by Fr. Tommy Lane
O Father who sought me
O Son who bought me
O Holy Spirit who taught me.
That prayer to the Trinity is quoted in a book on Celtic prayer (The Celtic Way of Prayer: The Recovery of the Religious Imagination page 43 by Esther de Waal). It expresses beautifully the relationship of each person of the Most Holy Trinity to each of us.
The Father sought us. That reminds me of Psalm 139, a beautiful Psalm about God seeking us and being present with us at all times:
O Lord you search me and you know
me,
You know my resting and my rising,
You discern my purpose from afar.
You mark when I walk or lie down,
All my ways lie open to you.
Before ever a word is on my tongue
You know it, O Lord through and through.
Behind and before you besiege me,
Your hand ever laid upon me.
Too wonderful for me, this knowledge,
Too high, beyond my reach.
The Father was continually seeking us from the beginning. The Father called Abraham and called a people to himself out of all the peoples on earth. God called Moses and gave them a covenant forming them into the Jewish people. The first reading (Prov 8:22-31) described the Wisdom of God. Other passages in the Bible identify this Wisdom with God’s Torah or Law or Commandments (Sir/Ecclus 24:23; Bar 4:1). God’s Wisdom or his Commandments is one way we see God seeking his people before the time of Jesus. God’s commandments, his Wisdom, is one way God reached out to his people to lead them to himself. The Father continued to seek his people by sending the prophets to call his people back to live according to the covenant when they were wandering away.
Unfortunately, our spiritual ancestors did not listen, so then the Father revealed the great masterpiece of his plan to seek us: he sent his Son Jesus to buy us with his blood (Matt 26:28; Mark 14:24; Acts 20:28; Rom 3:24-25; 5:9; Eph 1:7; 2:13; Col 1:20; Heb 9:12; Rev 5:9).
O Father who sought me
O Son who bought me
O Holy Spirit who taught me.
The second reading today says the same in other words:
through our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace. (Rom 5:1)
Jesus, the Father’ Son, bought us. That reminds me of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Cor 6:20: “You are not your own property; you have been bought at a price. So use your body for the glory of God.” How much are you worth? You are worth as much as the precious blood of Jesus because that is the price God paid for you, the blood of Jesus. In Rev 5:9 there is a hymn to Jesus and in it these words are addressed to Jesus:
Worthy are you to receive the scroll and to break open its seals, for you were slain and with your blood you purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue, people and nation. (Rev 5:9)
Yes, we were purchased for the Father by the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus is priceless, so you are priceless.
The final part of God’s plan to save us is sending the Holy Spirit at Pentecost after Jesus had ascended.
O Father who sought me
O Son who bought me
O Holy Spirit who taught me.
In the Gospel today, Jesus refers to what the Holy Spirit teaches:
But when the Spirit of truth
comes
He will lead you to the complete truth,
Since he will not be speaking as from himself
But will say only what he has learnt. (John 16:13)
There are many ways in which we can see the Holy Spirit guiding the Church all down through the centuries. There is a very interesting example that I heard on Italian TV some years ago. Bishop Magee was being interviewed and mentioned that when he was secretary to Pope John Paul I, the Pope said to him one day that his successor was sitting opposite him during the conclave (first conclave of 1978). Bishop Magee did not think about it again until after the election of Pope John Paul II a short while afterwards and then he took out the map of the conclave that elected Pope John Paul I and saw that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who was to become Pope John Paul II, was indeed sitting opposite Cardinal Luciani who became Pope John Paul I. How did Pope John Paul I know who his successor would be? I think we can say that somehow it was the Holy Spirit who brought him to this conclusion.
O Father who sought me
O Son who bought me
O Holy Spirit who taught me.
Can you see in your own life that the Father sought you, Jesus the Son bought you, and the Holy Spirit taught you? Can you see events in your own life that show the Father seeking you? Sometimes you hear people say they felt that God had protected them from an accident or protected them during an accident or that what at first looked like a disaster later turned out to be for the best. Can you see Jesus the Son buying you? Those who have seen the movie The Passion of the Christ are very aware of Jesus buying them with his blood. Can you see the Holy Spirit working in your life, perhaps to expand your heart to be compassionate to someone or to forgive someone or to help someone? The Father, Son, and Spirit work in the lives of each of us if we are open. Can you open your heart to the Father, Son, and Spirit?
O Father who sought me
O Son who bought me
O Holy Spirit who taught me.
Copyright © Fr. Tommy Lane 2004
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More homilies for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
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Year A: The Holy Trinity rescuing us 2023
We are drawn into the love at the heart of the Trinity
Tear B: The Most Holy Trinity: God wants the best for us 2021
We belong to the Holy Trinity since baptism