The Most Holy Trinity (A)
John 3:16-18
- First reading: Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9
“If I find favor with you, O Lord,do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own.” - Second reading: 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. - Gospel: John 3:16-18
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 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.” (Jn. 3:16-18)
Background on the Gospel Reading
This week we return to the liturgical season of Ordinary Time. This Sunday and next, however, are designated as solemnities—special days that call our attention to central mysteries of our faith. Today on Trinity Sunday we celebrate the mystery of the Holy Trinity, one God in three persons.
Today’s Gospel is from the beginning of John’s Gospel. The passage we read follows Jesus’ conversation with a Pharisee, Nicodemus, about what it means to be born of both water and the spirit. Nicodemus approaches Jesus at night and acknowledges Jesus as a teacher from God. Jesus tells him that only those who are born from above will see the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus misunderstands and questions how a person can be born more than once. Jesus tells Nicodemus that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. Jesus is essentially explaining Baptism, which we celebrate as a sacrament today. Yet Nicodemus, we are told, still does not understand what Jesus is saying. Jesus continues by testifying to the need to be born from above so that one might have eternal life.
After the dialogue with Nicodemus, the author of the Gospel offers his own explanation of Jesus’ words. This is what we read in today’s Gospel, John 3:16-18.
In the context of today’s focus on the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the reading calls our attention to the action of God, who reveals himself in three persons: God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God the Father, out of love for the world, sent his Son into the world in order to save it. Through the death and resurrection of the Son, we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. As three persons, God acts always as a God of love; he does not condemn the world but acts to save it.
The Gospel also calls attention to the response that is required of us. God’s love for us calls us to respond in faith by professing our belief in God’s son, Jesus, and the salvation that he has won for us. This profession of faith is a sign of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
With the Solemnity of Pentecost last Sunday, the Easter Season came to an end. On Monday, we began Ordinary Time, that is, the period when priests wear the colour green, a time during which we are called to live the Gospel in the ordinariness of everyday life, witnessing the joy of being disciples of the crucified and risen Jesus. If we were to pause and look back a moment, we would be able to visualize a unique image. From a balcony in the heavens, God the Father, aware of how humanity after Adam and Eve’s sin (see Gn. 3) had gone astray and was unable of finding the way back to heaven, sent the prophets to help them find that way. But humanity not only failed to heed them, they also killed them (see Mt. 23:29ff.).
In the end, moved with compassion, the Father sent His only Son: “And the Word was made flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn. 1:14). Jesus, the Son of God, shared everything about our human condition with us except sin, helping us to remember that we are created by God, that we are His children, and that God is our Father. Through His words and His life, He taught us with Truth regarding the Way to return to the Father, who is eternal Life. Thus, Jesus showed us the Father’s face: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9). He reminded us that the way to heaven is open to everyone, that there is no need to be afraid, and that we do not need to be ashamed because God the Father is love, He is faithfulness, He is mercy. Obedient to the Father, Jesus died on the cross for our salvation. On the third day He rose, defeating sin and death, thus opening the way to return to His Father and our Father (this is what we celebrated on Easter Sunday).
We can confidently choose this Way because Jesus, having ascended into heaven, gave us the Holy Spirit on Pentecost (the Solemnity celebrated last Sunday), the first gift given to believers – the Person of Love poured out into our beings so we might live as children of God. This is how we can understand why the liturgy invites us to celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity,Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This Solemnity is a sort of synthesis and, above all, directs us toward the goal of our journey.
This God, who presents Himself as One and Triune, is not all that distant as it seems, but is so very close that He becomes Bread broken for us, Corpus Christi (which will be celebrated next Sunday). This Bread, the Bread of angels, nourishes us on our journey toward heaven. This gift then reveals the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, celebrated the Friday following Corpus Christi.
