Mass Readings for this Sunday:  GOSPEL: LUKE 10:38-42.  First Reading is from Genesis 18:1-10.  Second Reading is from Colossians 1:24-28. Click here for Mass Readings, or find them in your own Bible or Sunday Missal.

‘The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory.’ (Colossians 1:27)

‘Well, you’re welcome! You are well come to this place, to this house. Make yourself at home,- you’re in your Granny’s!’

A warm welcome is always good to get,- when you know that your arrival brings joy to the home you are visiting. There’s a warmth, an embrace, a kiss of welcome. Maybe even a bear-hug!

Well, today’s readings are all about welcome, about receiving guests into your home and into your life.

There’s Jesus, welcomed into the home of Lazarus and Martha and Mary. It was his favourite house, his hide-away, when he was in or near Jerusalem. They loved him, and he loved them. ‘See how he loved him’ said the neighbours when they saw Jesus weeping, near the grave of Lazarus, later on. ‘Jesus wept’,- the shortest sentence in the Bible. But that was later.

Martha welcomes him by being busy preparing the meal and the table. Mary welcomes him by sitting down with him, and being glued to his every word. Both loved him, each in her own way. And Mary’s listening heart was praised by Jesus, while he gently teased Martha saying (to us, too): ‘Martha, Martha, you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one.’ And yet, they would all have been hungry if they left it to Mary. They’d be still waiting!  And so, there’s need for a balance,- a time for busyness, and a time for quiet, a ‘sabbath’ time, the Jews would call it, when you down tools and spend time with the Master. How’s our ‘sabbath time’ in each day? Do we offer some of God’s time back to God, in stillness? Contemplation is made up of 3 Latin words,- Con (with), Tempus (time), and (ob)latio- an offering,-  or, The offering of Time With. That’s what Mary prepared for Jesus, what she place before him as gift,- her stillness and presence, offered to the Master. We can each of us do the same, in the course of even the busiest day, to stop a while and be still with the LORD.  (By the way, Martha comes into her own later in St. John’s Gospel Chapter 11, when she she makes her great act of faith ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into the world.’ (John 11:27) )

And what about Abraham, and his Guests? ‘The LORD appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre’, while Abe was sitting at the entrance to the tent in the hottest time of the day. ‘He looked up and saw three men standing near him.’ These three men are three messengers (‘angels’) from God,- God appears to Abraham in the guise of these three strangers. And Abraham makes a big fuss in welcoming them,- or rather, he hurries to Sarah, his wife, and gets her to do all the work of preparation, while he takes care of his guest(s). They get the ‘full Irish breakfast’ (Jewish, in this case!) treatment, -nothing spared. And Abraham knows that it is the LORD who has in fact appeared to him.

Two stories of Welcome, of being well come to the house of our hearts and our community, are for us this day. If the Trinity comes to us, if Jesus comes to us, how ‘well’ is our welcome? Do we lay the table of our hearts before God? ‘If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and sit down at table with them.’ (Revelations 3: 20)

‘The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory’. (Second Reading, from Colossians 1:24-28)

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‘The Hospitality of Abraham’ by Andrei Rublev:  Andrei Rublev, a Russian, wrote the Icon of the Trinity, as it is now called, or more correctly ‘The Hospitality of Abraham’,- depicting the three angels at the table of Abraham, with the oak of Mamre in the background. The icon of the Trinity was painted around 1410 by Andrei Rublev (known as St. Andrei Rublev).

Andrei Rublev was born circa 1360. He died on January 29, 1430 and is buried at the Andronikov Monastery in Moscow .

The image is full of symbolism – designed to take the viewer into the Mystery of the Trinity.

About Icons.

An icon is not a painting in the sense we normally regard pieces of art, although it is an image that is painted. An icon is a window out of the obvious realities of everyday life into the realm of God. Every paint-stroke has a meaning hallowed by centuries of prayer. Icons are religious images that hover between two worlds, putting into colors and shapes what cannot be grasped by the intellect. Rendering the invisible visible. Icons are the visual equivalents of the Divine Scriptures. Not every religious painting can be considered an icon. Icons are religious pictures that convey inner spiritual meaning of their subject matter. The Son of God came to restore the divine image in human form. Iconography is the graphic witness to this restoration.

