Dear Friends,
Are you ever lonely? Do you ever feel isolated?
When Eve was alone in the garden, the serpent came to tempt her and she sinned. When King David was alone in the palace and he gazed upon the woman on the rooftop of his neighbor’s house, he embraced temptation and sinned. When Jesus was alone in the desert, and later when he was alone in the garden, the devil came to tempt him, but he didn’t sin. Temptation, it seems, often finds us and searches for us in isolation and in loneliness.
But we were not created for isolation and loneliness. In this fallen world we certainly experience isolation and loneliness. And we certainly suffer from isolation and loneliness. We experience it. We suffer from it. We fight against it. But we weren’t created for isolation and loneliness. We were created for something else. We were created for something better because God was not alone when we were created. And in His image and likeness we are created.
We are not the result of God looking for company. We were not created as the answer to the question of God being lonely and isolated. From all eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have lived in perfect harmony, perfect blessedness, and perfect communion. Nothing is needed. Nothing is lacking. There is no loneliness in the Trinity. There is no isolation in the Trinity; instead there is an infinite relationship of self-giving and receiving. There is love. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father and that love is so complete and intense we call that love the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Trinity needs absolutely nothing, the Holy Trinity needs absolutely nothing for blessedness, happiness, perfect communion, and harmony, but yet, we exist — we exist because; from that love and for that love, we were created. We are not needed, but we are wanted. We are not needed, but we are loved. We are not needed, but we are desired. We are not needed but we are wanted, loved, and desired by
the God of heaven and earth. For God created us not for isolation and loneliness, but for communion with Him and with each other.
The tragedy of sin, however, the echo of Adam and Eve’s “No” fractures the communion, it damages our relationships with God and each other. Sin leaves us at times in isolation and loneliness. But the triumph of God’s grace, the echo of Mary’s “Yes”, the ever-present reality of our Lord’s “Yes”, and the continual “Yes” of the Church to her Lord, and our “Yes,” draws us more and more into the communion for which we were created.
This “Yes” to God and “No” to sin is strengthened at every Mass we participate in, if we allow it. At every Mass we participate, if we allow it, our life within the Trinity is strengthened and deepened. As the Host of Bread is place on the paten and the wine is poured into the chalice, and both are put upon the altar, we are there as well. We are there on the altar with the bread and the wine. So when you see that paten with the host on the altar, put all your sins, put all your failings, put all your sufferings, put all your worries, put all your crosses onto that paten. When you see the chalice of wine on the altar put all your sins, put all your failings, put all your sufferings, put all your worries, put all your crosses into that chalice of wine. Share in the death of Jesus, and then with Jesus offer them to the Father, be willing to enter into the death and resurrection of Jesus with Him and through the Holy Spirit. And then at the time of Holy Communion, in the Eucharist, in the Body and Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus, we receive the graces of new life, the graces of forgiveness, the graces of resurrection. Do this at every Mass and your “Yes” to God and your “No” to sin will be strengthened and your life within the Trinity will be intensified.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux lived life within the midst of the Trinity. He was the man of the 12th century. He brought peace, joy, and
reconciliation wherever he went. He reconciled schisms between popes and antipopes; he brought reconciliation between feuding people and cities. His many homilies, poems, dissertations, and books are still teaching us today. He’s a doctor of the Church. When he left home at the age of 20 his joyful exuberance for religious life was so contagious that he brought with him to the monastery his 5 brothers, his 2 uncles, and 30 of his friends. And when he would go to various towns to preach missions mothers would hide their children, so persuasive was the example of his holy joy that many would want to leave home and enter into religious life. He brought revival to the Church. His efforts however, would have come to nothing if it weren’t for the Mass, the Eucharist, his prayer, his contemplation, his very life in the Trinity. His life in the Trinity brought him strength and Heavenly direction.
I want to end with the words of a hymn we sing at school Masses, these are words that we are called to live; these are words that St. Bernard of Clairvaux and all the saints before us have lived.
On the paten with the Host I offer up my lowly heart. All my life, my deeds, my thought, thine shall be as mine thou art. In the chalice let me be a drop of water mingled there. Lost O Jesus, in thy love; Thy great sacrifice I share. All today and every day O Jesus let me live in thee. So that I no longer live, but that thou may live through me.
In Baptism you entered into relationship with the Blessed Trinity and the Church. May your prayer, your contemplation, your good works, and your Holy Communions keep that relationship strong and deep, keeping you away from loneliness and isolation.
Pax et Bonum,
Fr. Christopher J. Ankley