These three liturgical feasts are a synthesis of the mystery of our faith which we have lived in these last months: from Christmas to the death and resurrection of Jesus, from His Ascension to Pentecost. The Arian heresy, which disputed Jesus’s divinity and His bond with the Holy Trinity, was condemned by the Council of Nicea in 325 and Constantinople in 381. These two Councils were providential in spreading the doctrine regarding the Trinity both through preaching and through devotion. As early as the 8th century, liturgical prefaces appeared containing references to the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity. A votive Mass emerged toward the year 800 in honour of the Trinity, which could be celebrated on any Sunday. This decision was opposed because the Trinity is honoured every Sunday. In the end, it was Pope John XXII who established the feast throughout the universal Church in 1334.
God walks with us
The First Reading comes from the Book of Exodus, chapter 34. It is the moment in which God passes before Moses proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love and fidelity” (Ex. 34:6-7). Before this grand scene of self-revelation, Moses prostrates himself before God and asks, “If I find favor with you, Lord, please, Lord, come along in our company” (Ex. 34:8). This request expresses the desire that every person has at heart. For beyond whatever happens in life, what matters is knowing that “God is with us”, since “nothing is impossible with God” (Lk. 1:37).
God with us
Perhaps Moses never expected that one day he would one day walk with his flesh and blood in the midst of his people, just as he would never have imagined that God would take on flesh in Jesus. Instead, this is what He did. And He did this not to condemn a disobedient world, but to save it once and for all.
To celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity means being aware of God’s provident care, of His faithfulness towards us, of a God who never became disinterested in human affairs, but who made Himself all things to all people so as to reach them all. Enlivened by the Holy Spirit, each of us is asked to exercise this same care and closeness, trying always to tend toward perfection, cultivating the same sentiments Jesus had, living in peace, as Saint Paul reminds us in the Second Reading (2 Cor. 13:11-13). This Solemnity, therefore, should not be experienced as if we were spectators, but it requires that each of us “walk with” others, to make ourselves their neighbours (cf. Lk 10).
Prayer
“Keep uncontaminated this upright faith that is in me and, until my last breath, grant me likewise this voice of my conscience, that I may be ever faithful to what I professed in my regeneration when I was baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” (Saint Hilary of Poitiers)
God always blooms first
Pope Francis
Today’s Gospel “sets the stage” for Nicodemus, who, while playing an important role in the religious and civil community of the time, has not ceased seeking God. He did not think: “I have arrived”; he did not cease seeking God; and now he has perceived the echo of His voice in Jesus. In the nighttime dialogue with the Nazarene, Nicodemus finally understood that he had already been sought and awaited by God, that he was personally loved by Him. God always seeks us first, awaits us first, loves us first. He is like the flower of the almond tree; thus says the Prophet: “It blooms first” (cf. Jer 1:11-12). In fact Jesus speaks to him in this way: “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” (Jn 3:16). What is this eternal life? It is the immeasurable and freely given love of the Father which Jesus gave on the Cross, offering his life for our salvation. And this love with the action of the Holy Spirit has shined a new light on the earth and into every human heart that welcomes him; a light that reveals the dark corners, the hardships that impede us from bearing the good fruits of charity and of mercy.
May the Virgin Mary help us to enter ever deeper, with our whole being, into the Trinitary Communion, so as to live and witness to the love that gives meaning to our existence.
IN WHAT GOD DO YOU BELIEVE IN?
Fernando Armellini
Introduction
The Muslims profess their faith in Allah, the creator of heaven and earth. He is the one who rules from above, who established righteous prescriptions and holy prohibitions and watched to reward those who observe and punish those who offend. They do not understand that he took on human form and can g meet and talk with people. Is this the God we believe in?
Among the African tribes with whom I lived, God is invoked only in times of drought. It is believed that rain comes directly from him. For other needs, they appeal to the ancestors. Whether or not God is interested in diseases, misfortunes, the harvest of the fields or people’s affairs is not even asked. Is this perhaps our God?
To these questions, we may answer in the negative. However, let’s ask ourselves: what image of God lies behind the widespread belief that on the Day of Judgment, the Lord will critically assess every person’s life? To whom do Christians usually run under challengingtimes to beg for grace? Let us face it: we worship a God who still retains many features of pagan deities; susceptible, strict and distant.
Today’s feast is a relatively new one in the liturgical calendar (only around 1350). Through reflection on the Word of God, it offers the opportunity to purify the image we hold onto and discover new and surprising features of his face.
