Wednesday,
August 14, 2019
19th Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Dt 34:1-12
Gospel:
Matthew18:15-20
Jesus said to his disciples, “If your brother or sister has sinned against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are in private, and if he listens to you, you have won your brother. If you are not listened to, take with you one or two others so that the case may be decided by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he still refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembled Church. But if he does not listen to the Church, then regard such a one as a pagan or a publican.
“I say to you: whatever you bind on earth, heaven will keep bound; and whatever you unbind on earth, heaven will keep unbound.
“In like manner, I say to you: if on earth two of you are united in asking for anything, it will be granted to you by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered in my Name, I am there among them.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Today’s Gospel ends with a message on unity. Each time this Gospel message comes around I remember the time (year 2005) when local politicians attempted to divide Cebu into three provinces. Cebu’s first lady governor Gwen Garcia fought tooth and nail to preserve Cebu’s unity.
What if God were likewise to be divided into three? The oddity would be more pronounced. In fact, it cannot be done. “Three gods” is an oxymoron because as Almighty, our God doesn’t share superlatives with anyone. Consider how funny a teenager would appear if he buys a dozen cards captioned: “To the sweetest girl in my life”. “Sweetest” is in the superlative. Language is yet to revise itself to allow more than one entity to occupy that singular place of honor reserved to the one possessing the superlative quality.
Because God enjoys all superlatives, he is necessarily one. But we have a big problem with the Trinity. To have Three Persons and insist that there is only one God is to defy the mathematical principle of identity. Under this mathematical principle, a number is equal to no other but itself. Thus, three is three and not one. Surely capitalists hate to see the day when there will be no difference between three billion and one billion! But the case of God is sui generis because in God alone the practice of love is perfect. Where love is perfect, there is no division but perfect unity. God is love, and so He is one.
If Cebuanos are holding on to their identity as one and united province, we should be working harder for unity in Christian love so that God can absorb us into that Trinitarian Unity and so realize the Dream of the Father that all may be one (John 17:21). – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.
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