Saint Blaise, Bishop and Martyr – Readings
Commentary on Romans 5:1-5; Mark 16:15-20
The Gospel comes from the very end of Mark, a section that some scripture scholars hold does not really belong to the original text, but was added later and, in fact, it echoes passages from the other Gospels, especially Matthew (the original Mark Gospel predates that of Matthew).
Nevertheless, one can see why it was chosen as the Gospel for today’s feast. The first part of today’s reading is said to contain words spoken by Jesus while eating with his disciples in the Upper Room after the Resurrection. The Apostles receive their mandate from Jesus to go out to the whole world and proclaim the Good News to “the whole creation”. It is reminiscent of similar words found in Matthew where they are spoken just before the Ascension.
Jesus then promises that belief in him and his message will bring signs:
…by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.
In the second part, we are told that the Lord Jesus then ascended to his Father and, as his followers carried out his commands, the things he promised did indeed take place as a confirmation of the truth of their message.
The relevance to Blaise is clear. Many miracles and wonders were attributed to him—the healing of the sick and being able to live safely in the company of wild animals. The Lord continues to work wonders today although they are not often literally miraculous events, but experiences which may even be more influential in the lives of people. Perhaps we have had or seen such experiences ourselves.
The First Reading is a lovely passage from Paul’s Letter to the Romans. He reminds his hearers of all the wonderful graces that have come through living their lives in faith and hope:
…our hope of sharing the glory of God.
He even tells them to rejoice in their sufferings, not because they are pleasurable, but because suffering properly accepted teaches endurance and inner strength. Endurance shows that we have risen to the test, the test of our faith in the Lord Jesus. And our ability to do this is the basis for our hope, a hope that will one day be vindicated.
And it is not an empty hope:
…because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
This is a passage which was lived by Blaise, who faced every kind of torment and, in the end, did not hesitate to give his life, following the example of his Lord.
Read more
The Most Holy Trinity (Year C)
Commentary on Proverbs 8:22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15
Today’s feast is one which many preachers would prefer not to have to talk about. What can one say that is meaningful about such an abstract concept as the Holy Trinity? In one sense, of course, they are right. It was the great St Thomas Aquinas who said that it was much easier to say what God was not than what he is. In other words, every positive statement made about God has to be immediately denied. If we say God is ‘good’, it is obviously true but our concept of ‘goodness’, however exalted, is so limited that God’s ‘goodness’ cannot be remotely described by our concept of it. And the same is so of every other attribute applied to God.
So when it comes to speaking of the meaning and inner relationship of three “Persons” in one God we are floundering in territory where ordinary human language is totally inadequate to express the reality. Our God can only be reached in the “cloud of unknowing”, as Julian of Norwich so beautifully expressed it. God is not any of the things we say he is. It is, as Fr Anthony de Mello used to put it, something like “trying to explain the colour green to a person who has been totally blind since birth.”
In search of an understanding
However, we should not try to get off the hook too easily and decide to speak or think about something altogether different on this Sunday. Provided we are aware of God’s basic unknowability by our limited minds, there are still many helpful things we can consider about our God and the inner relationships which are part of his being. While it is of the utmost importance that we realise this, there are many statements we can make which will help in our relationship with God.
To go back to Thomas Aquinas again, one of his basic principles was that “Behaviour is determined by the nature of things” (Latin, Agere sequitur esse). From the way things act we know something about what they are. We can thus distinguish the different natures of minerals and other non-living substances, plant life, bacterial and viral life, animal life or human life from the different ways in which each is able to function and react. We normally will not confuse a cow and a horse, a bird or a bat, a shark or a whale, a gorilla or a human being. It is not simply their appearances that are different. We realise that each has certain capabilities and that those capabilities arise from the way they are essentially constituted in their inner being. We don’t expect animals to talk as humans do (except in TV cartoons). We don’t expect snails to run in the Derby or the Grand National—or tortoises to outstrip hares, except in fables.