This icon takes as its subject the mysterious story where Abraham receives three visitors as he camps by the oak of Mamre. He serves them a meal. As the conversation progresses he seems to be talking straight to God, as if these ‘angels’ were in some way a metaphor for the three persons of the Trinity. In Rublev’s representation of the scene, the three gold-winged figures are seated around a white table on which a golden, chalice-like bowl contains a roasted lamb. In the background of the picture, a house can be seen at the top left and a tree in the center. Less distinctly, a rocky hill lies in the upper right corner. The composition is a great circle around the table, focusing the attention on the chalice-bowl at the center, which reminds the viewer inescapably of an altar at Communion.

On one level this picture shows three angels seated under Abraham’s tree, but on another it is a visual expression of what the Trinity means, what is the nature of God, and how we approach him. Reading the picture from left to right, we see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are seated around a table. The tree of Life is in the background. We see the bowl in the centre, and the hand of Christ reaching towards it,- the dish of the Eucharist. There is an opening at the front, inviting all God’s people to enter in and be part of this table of the Trinity, this communion of the Trinity.

Google YouTube for more about his icon:

http://www.sacredheartpullman.org/Icon%20explanation.htm

Letter to Sinead, Mark, and Friends,-  young adult seekers.

Dear Sinead, Mark and Friends,

Some of the most wonderful things in life are very ordinary. Like a parent’s love, or the love within a family,  or a special time of conversation with your grandmother or granddad. Nothing earth-shaking, very ordinary, and yet very precious to us.

Come to today’s Feast,- we call it the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, a mouthful. I bet, if you asked any of the twelve Apostles about the Trinity, or even asked Mary, Mother of Jesus, about the Trinity, they would look at you, bewildered.  Because the term ‘Trinity’ or ‘Most Holy Trinity’, wasn’t invented until much later. But if you asked them about the reality of God in their lives,- a sense of the Creator of everything, or ‘the heavenly Father’ that Jesus spoke about, -they would say ‘O, yes!’  For the Jewish people (and the Apostles were Jewish, like Jesus, like Mary), the name they had for the One True God was never spoken, but it was ‘I AM’.  As simple as that, as profound as that. The God who looked after them, protected them, rescued them, told them ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love, and I am constant in my affection for you’, -this was the God that Jesus loved as a boy and young man.

Back to that ‘Trinity’ again!  The early Christians knew God, had a personal relationship or bond with ‘God’, with ‘I am’. They also knew Jesus, and eventually came to realize, after his resurrection, that this Jesus was in fact who he said he was, the ‘Son of God’. ‘If you see me, you see the Father’, he told them. ‘I and the Father are one’. And in St John’s

'The Trinity', an icon painted by Rublev.

Gospel, Jesus uses the word ‘sent’ about himself, over 40 times, and refers to his ‘Father’ over 90 times. That’s two out of the three that make up the ‘Trinity’.

Back again. Remember all the promises of Jesus to his frightened disciples, that he would not leave them orphans, that he would send a Comforter to them, or an ‘advocate’ who would stand by their side always: he would send the ‘Spirit’ to them. ‘Don’t leave Jerusalem’, he told them at the Ascension, ‘until you have received the Promise of the Father’,- namely the Spirit. And the Spirit is the Spirit of God, the Spirit that was and is in Jesus himself, the fire in him, the light and joy and courage and wisdom… and you could go on.

The disciples knew all about Jesus. They knew the Creator God, the ‘heavenly Father’ that Jesus showed them (remember the story of the Father of the Prodigal Son,- a parable about God, the Father, yours and mine!).  They knew all about the Holy Spirit, because on that Pentecost Sunday, the Holy Spirit of God came on them ‘like tongues of fire’ and shook the whole house, and when they went out from that Upper Room, they were ‘on fire’, and spoke to people in all sorts of languages, the mystery of God.

