Love, Unity, and Birds

Over the last two weeks, the Catholic Church has celebrated two wonderful feast days: the feast of the Holy Trinity (June 3) and the feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ or Corpus Christi (June 10).  At their core, these feasts remind us of how our personal faith in God is at its best when it is relational with one another.  The Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit shows us the importance of our individual roles in life while also being eternally joined to others for one sacred purpose: to love.  Similarly, through the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, we become united to God and one another not just in our sharing of communion, but also in our sharing of community.  We often here the language at church calling us to be "one with God," but do we actually stop to think about the power and responsibility that comes from such language?  Taken seriously, it is nothing short of a radical challenge for us bring real love and real peace to everyone.

A couple of days ago, I had the privilege of being in my friend's wedding.  As I think about this wonderful experience, I realize that this celebration took the aforementioned feasts and united them together as one.  The bride and the groom, through their love for one another, joined together with God as a wonderful sign of the Trinity.  Also, as all of us at the wedding celebrated the love of the couple, we also joined them in the celebration of the Eucharist (Body of Christ) which only strengthened the bond we have with God and with one another (Trinity, yet again).  This celebration brought people together from many different faith and cultural backgrounds, but in our mutual love for the bride and groom, God united us all together regardless of our differences.  I believe this was the Spirit working at its best.

As we continue to sense the Spirit in our lives, I conclude today's post with a short video of "startling birds" from Britain in what is called a murmuration pattern.  I think the movement of the birds in the video very much resembles the movement of the Spirit in our lives: seemingly unpredictable at times but clearly present (if we take the time to look). 


http://vimeo.com/31158841 


May we be ever-faithful, ever-mindful, and ever-joyful.