First Reading: Exodus 34:4b-6,8-9
In the Bible, words spoken by God are widely recounted. He begins to speak in the book of Genesis. However, we must wait until the end of the book of Exodus to hear a wider presentation of himself from his own lips. What he says is contained in today’s First Reading. One day Moses asks God to show his face, and he replies: “You cannot see my face because man cannot see my face and live” (Ex 33:18-20).
The longing of Moses is an expression of everyone’s dream: to see God, to know the most intimate and profound secrets of his person. To respond to this desire, God reveals himself as gracious, filled with compassion, a patient, merciful and faithful Lord, who shows loving kindness to the “thousandth” generation (‘thousandth’ comes from the original Hebrew text, not ‘thousands’ only, as demonstrated by our translation) who “forgives wickedness, rebellion and sin” (Ex 34:6-7).
The pagan peoples imagined God as a powerful and terrible sovereign, always prone to vent his anger against anyone who violated his laws or did not offer sacrifice. He meted out punishment in the form of disease and misfortune to those who did not please him. The God of Israel reveals a completely new face to Moses. He is not unpredictable or touchy, threatening, or a demanding and capricious Supreme Being, in front of whom we cannot but tremble and live in anguish. He looks tenderly at people, understands their mistakes, and loves them always, even in sin.
His primary feature is mercy. This term evokes in us a certain unease because it is instinctively associated with the idea of the compassionate benefactor. He graciously grants forgiveness from the height of his impeccable rectitude but tolerates a residue of guilt and shame in those who sin. The Hebrew word used here refers to the bowels. It indicates the most intimate and profound feeling that we can imagine what a mother experiences towards the child she carries in her womb. The sublime expressions of this love are the words that God addresses to the Zion in fear of being rejected because of her sins: “Can a woman forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child of her womb? Yet though they (bowels) forget, I will never forget you” (Is 49:15).
With bold anthropomorphism, Hosea puts on the lips of the Lord this declaration of love for the bride, Israel, who has betrayed him: “My heart is troubled within me and I am (my bowels are) moved with compassion” (Hos 11:8). There is no stronger guilt than what his mercy provokes. The human reacts in a passionate and impetuous way. God is slow to anger, patient, tolerant and forgiving. He is not impulsive and never seeks revenge. This characteristic of God has penetrated deeply into the Jewish and even into Muslim spirituality. It is also often mentioned in the Bible. We recall the moving prayer of the Psalmist: “But you, O Lord God, are merciful, slow to anger and faithful. Turn to me, take pity on me; give your strength to your servant” (Ps 86:15-16).
Today’s passage does not include verse 7. Those who read the text in the Bible, however, inevitably will come across it. It is better to mention and clarify its meaning. God continues His revelation by stating that “he shows loving kindness to the thousandth generation and forgives wickedness, rebellion, and sin; yet he does not leave the guilty without punishment, even punishing the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” It is a puzzling statement that seems to contradict what has just been said.
God never punishes, neither in this world nor in the next. He only loves and saves. When the Bible talks about his punishment—and it often does—it uses a language that belongs to an archaic culture. It is a metaphor that must be translated into our language of today. In reality, what is called ‘God’s punishment’ is nothing more than the consequence of human sin.
Sin comes from the Latin ‘peccus’ that indicates a person with a bad foot; walks with a crooked gait. It produces dislocation, loss of sense of direction, even the catastrophe of falling into a ravine in a worst-case scenario. No one goes about in search of this type of trouble. Everyone aspires to happiness and joy, but some miss the target “without knowing what he is doing” (Luke 23:34); he causes disaster, tragedy, self-harm, or another suffering, at times even affecting future generations.
God does not punish those who make mistakes; he does not compound human evil with his own evil. God intervenes, but only to save, to remedy trouble caused by sin. The name he wanted to be called is ‘Jesus’ because—as Matthew says — “he will save his people from their sins” (Mt 1:21).
