems to be mercy, and even in the memory of his own death Jesus finds joy. In the chapel of the home of St Francis Xavier in Navarre, the crucifix is of the ‘smiling Jesus’. He smiles not in comfort and ease, but in love and sacrifice.    

While we think today of the loss of Jesus, we are invited to rejoice as he leaves one way of being with us – on earth, to another way of being with us – from heaven. He both awaits us there and helps us get there, the mystery of the Divine Son who is one of us. The mystery goes further – that we are invited and called into sharing this life of his on earth, for in each of us is the life of Jesus, who makes his home in us.

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world…
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Donal Neary SJ

God’s Home

Making a home is a big opportunity of love for a husband, a wife and a family. They try to make it their own: pictures and memorabilia here and there make a home out of a house. It doesn’t have to be perfect. They want others to be able to feel at home in their home also.

It is the same with Jesus. In our hearts and the depths of our personality he makes a home for himself and the Father. He asks for a loving and welcoming heart, not a place that is perfect, tidy and clean. To make a home is a work of love. Jesus’ making of a home in us comes through our growth in development and love. The loving marriage and family, the loving friendship, the heart that cares for others, these are what make Jesus feel at home.

Is this a strange way of looking on God? We think of God in the power of nature and almost the maker of history. God seems to reject all this all powerful view of himself and makes himself accessible in the home of our hearts.

Home is a place of help. We look out for each other and the contented home is where each cares for the other. St Ignatius used say each day, ‘Who can I help today?’
Maybe we can make that part of the music of our homes. This is God helping through you, and it is God finding us and each other in love.

Lord, open my heart  to prayer and care this day.
Open my eyes to the beauty and problems of others.
Open my heart to your love for me and to share it with others.

Donal Neary S.J.

The glory of God in St John’s gospel
is another word for his love.

We have types of love, and for most of us we find it in our lasting friendships, our spouses, our partners, our family – those without whom life would be so much the poorer.

Real love transforms. Opens the heart more and more.  We get out of ourselves in real love – caring, forgiving, getting over things. In all sincere and outgoing love between any two people, God is present.  Love brings God alive in us.  Not the love that is in name only and uses each other. But love that sees the other as more important than myself.

We say,  ‘love made him’.
Parents say –‘ I hope they find friends who will bring the best out of each other’.
Mauriac writes- “To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.”
The example of Jesus can help us at times when it can be hard to see goodness even in those we love.

Real love heals.  Only love makes the best out of the worst. In concentration camps the survivors were often those who had love to remember or go back to. Even when things go very badly in life, the forgiveness of love can help us move forward.

Lord, help me to be truly grateful for love in my life.

Donal Neary S.J.