God brings us into His divine Life of Love – Deut 4:32-40, Rom 8:14-17, Matt 28:16-20

Trinity Sunday, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

“The Lord is God in the heavens above and on the earth below.”  That’s what Moses has to say to his people.  They’ve been rescued by God from slavery in Egypt, they’ve encountered him and received the Law on the mountain, they’ve wandered the wilderness led by him, and now they stop on the plains before crossing the water into the Promised Land, and listen to Moses, who proclaims to them: “The Lord is God in the heavens above and on the earth below.”  And he proclaims it, because it matters.  I think we’re probably on board with God being God in heaven; it’s God on earth we might be disquieted by.  The idea that God, while totally incomparable to any finite, fallible, created thing, enters into our world, acts, concerns Himself intimately with each one of us, with our greatest triumphs, with the most mundane pieces of daily life, and with our sin, our hunger, our weakness and our need… it’s almost too much to bear.  God loved Israel so much he wanted to make them His own, and he loves us the same.  That changes everything, and that’s not always comfortable.  He offers us a mutual binding: he’ll commit to us, and He longs for us to commit to Him.  He’ll lead us, to the Promised Land; and that’s first gift and then invitation: for us to follow.

God pulls us up to proclaim – Acts 2:1-11, 1 Cor 12:3-13

Pentecost (Mass during the day); Holy Infant parish.

Fire.  It fascinates us.  Think of nights you’ve spent huddled around a camp fire, or staring up at the stars, those huge bundles of fire that we can see from so far away.  Fire warms us, lights up our world, cooks our food, fascinates us and attracts our gaze.

God shows us what yet another facet of love looks like – Mark 16:15-20, Acts 1:1-11

Ascension, Year B; Holy Infant.

Some people say that Ascension is the hardest feast of the Church year to preach on.  Not Trinity Sunday, not Good Friday, not a funeral: the Ascension.  And I’m not making excuses here, but it’s the only feast on which the primary action of God, in Christ, that we celebrate seems to be his moving away from us.  We’re on earth, and he ascends: to heaven.  And that’s not the primary movement given to us to proclaim at any other time: the Christian story is consistently one of God reaching out to us, God coming to visit and redeem his people, of us turning away, but of God’s grace eventually conquering our stubbornness and repentance moving us to accept the glorious eternal embrace offered.  Except today: when the movement is of Christ ascending.

God gives us love to hold on to – John 15:9-17, 1 John 4:7-10 Collect

6th Week of Easter, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

In our opening prayer, we asked God to help us so that “[whatever we do] we might always hold to what we relive in remembrance.” That was after we also asked God to help us “celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy.” Let’s unpack that a little bit. The “days of joy” are the Easter season. This is now our 36^th day this year of celebrating the Easter season. By next week, we’ll have been celebrating Easter for longer than we spent observing Lent and we still won’t be done! And this celebrating is meant to encompass each and every aspect of our lives, but its center, its source and summit, is our celebrating together in liturgy, most especially in Sunday Mass. As we ended the opening rites of Mass, we together asked God to help us celebrate the rest of Mass well, which means, as the prayer put it, with heartfelt devotion. And that, celebrating Mass together with heartfelt devotion, is what “relive in remembrance” means. Remember, we closed the prayer asking God to help us so that “[whatever we do] we might always hold to what we relive in remembrance.” So… what is it we’re reliving in remembrance? It’s the closing words of our second reading: that “[God] loved us, and sent his son for us as expiation for our sins.” That’s what God gives us to hold to. And, boy do we so often feel like we need something to hold on to in this world which can sometimes seem to leave us no stable place to stand.