Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA
Solemnity of The Most Holy Trinity
June 19, 2011
Exs 34:4-6 8-9, Dn 3:52-55, 2Cor 13:11-13, Jn 3:16-18
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click at the bottom of the page. The following text guided this homily:
ADORING THE LORD IN LITURGY AND LIFE
- Every Sunday is a celebration of the Blessed Trinity, but the Church has us focus one Sunday a year, the first Sunday of “Ordinary Time” after the Easter Season finishes, to orient all our worship.
- “Estamos aqui para adorar a Dios!”
- We come to worship God here at Mass. We come here to love him, we come here to praise him, we come here to thank him, we come here to be with him, knowing that to be in his presence is the single greatest privilege of human life.
- These are points that we need to focus on from time to time, because our culture isn’t a culture that makes worshipping God easy.
- Yes, thanks be to God we have religious liberty and we can come on Sundays freely to worship God with no fear of reprisals, imprisonment or martyrdom, like some of our Christian brothers and sisters in certain Muslim countries or communist countries like China need to face.
- But our culture, while we’re free to come to worship God, often makes the worship hard. Culture comes from the word “cult” or “worship,” and our culture worships things that make worshipping God a challenge:
- We worship efficiency. In some places, they try to make Mass as “efficient” as possible, finishing the verses as soon as the priest arrives at the chair, or has finished with the offertory, or sits down after distributing Holy Communion. People have expectations that the Mass will be an efficient 25 or 35 or 45 minutes and can begin to feel as if the priest has a problem if they cannot stick to those time parameters, because if Mass can be celebrated quickly, it ought to be celebrated quickly. No extra frills needed. No extra singing needed. No extra anything needed.
- We worship being entertained. We live in an entertainment culture. If we can’t have all of our senses stimulated constantly, we find it hard to pay attention. Many want Mass to be entertaining and if it’s not stimulating emotions, we begin to claim it’s boring, and we’d rather spend time on television, or x box or wii, or something else as if entertainment has become important. There are many places that have given in to this, playing, for example, music that’s fit for a concert or fit for a lounge rather than fit to make us focus on God. Many evangelical megachurches are using high-tech displays and productions each week to keep their people entertained and generous. But none of these really are bringing people more into the reality of who God is.
- We worship ourselves. We focus so much on ourselves, on our likes or our dislikes, and we think that we shouldn’t do anything we don’t like to do. Therefore, we begin to make judgments like crazy, I like this song, I don’t like that one; I like that priest, I don’t like the other; I like this Mass, I don’t like that one; I like the chair here, not there; etc. This, too, makes it hard for us to focus on God and adoring God.
- We need to form our interior culture, and then the culture of our parishes, on the genuine worship of God. This is becoming more and more urgent. What would be involved?
- God comes first — We recognize that God is more important than work, than sports, than our family, than ourselves.
- God deserves our best — Whenever we truly love someone, we want the best for them. If we truly love God and come to adore him, then we want to give him the best we have. This will impact everything. We’ll sing and desire to sing all the verses so that we can maximally praise him. We’ll give our utmost attention to the readings by which he gives us his holy wisdom. We’ll really want a great homily that moves us to conversion and to holiness, from giving priority to things or persons other than God to centering our entire existence on giving him glory; we’ll love kneeling as a means to show the Lord that we reverence him; we’ll prepare to receive Him in Holy Communion as the most sacred act of our life, treasuring the experience. We’ll hope that the priest uses the longest, not the shortest, Eucharistic prayer.
- God wants us to worship together — Parade for the Bruins. Would it be as fun if we were the only ones there? We want to worship with others. We want to share the experience. God wants us to do that too.
- Paul’s prayer
- Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
- Favor
- Shared life with him as creatures
- Merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
- Love of God
- No greater love.
- Sacrificed his own son.
- Communion of the Holy Spirit
- Communion with God and with each other.
- These are all attributes of God
- Common to all three
- Who God is. God is grace, he is love, he is communion.
- As we come to worship him, we enter into this favor, this love, this communion.
- We start Mass off with this expression for a reason, because this is where we encounter all three.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1EX 34:4B-6, 8-9
Early in the morning Moses went up Mount Sinai
as the LORD had commanded him,
taking along the two stone tablets.
Having come down in a cloud, the LORD stood with Moses there
and proclaimed his name, “LORD.”
Thus the LORD passed before him and cried out,
“The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God,
slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.”
Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship.
Then he said, “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.”
Responsorial PsalmDN 3:52, 53, 54, 55, 56
R. (52b) Glory and praise for ever!
Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers,
praiseworthy and exalted above all forever;
And blessed is your holy and glorious name,
praiseworthy and exalted above all for all ages.
R. Glory and praise for ever!
Blessed are you in the temple of your holy glory,
praiseworthy and glorious above all forever.
R. Glory and praise for ever!
Blessed are you on the throne of your kingdom,
praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.
R. Glory and praise for ever!
Blessed are you who look into the depths
from your throne upon the cherubim,
praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.
R. Glory and praise for ever!
Reading 22 COR 13:11-13
Brothers and sisters, rejoice.
Mend your ways, encourage one another,
agree with one another, live in peace,
and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Greet one another with a holy kiss.
All the holy ones greet you.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
AlleluiaCF. RV 1:8
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit;
to God who is, who was, and who is to come.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
GospelJN 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 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.
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