WITNESS TO JESUS | TRINITY SUNDAY
Here is the prepared text of the homily delivered May 25-26 at St. Patrick Church, Kaimuki; Immaculate Conception Church, Ewa; and Newman Center/Holy Spirit Parish, Manoa, in celebration of confirmation and first Communion.
I am sure that for all of you children, your parents only have to tell you something once, and you immediately do it, right? They say, “Do your homework,” and you drop whatever you are doing until you finish your homework. They say, “Eat your vegetables,” and of course those vegetables quickly disappear into your stomach. They say, “Turn off that video game,” and boom, it is off! Probably not! Sometimes it takes them two or three times to tell you something before you finally get it and know that they really want you to do what they say for your own ultimate good.
But I have news for you! This is not something that happens only to children. Sometimes all of us, no matter how old, have to be told something over and over before we finally “get it.” One of those things is God telling us how much he loves us.
God the Father made us in his own image and likeness and told us to enjoy ourselves in living as he created us. But from the beginning, we thought we knew better and looked for something other than God that would satisfy us.
God chose the people of Israel, so that through them he could show his love. They believed it, but they doubted. God sent prophets to bring them back from their waywardness, and for a while they returned to God, but then they went their own way again.
So in the fullness of time, God sent his only begotten son to actually become one of us, and he had him named Jesus. People saw the wonderful things he did. He healed the sick, raised the dead, fed multitudes with mere morsels of food, and taught us amazing things about God’s love and forgiveness. But we rejected him and had him crucified.
But he rose from the dead. In today’s Gospel we hear that his disciples, those who did believe in him, worshipped him, but they doubted.
So a few days after Jesus ascended into heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit, so that God himself could set them on fire with love and give them courage to go out and tell about God’s love in Jesus to all nations, to all the world!
Today, we rejoice in the many ways God shows his love for us: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And we not only think about this great mystery of love with our minds, but today some wonderful things are going to happen. In a few minutes, those of you who are to be confirmed will be marked, sealed and branded with the gift of the Holy Spirit. This anointing will seem to last only a moment, but that spirit will be with you for the rest of your life to tell you how much he loves you and wants you to share that fire of love with others. Will you doubt? Will you forget? Probably, since we all do. But the Holy Spirit will be always with you and will give you many reminders of his presence and love.
Then something else will happen. Jesus, who rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, is going to come down from heaven and be physically present right here as the “living bread come down from heaven” when the Holy Spirit changed bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.
But then Jesus is going to enter you, so that he can show you his love by living in you. And through you he wants you to baptize — that is, to soak, the rest of the world with that love. He wants to live in your home, so that he can make it more loving every day. He wants to go to your school, so that through you he can love those who do not always feel much love in their lives. He wants to be on your sports team or your dance class, so that he can give joy and love to others through you.
When you receive him in holy Communion, he will live in you, so that wherever you go, he will be able to go.
God can tell us once how much he loves us, and we may not respond to that love right away, because we sometimes just don’t listen. But God never gives up on us and continues speaking his love to us, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, repeating the same message in a variety of ways: “I love you, and I want you to share my love with everyone in the whole world!”
