Proverbs 8:22-31
1. Who is talking when the First Reading says, “Then was I beside him as his craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth?” Is there a similarity between this ancient reading and the opening of John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God … ”?
2. This reading says in God’s voice, “I found delight in the human race.” Did God create the human race with some wisdom? What responsibility does the human race have to use the gift of wisdom to keep the earth “from transgressing God’s commands” in the climate crisis?
Second Reading
Romans 5:1-5
1. “The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” If God’s love is the source, what has been poured into your own heart? Can you sense the presence of the Holy Spirit there?
2. Why would God include us intimately in the divine love of the Trinity? Does that give reason to hope? What would the world look like without hope?
Gospel
John
16:12-15
1. Does the Spirit change your understanding of revelation? What is the source of your own sympathies? Can understanding of divine love be exhausted? Have you ever reached a place where “you could not bear” more knowledge of love?
2. According to Pope Francis, what does the Trinity teach us about not being an island?
To understand this better, let us think of the names of the divine Persons, which we pronounce every time we make the sign of the cross: each name contains the presence of the other. The Father, for example, would not be such without the Son; likewise, the Son cannot be considered alone, but always as the Son of the Father. And the Holy Spirit, in turn, is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. In short, the Trinity teaches us that one can never be without the other.
We are not islands; we are in the world to live in God’s image: open, in need of others and in need of helping others. And so, let us ask ourselves this last question: in everyday life, am I too a reflection of the Trinity? The sign of the cross I make every day the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit—is that sign of the cross we make every day a gesture for its own sake, or does it inspire your way of speaking, of encountering, of responding, of judging, of forgiving?