Bible Meditation: The Very Joy of God

Sunday June 12, 2022, feast of the Holy Trinity, four texts will be read.
First reading Book of Proverbs (Pr 8, 22-31).
Psalm 8.
Second reading Letter to the Romans (Rm 5, 1-5).
The Gospel according to Saint John (Jn 16, 12-15).

Jeans 16, 12-15
At that time, Jesus said to his disciples:
“I still have a lot to tell you,
but for now you can’t wear them.

When he comes, he, the Spirit of truth,
he will lead you into all truth.
Indeed, what he will say will not come from himself:
but what he has heard he will say;
and what is to come he will let you know.

He will glorify me,
because he will receive what comes from me
to let you know.

All that the Father has is mine;
this is why I told you:
The Spirit receives what comes from me
to let you know. »

In this world, in this flesh, unfolds the life of God

There is only one feast, Easter, so great that the liturgy diffracts it into different moments. We were left speechless before the cross of the Lord. Alone, lost, we crossed the night while Christ visited our hells and opened them to a future. Amazed, we celebrated the end of every curse, the resurrection of the crucified Lord, who on the cross gave us the Holy Spirit. We celebrated the promise of gathering into unity the scattered children of God.

The Church begins there, in the scattering of the lost, who find themselves brothers and sisters on Easter morning. We celebrated the ascension of the Lord and heard these words: “Why are you standing there staring at the sky? » and we have understood that it is indeed in this world and in this flesh that the life of God unfolds.

The Spirit opens our minds

We stayed locked up with the disciples. And, slowly, we understood the words that Jesus had left us: “I am with you”, “I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice; and no one will take away your joy. »

And the Comforter, the Spirit delivered by the Son, has been given to us. It is a Spirit who opens minds, a Spirit who speaks a thousand languages, because he speaks the language of the other (and isn’t that first of all, the gift of tongues?), he unlocks hearts hard, softens bitterness, strengthens the courage of the fearful. He makes the dispersed a body, he does not deny the tensions, the singularities of each, but he brings them together and binds to them as one binds to his friends.

The Father gives himself in his Son, who himself gives himself to us

This is what now exists in us: the very movement of God who gives himself so that the Church and each one of us may be taken into this movement, for others. It is the Spirit of the Father, the movement of the Father himself who gave himself in his Son, and the movement of the Son himself who gave himself to us.

This movement has existed since the creation of the world, since the Wisdom of God was already dancing before it, playing like a happy child before the beauty of the world (Proverb 8, 32). What has been deposited in us is the very joy of God, joy which is the fruit of the relationship between the divine persons. It is the joy of the Father who gives himself and the joy of the Son who is given to his own. The Spirit is the actualization of this joy in our lives, today, now, in this flesh which is ours.

An open communion where we have our place

Even in distress, Saint Paul tells us, because our hope is that of Christ himself: the dispersion that we can experience in conflicts, and desolation, is not the last word of our life. By agreeing to be crucified, quartered like a cursed person, he brought together the dispersed because the very nature of the Trinitarian God is to be an open communion, in which henceforth we have our full place.

The conflicts, hatreds, divisions that we know well are not our future, but our past. This is why the place of God’s life is not elsewhere than in this life of ours, made of flesh and blood: it is there that each of us can be a ferment of unity. Not just for us. For everyone. “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. » It’s done, once and for all. We must now believe in it, and live by it.

Anne Lecu is Dominican. She practices medicine in prison. She is the author of This is my body, You consecrated me with a perfume of joy and, in 2020, Our father, published by Editions du Cerf.