Liturgy

Community Mass

Thank you to Year 9 students who prepared the Community Mass this morning. A warm thank you also to our presider, Father Tony Lusvardi SJ, who has given us permission to print his homily. See below.

Next week, we look forward to the Year 12 students’ preparation of the liturgy. Parents, friends and siblings of Year 12s are welcome – but you don’t need a connection to Year 12 to attend! Anyone can be part of the Community Mass - just come to the Chapel at 8:00am, where it is warm on these chilly mornings. After Mass, people can get a coffee to go before heading off to work and other commitments.

Community Mass details:

College Chapel
Fridays in term time
Starts: 8:00am and concludes 8:30am

Good News for the Feast of the Trinity

Trinity Sunday is a celebration of the mystery of God. To be more precise, it’s a celebration of the fact that God has given us a starting point to discover him, to know him, and to be united with him. God is so different than anything we know that without his help we could say almost nothing about him. God is not a very big thing. He’s not like a gas that gets into the nooks and crannies of everything. He’s not nature and the universe. We know he’s the Creator of the universe because the universe exists, but nothing in the universe is capable of creating the universe. And it’s true that he exists and we exist, but even his way of existing is different than ours. You know who Harry Potter is, so in a way he exists. But he doesn’t exist in the same way that J.K. Rowlings exists. They have different ways of being. And it’s the same with us and God.

At this point, maybe you are scratching your head. If we didn’t have help understanding God, then when we talked about him, that’s all we would be able to do—scratch our heads. But God has given us a way to understand the mystery, even to start to move from our way of being into his way of being. The Gospel tells us how: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” So when we say the word “God,” we mean “Father” and “Son.”

When we say “Father and Son,” then, those words mean that there is a relationship, a relationship of self-giving. And what’s another word for a relationship of self-giving? Love. So when we say God, we also mean a Spirit of love. When we say God we mean Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The life of God’s only Son, Jesus, makes God–the Creator of the universe–visible to us. Because Jesus comes from the Father, when we see him, we know who the Father is. And when we perceive the love proceeding from the Father and the Son, we know the Holy Spirit.

The mystery of the Trinity is infinite—we can always go deeper—but homilies are not meant to be infinite. So just remember what we are celebrating: we have a way of talking about God that he himself has revealed to us. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And this mystery gives us a beginning for understanding and entering into a love and a life that is undivided, infinite, and eternal.

The reflection for this Sunday’s Gospel is from Jesuit, Father Tony Lusvardi. Father Tony grew up in the USA and has taught English for the US Peace Corps in Kazakhstan and administered three small parishes on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. For the past six years he has lived in Rome, firstly completing his licence and doctorate in sacramental theology, and now, teaching sacramental theology at the Gregorian University.

Fr Tony is with us in the College until Week 9 and is keen to meet people in the College community.