The passage ends with a plea for forgiveness. Israel has become idolatrous by building a golden calf and distancing itself from its God. Moses immediately puts the Lord’s mercy to the test: “We are a stiff-necked people, pardon our wickedness and our sins and make us yours” (v. 9). Moses shows he has imbibed the revelation of the Lord by immediately responding to God’s offer of a covenant with his people.
The first message of this feast is then a call to revise our image of God. Do we still think of him as the ‘executioner’ of sinners, or do we understand that he is rich in mercy? Are we convinced that “in his great mercy, he revealed his immense love? As we were dead through our sins, he gave us life with Christ” (Eph 2:4-5)?
Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
This reading includes the last sentences of the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians. These expressions are sweet, full of tenderness, as the chairperson of a community meeting should always be. Joy is the first and most beautiful sign of the coming of the Kingdom of God into the heart of a person. It is the result of the discovery of God’s true face.
As recommended by the apostle, the community where the brothers and sisters are happy, encourage each other and cultivate the same feelings tends toward perfection. They live together in peace and are united to the God of love (v. 11). This is the image of the life and beatitude of the Trinity. The holy kiss exchanged by those who believe (v. 12) is the expression and the sign of the love that unites the divine persons, which expands to embrace the disciples.
After these brief recommendations, Paul greets the Corinthians, using the same formula we use today in the liturgy of the Mass: “The grace of Christ Jesus the Lord, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (v. 13). These were most likely the words with which, in the community of Corinth, the sign of peace and the ‘holy kiss’were exchanged. With this formula, Paul reminds the Corinthians that the Father is the one who took the initiative to save people, destining them to eternal happiness in his family. The Son is the one who fulfilled this work of salvation by his coming into the world and his fidelity unto death. The Spirit, the love that unites the Father with the Son, was poured out in the heart of every Christian in baptism. From the moment this gift is received, we become part of God’s family, the Trinity.
We understand why this Trinitarian formula was used as the sign of peace. The unity of the community members comes from the fact that they belong to the family of God. They are children of the same Father, brothers and sisters of the only Son and animated by the same Spirit.
Gospel: John 3:16-18
There are only three but very dense verses. They constitute the Gospel passage today. They would be enough to correct the distorted image of God still present in the minds of many Christians—that of the stern and inflexible judge—and to open our hearts to trust in his love.
“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him may not be lost”(v. 16). It can be considered the summit reached by the biblical revelation on the meaning of creation, life and human destiny.
Contemplating and amazed at the revelation of God’s plan, John discovers that God’s gratuitous love is at the origin of all. Unlike what he says in his first letter—where he sees this love spilling itself over into the Christian community (1 Jn 4:7-12)—here the evangelist attends to the unfolding of endless horizons: the love of God expands, irrepressible, unstoppable and fills the entire “world.” We are at the antipode of the famous statement: “The world in which we live can be understood as a result of the disorder and chance; but if it is the outcome of a deliberate intent, this must have been the intent of a devil.”
Although it may seem strange, the image of God who loves people has struggled to establish itself in Israel. It had to wait for the prophet Hosea (8th cent. B.C.) to find it for the first time. This reluctance was due to the fact that, in pagan religions, the rapport of love with the divinity had ambiguous connotations of a sexual nature.
John, who has seen with his own eyes and touched with his hands the word of life (1 Jn 1:1), arrives to say, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8); love that manifested itself in giving his only begotten Son as his gift to the world. He has not only given him in the Incarnation; he delivered him into human hands to die on the cross. There he has shown his true face, without any veil.
Paul shows that he understood this miracle of love when, writing to the Romans, says: “But see how God manifested his love for us, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).
In the face of this gift, what is required of a person? One thing only: that one trusts, abandons oneself in God’s arms—as does the bride with the groom—who hands herself to him in immense love and in the certainty of meeting life.
When we think of God who became one of us in Jesus of Nazareth, sometimes we make the mistake of considering this fact as an episode, a sad parenthesis of his existence. He came among us, remained a little more than thirty years, suffered and died on the cross, then returned to heaven, far away, happy to have retaken the former state.
That is not so. Our God took on our human nature and remains forever one of us. He has not pulled himself out of our world. He is and remains always the Emmanuel, the God-with-us (Mt 28:20).
