Category: Uncategorized

By Fr. Tom Zelinski, OFM Capuchin

This Sunday we honor the Holy Trinity. Don’t try to “understand” the Trinity. It’s natural to try to think about the Trinity, to imagine what God “looks like.” We tend to think in pictures, but we are dealing in the realm of spirit and mystery.

We have all seen the old pictures: an old man along with a younger man along with a dove. That is someone’s poor attempt at picturing what can’t be pictured.

What does the Bible say? In the First Letter of John we are told that God is love and that whoever lives in love lives in God, and God lives in that person. If God equals love, then we seem to be dealing with relationship. God is a constant, dynamic, interactive relationship of love, which then invites us to be a part of that love.

We say God is a mystery. That does not mean we can’t understand God at all. We can understand in part, but then we are invited to go in deeper. If God is love, then what do we already know of love? We look around at good people. We see kindness,  compassion, service, sympathy. These are signs of the loving presence of God in people. So with God we “understand” by getting involved in the mystery. We see and receive love, and we share love with others. We do not so much “think God” as we “act God” in participating in the flow of love in the world. Creator, Savior, Sanctifier, You, Me.

By Fr. Tom Zelinksi, OFM Capuchin

These days, some sad and disturbing news comes to us. We hear of questionable actions by a police officer, a man dies, angry people respond with violent action. This is a scene all too often repeated. What might we think about all this?

I have never been a police officer. I do not know the burden and the fear in that position. It is often a thankless job. Yet we need police to help keep order in our society. But I also have not walked in the shoes of my African-American brothers and sisters. I have not known their inner experience of being judged or feared simply because of the color of their skin. I have not felt their experience of being stopped by police. A common expression is that some are stopped for “driving while Black.”

All of these troubling events remain the heritage of our history of slavery. White people brought slaves from Africa and then resented them for being who they were: probably the sting of a guilty conscience. We call that whole story the sin of racism.

What is any of us to do? As with so many things, it could start by looking within. What does my conscience tell me about my own thoughts and feelings? How do I respond at the sight of someone who looks different from me? How might I be led to wrongly judge people simply by appearance? How well do I live the message of Matthew 25, where Jesus tells us that what we do for any brother or sister, we do for him?