And, in our daily rubbing shoulders with other people, the only way we can know them is by what they reveal of themselves through their behaviour and interactions. When we say they are kind, it is because they consistently behave in a way that is kind. Or when we say they are cruel, again it is because of what we perceive as consistently cruel behaviour. Jesus said:
You will know them by their fruits…A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. (Matt 7:16,18)
And this is because agere sequitur esse.
Limited understanding
At the same time, while we may think we can know a lot about people from their behaviour (and do not hesitate to pass judgement!), we can by no means know everything. Every human being, indeed as science constantly discovers, every created thing is a mystery whose innermost reality is really impossible for us to penetrate totally. And that even applies to our own selves. We do not know ourselves totally. We are a mystery to ourselves—and, a fortiori, to others!
If this is true of created reality, we should not be surprised to face the same dilemma with the Creator. God, in his deepest being, is a mystery we cannot ever fathom. This is not just a ‘cop out’; it is a fact. Nevertheless, on the basis of what God does, we do get some very clear indications of what he is. Agere sequitur esse applies to God also.
What the Christian Testament tells us
And it is in the Christian Testament especially that we get the first hints of there being more than one way of understanding God, although the full theology of the Trinity was only developed later. What it means to have three Persons in one Being is something we do not even try to understand. But we can get some inkling if we confine ourselves to seeing what each of the persons does as a clue to what they are.
In Greek classical drama in the time of Jesus and earlier, the actors put on a mask to indicate the role they were playing (not unlike the elaborate painting of the face in Chinese opera for the same purpose). The Greek word for this mask was prosopon (literally, ‘in front of the face’) and the Latin translation is persona (that through which the sound of the voice came).
So, speaking analogically, we can say that in our God there are three masks, three personae, three roles pointing to three separate sources of action. This is not an explanation. It is a groping effort to get some understanding. Those three roles are that of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Father
We see God as Father, a loving and compassionate Father. Not a daunting patriarchal figure, but one that is easily approached and who can be addressed by the familiar and intimate term “Abba” (similar the English ‘Papa’, or ‘Ah-Ba’ in Chinese and other languages). He is the Creator and giver of all life. Everything good that can be discerned in the world around us comes from him and through him. In him, through him and with him all things exist.
He is the one who cares, the one who waits for the Prodigal to return and forgives completely and immediately. He is the Father of truth, the Father of love and compassion, the Father of justice. The whole of this beautiful world in which we live is a testimony and, at the same time, only a faint indication of what he really is. If we really look at the world he has made (and not at the one we have unmade), our hearts can only be overcome with praise and thanks.
Son
We see God as Son, who in an extraordinary way came to live among us, and whom, in a paradox beyond all understanding, we humans killed. In the Son as a human being, we can see, hear and touch God. We see something of the nature of our God as Jesus heals the sick, identifies with the weak and socialises with the sinful. We see him challenge the dehumanising values that form the fabric of most of our lives and, in the process, he is rejected by those he loves. Though he is God, he empties himself of all human dignity that he might open for us the way to true and unending life.
Spirit
We see God as Spirit, becoming, as it were, the soul of his people. All the good that we do, all our evangelising work, our hospitals, schools, works of social development and social welfare, our care of the sick, the weak, the oppressed and the outcast—all are the work of God’s Spirit working in and through us. Wherever there is love, there is the Spirit of God at work.
Models for our life
And yet, being aware of all this, we still cannot say that we know our God. But there is enough here—if we pray and reflect on it—that is already overpowering in its significance.
We need to remember that we have been called to be and to grow into the image of God himself. In what has been revealed to us through Jesus and the Scriptures, we have more than enough to challenge us and to help us to approach closer to our God. Our ultimate goal, and it is the only goal for all the living, is to achieve perfect union with him. We do that, above all, by loving as he loved—by loving unconditionally and continuing to love where no love, and even hate, is returned.
For this we need the creative power of the Father, the compassion of the Son, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They are all available to anyone who opens their heart to receive.
Read more