One of the most balanced articles of the Jewish faith was the God who judges everyone’s deeds. The same Messiah was awaited not as one who helps to overcome sin, but as the executor of divine judgment. This belief also transpires from many texts of the New Testament: John the Baptist announces an impending judgment from which no one could escape (Mt 3:7-10); Paul preaches the “a great punishment on the day of judgment when God will appear as a just judge. He will give each one his due, according to his actions” (Rom 2:5-6); Jesus himself uses at times, the image of the court: “I have never known you, away from me, you evil people” (Mt 7:23).
In the Gospel of John, neither the Father nor Jesus appear as judges who condemn, but only as saviors of persons: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world; instead, through him, the world is to be saved” (v. 17). “For I have come, not to condemn the world, but to save the world” (Jn 12:47).
They seem to be contradictory texts; in reality, while using various languages and images, they affirm the same truth: God’s judgment is always and only salvation. It’s not a judgment pronounced at the end of life. It is the valuable assessment that the Lord puts today in front of every person so that his choices are guided by true wisdom, not that of this world which leads to death, but that of Christ.
The third and final verse of today’s passage is read in this perspective. In it, the responsibility of each person in front of God’s love is highlighted. “Whoever believes in him will not be condemned. He who does not believe is already condemned” (v. 18).
The judgment is not pronounced by God at the end of time but now. It is the person who, trusting in Christ and in his word, chooses life. Refusing God’s plan of love, a person decrees his own condemnation.
Today we are called to welcome the joy that God offers, but we can also commit the folly of delaying or even refusing his embrace. He expects an immediate “yes” from persons because every moment spent in sin, in the rejection of his love, is a wasted opportunity.
What is the criterion, the reference point specified by God to have a wise and right judgment on the choices to make in life?
We find the answer in a group of texts that, in John’s Gospel, present Jesus the judge. “I came into the world to carry out a judgment” (Jn 9:39); “The Father has entrusted all judgment to the Son” (Jn 5:22). It is on his person, on his proposal of life, and values he preached that the Father will assess the existence of every person and he will decide the success or failure.
It does not state that in the end, he will forever refuse who did wrong, who followed other criteria, other judgments. God does not cast out anyone; “he wants all to be saved” (1 Tim 2:4). The absurdity of one of his condemnation is presented by Paul with a series of rhetorical questions: “If God is with us who shall be against us? Who shall accuse those chosen by God? He takes away the guilt. Who will dare to condemn them? Christ who died, and better still, rose and is seated at the right hand of God, interceding for us?” (Rom 8:31-34). The conclusion is obvious: “No creature will ever separate us from the love of God which we have in Jesus Christ, our Lord” (Rom 8:39).
However, at the end of life, when God “will test the work of everyone” (1 Cor 3:13), the conformity or discrepancy of each person’s action with the person of Christ will appear clear. God then surely welcomes all in his arms, though some will be forced to admit to having badly managed, and hopelessly wasted the unique opportunity that was offered to them. The work of this person—warns Paul— “will become ashes; although he will be saved, but it will be as if passing through fire” (1 Cor 3:15).
READ: The Gospel proclaims the inexhaustible depths of God’s love that gives away the Son to redeem humanity.
REFLECT: Being a communion of love, God gives us the fullness of Himself and His Love. So, like the Trinity, we are all called to be in communion in Love as well.
PRAY: Communion and solidarity are what we need in this globalized but greatly divided world. We pray for the unity of all the children of God. We also pray for the daily gift of grace, love, and fellowship of the Trinitarian God in our life.
