GOD OF MY EXPERIENCE

JN 16: 12-15

It is risky to speak about God. People make mistakes. People run out of explanation. People fall into the temptation of pride and resort to debate with others. People tend to ram their ideas of God into other people’s throats. And so, speaking about God divides instead of unites the very people God wants to gather into a family, a community.

The Lord Jesus did not speak about God in the way we do today. He did not come with a collection of doctrines. He did not read aloud from documents, catechisms, hadiths, or compendiums. He did not malign people’s deeply-held faith and convictions. He did not come as a fanatic or a zealot, so far from what some religious people do today.

If we look at the Gospels, we find Jesus telling stories about the loving Father and his dream of a different Kingdom on earth. The Lord mingled with sinners and outcasts, often in their meals and light moments. He spoke directly to the heart and not to the mind. Jesus’ one message was the love of the Father that overflows in forgiveness, mercy, and kindness.

In this way, he introduced to us the true vision of God. God is Father of Israel, yes, but he is Father of all men and women, specially of the poor and neglected. Jesus’ very presence spoke of the God who became flesh, to dwell among and spread love and peace to his brothers and sisters. He invited people to believe in him, less through words, but more through actions, especially on the Cross.

Now the Lord introduces the Holy Spirit. Look how he explains this coming Guest. He will guide… he will speak… he will direct… he will glorify… he will be the Spirit of truth… As the disciples listen, they begin to see a complete portrait of the divine. Thanks to Jesus, they understand, slowly but clearly, that God is Father… God is Son… God is Spirit…

Do you understand God in this way, too? Or better still, do you experience the Lord in this way, in the way Jesus and only Jesus allowed us to know and experience him? Some people turn to Islam or to sects like the Iglesia ni Cristo because their teaching is simple: God is one, period. But this is not the complete message of Jesus, not the revolutionary image of God Jesus brings to us. Let us pray to understand… but more importantly, pray to experience and pray to enter into relationship with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray:

CONSECRATION TO THE TRINITY – St. Francis de Sales

I vow and consecrate to God
all that is in me:
my memory and my actions to God the Father;
my understanding and my words to God the Son;
my will and my thoughts to God the Holy Spirit.

I consecrate my heart, my body,
my tongue, my senses and all my sorrows
to the sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ,
who consented to be betrayed
into the hands of wicked men
and to suffer the torment of the Cross for me. Amen.

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