I was 16 years old on a youth group retreat in the mountains. One night, I opened my heart to the message being proclaimed: that God so loved the world that He sent His Son for us. Later, I lay under the pine trees and looked up at the countless stars. They seemed different. No longer cold, distant balls of chemical reactions, they appeared as an expression of God’s love, as if He were giving those stars directly to me. The truth of God sending His Son changed how I saw the whole universe.
That is what today’s Gospel reveals: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” (John 3:16) The universe is not just a whirl of impersonal forces or empty space. At its heart is a gift: the Father eternally giving the Son, not to condemn, but to bring life.
This is not abstract doctrine but deeply personal. God gives His Son for you and me. Each human life is precious enough to be caught up in that eternal gift.
It is in the Mass where we encounter this most directly. In the Word proclaimed, in the assembly gathered, in the priest, and above all in the Eucharist, the Father once again gives His Son. What looks like bread and wine is the drama of the Trinity, laboring to love us here and now.
The Trinity is not a puzzle to solve but the blazing Truth at the center of everything: the Father gives the Son for you and me. Lord, help us to see this more clearly.
— Father John Muir
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