Did they know the word ‘Trinity’? No! Did they know about Father, Son and Holy Spirit? They surely did,- from their experience

So, when we celebrate today the Feast of the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity,- three Persons, but one God,- it’s what the Apostles were all about, in the Good News they brought to all the people they met.

Do you know your heavenly Father? (He ‘knows the number of hairs on your head ‘ (Matthew 10) ).  Do you know Jesus, (do you know him by heart, and not just by head?). He knows you and calls you by name. ‘I know my own and my own know me’- John 10.   Do you know the Holy Spirit?  You are the Spirit’s Address! The Spirit is a Person inside you, setting your heart on fire.  The Spirit is Jesus’ first and greatest gift to us all, to each one and to everyone who asks.  Just welcome Jesus into your life, and then watch out! His Spirit will light up your face and eyes and send you into your world.

‘Trinity’? The word? Maybe not.    The reality? Yes indeed.

‘Sometimes it’s ecstasy, and sometimes porridge!’

‘If any love me, they will keep my commandments and my Father will love them and we will come and make our home in them.’  (John 14:21)

‘Live in me, and let me live in you!’ said Jesus. (John 15:4).

Those chapters in St. John’s Gospel,- Chapters 13 to 17-  are wonderful food for the heart and soul. Dip into them for five minutes a day, over a time. Invite a couple of friends to do it also, even with you. There’s eating and drinking in them! And share what you find with the few friends who are doing the same. But watch out,- you all could catch fire!

Enjoy!

Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.  seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com 

Learn more about Andrei Rublev’s icon The Trinity, painted centuries ago in Russia, greatly loved throughout the world. Click here.

A short poem about the Trinity, called ‘In Dwelling’,  that I wrote some time ago,- find it on www.emptifulvessels.com, or click here 

Do you ‘know’ God, your heavenly Father? (‘Know’ in the Scriptures means ‘knowing

Andrei Rublev's 'Trinity'.

with your heart, you whole being’: Adam ‘knew’ his wife Eve, and they had children. )  Do you know your heavenly Father who ‘knows the number of hairs on your head’? (Matthew 10). Do you know the Father of the prodigal son, who, when he saw his far-away son, ran to him, kissed him, and threw his arms around him (Luke 15)? Do you know the One who gave his name to Moses as ‘I AM’?  The one who leads us ‘with leading-strings of love’, as Hosea says? The One who said ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love! I am constant in my affection for you!’  (Jeremiah 31).

If you do, then you’re on the way to ‘knowing’ the Holy Trinity better!

Do you know Jesus,- ‘know’ him intimately, as friend? Know the one who grew up in Nazareth and lived there until he was 30 years old? The one who gathered disciples around him. The one who to whom sinners and outcasts flocked, to listen to him? The one who was nailed to a cross for you, and for us all? If you ‘know’ Jesus, the Christ, then you’re on the way to ‘knowing’ the Holy Trinity better.

Do you know the Holy Spirit who was poured into your heart at Baptism and at Confirmation? The Spirit who is our constant companion, a ‘Comforter’, one who stands by our side always, who is a fire in our hearts when we open the Scriptures?   If you ‘know’ the Holy Spirit of God who flows in your veins, then you’re on the way to ‘knowing’ the Holy Trinity better!

So, on this Feast, it is a feast, a banquet, a celebration when we make a song and dance together about our heavenly Father, about Jesus his Son, about the Holy Spirit, – three persons in one God.

Maybe the word ‘Trinity’ now means a bit more,- a Trinity of Persons in One God, a ‘Most Holy Trinity’ that is our life.

We live and move and have our beings in that great Mystery, that community of love that is the community of the most holy Trinity.  We are part of that family, because we are baptized into Christ, we are all ‘one person’ in Christ, and so we are caught up in the love and life and laughter and tears of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We are IN the Trinity

Live it! Love it! Celebrate it! Make a song and dance this weekend about who we are and where we are!

God bless!

Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.

seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com

Find a poem called ‘In Dwelling’, a reflection on the Trinity (‘sometimes it’s ecstasy, sometimes porridge’) written a few years ago. Click here, or go to www.emptifulvessels.com, a selection of reflections by Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.

To learn more about Andrei Rublev’s ‘Trinity’ icon, click here