Fr. Perrone on the conclusion of Our Lady's Month of May, Trinity Sunday (& God's honor), and Corpus Christi Sunday

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" [temporary link] (Assumption Grotto News, May 31, 2015:

We bid farewell to Our Lady’s month and on Monday will commence the month of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. I have particularly enjoyed May this year. So often spring passes me by with little recognition of its charms. In years past I have, in the midst of summer, looked back and wondered where the lovely month of Holy Mary had gone with ever so little a thought of it. Like the beautiful Lady that She is, this is nature’s youthful beauty, its life-giving potency to the earth being a reminder of the fruitfulness of Mary’s womb. Perhaps it’s due to the severity of this past winter that I have been more determined to savor the delights of spring this year; or maybe it’s because I’m getting older and know that, with life’s years more spent than ahead, I need to be more thoughtful of God’s largess. Modern life is far too fast and superficial to appreciate the good things of God. I want to slow the pace a bit to take better notice.

This somewhat lyrical introduction brings me to the mystery of the Blessed Trinity celebrated in the Church today. It too takes considered time in order to savor the thought of God in Himself, a community of Persons. If we have no time for God’s created natural wonders neither will we have any thoughts of Him; the more so of Him as the Trinity.

No one comes to the Father but through Christ. No one is in Christ but through the Holy Spirit. I fear that few then come to God at all. Indeed, God is transcendent of necessity, but He is also transcendent in another, disturbing sense. He’s far, far removed from men’s thoughts and He’s far removed from their lives. If I may say so without sounding mawkishly pious, I ‘grieve’ that God is so neglected by His ungrateful, preoccupied creatures. This neglect of God will also be to their own undoing, to their self-harm, a punishment. But that is not my point here. If it be possible to love God purely for His sake, without a care of our own advantage for so doing–and surely this must be possible–then we should desire His “good,” which is to say, that he should have us as His own possession. On Trinity Sunday I want God to be God in the fullness of His divine majesty (which He is inevitably in Himself) in His creatures by their acting as He intended them to act, by giving Him glory by their obedience and love. God can be ‘robbed’ of His (external) glory if He is refused. This ought to cause sadness for those who know and love Him. Psalm 118 (Vulgate): “Issues of tears flow from my eyes because they have not kept Your law.” One must grieve that for all His infinite bounty and benevolence, God is met with indifference, disobedience, and disdain. It may seem silly to say that one is sad over God being snubbed. God’s bigger than that; He can take it, one might say. He however has the right to receive the finest acts of humility and honor that men can offer Him.

I know Trinity Sunday concerns the complex and ever-elusive mystery of one God in three divine Persons, and not just of God simply said. But I can’t help deplore the more fundamental ignorance of Him and the rough treatment He’s getting nowadays–through neglect.

Next Sunday will see another great day of celebration, Corpus Christi. The Latin Mass will be transferred to noon and the 9:30 a.m. Mass will be in the vernacular. Following the noon Mass, there will take place the traditional procession with the Blessed Sacrament. His Majesty permitting, we will then move outdoors to the four altars and impart the blessing with the Sacred Host in the four directions of the compass–the four “ends” of the earth. And here we have a tie-in with what is written above. The Lord must reign and receive due adoration, honor, and praise, at least from us who bear the responsibility of being aware of His Presence in the Holy Sacrament. Our Lord’s expression about Himself in the Holy Eucharist is Living Bread. The bread on your tables at home is a dead, lifeless thing. The Bread of the Holy Sacrament is alive–no mere thing but Himself, conscious of those kneeling before Him, each in his varying degrees of attentiveness, devotion, faith and love. “I am with you always,” He said, “until the consummation of the world.” Assuredly then He is here. Will you be there with Him?

Fr. Perrone