ACT: How can we be agents of unity? It is when we build bridges, not walls, in our communities
Fernando Armellini
Italian missionary and biblical scholar
https://sundaycommentaries.wordpress.com
The Holy Trinity:
source of mercy and of mission
Romeo Ballan mccj
There are many questions about the mystery of God: What is God like within Himself? How does he live? What does he do? Where does he live?… They are the kind of questions that just about everyone asks, at various stages in life. Today’s feast of the Most Holy Trinity answers a number of these questions, at least for Catholics. It is the Feast of “One God in Three Persons”, as the Catechism tells us. That says it all, but in reality everything is still left to be explained and understood, to absorb with love and to adore in contemplation. The topic has an enormous, central importance for Mission. In fact, it is easy to say that all peoples – even non-Christians – know that God exists; they name God and call upon God in various forms. Indeed, it is easy to agree in saying that even pagans believe in God. This shared truth – though with some differences and reservations – makes dialogue possible between religions, in particular the dialogue between Christians and the followers of other religions. On the basis of a single God common to all, it is possible to put together an understanding among peoples in preparation for common action: in favour of peace, in the defence of human rights, in carrying out projects for human and social development, as it is done in many places. But for the evangelising activities of the Church these initiatives, though praiseworthy and necessary, are just a part of the Christian message to be transmitted. The human family finds unlimited resources for improvement: starting from and adhering to the newness of Christ!
A Catholic is not satisfied by basing his spiritual life only on the existence of One God; nor can – even more so – a missionary who is aware of the extraordinary richness of the gift of Jesus Christ, who leads into the mystery of the Triune God. The Gospel that the missionary carries to the world, besides enriching the understanding of monotheism, opens up the immense and ever surprising mystery of God, who is a communion of Persons. The word mystery here must not be understood simply in the sense of a hidden truth, difficult to understand, but rather of truths that are always new and to be discovered. In this area, it is better to leave the word to the mystics. For St. John of the Cross, “there are many greater depths to be sounded in Christ. Indeed, He is like a mine rich in immense veins of treasure of which, no matter how deep one goes, the end cannot be found; indeed, in each cavity, new veins of wealth are discovered”. Considering the Trinity, St. Catherine of Siena exclaims: “You, O eternal Trinity, are like a deep ocean, in which the more I search the more I find, and the more I find, the more the thirst to seek you increases. You are insatiable; and the soul, filling itself in your depths is not satiated, because the hunger for you remains, and it desires you all the more, oh eternal Trinity”.
The revelation of the Triune God has (that is, it must have) immediate and amazing consequences for the life of a believer: it offers new dimensions regarding the mystery of God, regarding the way of forming relationships between human persons, regarding the relationship of man with creation… Even the dialogue between religions is enriched with new horizons, as expressions like the following show. An anonymous source has transmitted a brief but profound dialogue between a Moslem and a Christian:
– The Moslem said: “For us, God is one; how could he have a son?”
– The Christian replied: For us, God is love; how could he be alone?”
The challenge is how to continue this dialogue: at doctrinal as well as at life level.
The God of Christians is Trinitarian, being one, but not solitary. This revelation even enriches the monotheism of Judaism, Islam and other religions. Indeed, the God revealed by Jesus (Gospel) is God-love, God who wants the world to live, God who offers salvation to all peoples (vv.16-17; see Jn.4:8). He has always revealed himself as a “God of mercy and pity… rich in love and faithfulness” (1st. Reading, v.6); “A God rich in mercy” (Eph.2:4).
All nations have the right and the need to know this true face of God, revealed by Jesus. Missionaries are its bearers. Hence the Council declares that “the pilgrim Church is missionary by its very nature, in that it takes its origin from the mission of the Son and from the mission of the Holy Spirit, according to the plan of God the Father (cf Ad Gentes, 2). In the early paragraphs of the same Decree, the Council explains the origin and the Trinitarian foundation of the universal mission of the Church, and in the process if offers one of the most exquisite theological synthesesof the whole Council.
“Where does God live?” The catechism tells us that God is in Heaven, on earth and everywhere. This is true, but there is an even more vital and personal reply. One day the Rabbi Mendel di Kotzk asked some of his learned guests: “Where does God live?” They all laughed: “Why, don’t you know? Is not the earth full of his glory?” But the rabbi replied: “God lives wherever He is let in”. God seeks a personal encounter and friendship with each of us. Not for His own good, obviously, but for ours. Because this friendship is for us the one guarantee of life and of joy. He stands at the door of our heart and knocks; to the one who hears and opens the door, he promises: “I will enter and dine with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20). With an intimacy that warms the heart, renews life and leads to mission.
