January 7, 2015
Jesus
Makes Us Trinity
In the Name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
According to John, “No one has ever seen God.” But we have
seen, and we “testify that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world.”
How do we experience his salvation?
“In him was life.” John identifies the Life Jesus gives with
Light:
“The life was the light of all people… To all who received [his light],
who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God… And this is
eternal life, that they may know you,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 1:4,12; 17:3).
Jesus gives us life by giving us light to know God. The life
he gives is God’s life. But God is love. So to know by the light Jesus gives is
to live and love like God.
These three go together. Like the Three Persons of the
Trinity, they are inseparable: divine Life from the Father as source of all
being and goodness; divine Light from the Son as Word, expression of truth;
divine Love from the Holy Spirit as experience of oneness.
Like the life of the triune God that we share, the “grace of
the Lord Jesus Christ” is a triune gift: we live through the gift of knowing;
we know through the gift of living; and both are verified in the gift of loving.
In practice, this means that if we “love one another as Jesus
has loved us” (John 13:34), we know Jesus is giving us light and life.
The Good News is “to know and to believe in the love God has
for us” by experiencing that love being given to others in us, through us and
by us acting in union with Jesus.
What do we
get out of believing in Jesus? If we put the phrases of the first reading (1John 4:11-18) in
logical order, John gives us ten reasons to be Christians:
If we acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God:
God remains in us
and we in God
as God is, so are
we in this world
God gives us of
his Spirit
we know that we remain
in him and he in us
we know and we
believe in the love God has for us
we remain in love
we love one
another
his love is
brought to perfection in us
we have no fear,
because there is no fear in love
we have
confidence on the day of judgment.
The Christian life is all about being, knowing and loving. And giving expression to truth and love in action. Basically, it is living the
Life of the Trinity as Father, Word and Spirit. On earth and in heaven. Now and
forever.
Pray and Practice:
When
you make the “Sign of the Cross,” ask the Father for
Life, the Son for Truth,
and the Spirit for Love.
Discuss: How have
you experienced, knowing, loving, and living on the level of God?
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