Trinity Sunday 30.5.21 Worship
Today we focus on God Himself, rejoicing in His perfections, and giving thanks that we are included in His plans.
We often pray to God for what we need, but we remind ourselves that prayer should not always be asking for things. We should take time to thank God, and even more fundamentally still, to praise Him.
The Scriptures abound in references to praising God…Forever I will sing the praises of the Lord; Praise God in His holy temple…I will exalt You and praise Your name…
We do praise God in the liturgical prayers of the Mass and the Divine Office; and many other prayers. Glory to God in the highest…
We need also to make that praise our own personal practice, as we meditate on the goodness of God, and make it a habit to reaffirm that goodness.
God does not need our praise but we need to give it!
In giving praise to God we are letting our souls soar aloft and we find our true place before God. My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit exalts in God my Saviour.
In Heaven they praise God without ceasing… Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus!
This might sound rather demanding to us, like being in church all day long – but in Heaven they can perceive the goodness of God, whereas here we are weighed down with doubt and fear etc. It would be no effort for those in Heaven. The praise would come forth spontaneously.
We know the joy of experiencing some form of beauty beyond the norm. Be it music, or art, or nature, or anything which draws us out of ourselves. In Heaven we see that God is more beautiful than anything He has made, more desirable than any earthly reality could be.
It is harder to praise God on earth when we have not experienced the full sight of His glory. But we can go some distance with faith and hope; the rest will come in eternity.
The praise we offer will itself lift our spirits to higher things.
Today, Trinity Sunday, we search into the inner mysteries of God's nature. What is He like? How much do we know about God? We feel very inadequate to answer such questions.
He is so much greater than we are, and it is hard for a lesser being to understand a greater.
We do the best we can with the help of God Himself, and what He has revealed to us.
Fortunately, it is not only our brains working on it; we have supernatural help. Nor is it only an intellectual matter.
By loving God we come to understand Him better. Keeping His commands, seeking to please Him, we get a sense of what God is about.
And always part of this is Praise, simple devotion to God, acknowledging His goodness even if we do not feel especially happy at every moment.
God reveals Himself to us as a Trinity of Persons, three distinct identities but so closely bound to each other that they make one God, not three.
He knows we will find this difficult to grasp but invites us to share His inner life, and at least begin to understand.
God wants us to relate to Him as He relates to Himself in the activity of the three Persons.
There is a mutual giving and receiving inside the Blessed Trinity, and we are lifted up to be part of that!
It is an honour so great that we might miss it, and many do; but it is there waiting for us whenever we do make a conscious response.
Let us take every chance to glorify God – today and all days. He does not need it, but He deserves it. And we - for once not asking for something - will benefit anyway from contemplating His goodness and glory.
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