“Know that the Lord is God
It is He that made us, and we are His;
We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture”
(Psalm 100)

This weekend, as our society celebrates Father’s Day, this Sunday’s readings present us with the reality that God is the Father and creator of us all, and they challenge us to examine whether we recognize His authority in our lives and are willing to accept the authentic freedom that He offers us through Christ, His Son.

In the first reading from the Book of Exodus, we are told of the way in which God delivered the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. As God leads the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land, He says to them: “Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all peoples.” The people of Israel, God’s children, are invited to know authentic freedom by listening to His Word and living the authentic freedom, for which He created them, and offered them life anew in the Promised Land. In the Old Testament, the Promised Land is where Israel once again is offered the opportunity to live in God’s presence and be the people whom God had created them to be. If they accept this invitation, God tells them that He will make them a priestly people and a holy nation. For us today, the question that we must answer is:  In what ways do we allow ourselves to be enslaved by ignoring God’s Word and not listening to His commands? Through baptism, we too have been invited to live in God’s freedom, and be His holy people. However, this invitation rests upon the premise that we are open to doing His will and not turning away from Him to live in slavery to false gods and ideologies. Continue reading →

As Catholics, every time that we pray, we begin by invoking the names of the three persons of the Holy Trinity, whose feast we celebrate this Sunday. This custom can be so habitual that at times we may do it without realizing how profound the words are that we are saying. Each time we name the three persons of the Holy Trinity, we are articulating a great mystery about God and his proximity to us that has been revealed to us by God Himself. The only way that we know about the Trinity and the names of the persons contained within God is because Jesus Himself has told us about Them. As the Son of God sent from the Father, Jesus has told us to call God “Our Father” and has repeatedly spoken to us about the Father. During His life Jesus promised His disciples that He would send them the Holy Spirit after He had returned to the Father. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Church by Jesus and His Father in Heaven. That the three cannot be separated is witnessed to in the Gospel passage from Matthew where Jesus commissions His disciples to baptize all people “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  Everything that we know about God as the Trinity has been revealed to us by the Trinity Himself. We can learn so much about God’s love for us in reflecting upon this great mystery of our faith. Continue reading →