Catholic TV Mass Online May 22, 2016: Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

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• published: 21 May 2016
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Presider: Fr. Matthew Widder Parish: Holy Name of Jesus & St. Clement Choir: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton www.MySundayMass.org TEXT FROM THE GOSPEL AND HOMILY The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Glory to you O Lord. Jesus said to his disciples, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now but when he comes, the spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth, he will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what it is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has, is mine. For this reason that I have told you that I will take from what is mine, and declare it to you.” The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ. One of American pastimes that we have is eating, and one of our favorite ways to eat, to go to all you can eat buffets. And when you go to an all you eat buffet, immediately before you sit down, you have a sense of surveying the landscape and saying, how am I going to pace myself? You want to always make sure that we can get the most bang for our buck and kind of maximize our different trips up to the buffet. And when we do that I think we always have this way that the first plate is always salad right? We always start with salad because I think we have this perception of let's start with the salad, just to get that out of the way, that get the salad out of the way, then let's get to the good stuff. I know for myself I'm looking for the brownies at the end and I still have room like the ice cream sundae bar, that's what I'm going for. Once you get past that salad, you never go back for the salad, you just move on to the good stuff, right? And couldn't we say in some sense as we celebrate Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, we look at the blessings of God, we look at the abundance of God's love. We look at the wonders that God has made and it lies out in front of us, this world as this beautiful buffet of God's love. This beautiful buffet of God's love and as God looks at each and every one of us, he has certain blessings, he has certain trips that he wants us to make to receive his love. Our second reading says the love of God has been poured into our hearts and God wants us to pour his love. He wants to share the buffet of his blessings with each and every one of us. But here is the game changer in this type of thing. When we go up to the buffet in our favorite restaurants, we are the one that chooses, we say, I'm going to take that piece of chicken, those potatoes, but I'm going to stay away from the radishes and the salad in life, we go up to the buffet but God puts the blessings on our plate. We receive from God not we take from God. Are we open to receiving as Saint Paul says, even the afflictions, even those challenges in life. Because we know that sometimes as we look at the buffet that comes our way, the salad of our lives might be suddenly a sickness, might be someone that we know who now is unemployed, might be depression. And God says in the same way that you take those good things, so now accept these challenges because they lead to hope. Perhaps we take a look and we reflect on the buffet of our lives, we pray for the grace, not to grab on our own, but to receive the blessings, even the crosses that God gives us, knowing that he has called us to participate in his love. You know when we talk about entering into the love of the Trinity, our dear Mother Mary is a beautiful example of how to do that. I was hearing a story about a man whose life had gone in all kinds of bad directions. He had taken from the buffet of God's grace instead of letting God give his blessings to him and he said in my worst moments, moments where I could not talk to God the father I turned to Mary. Mary is the bait of God's love. She draws us in the love of the Trinity. So we pray for the grace to be open to God's blessings. Not to take from God but to receive, the salad, the dessert, and everything in between.