A Meditation for our ninth week of Ordinary Time in 2026

From the first page to the last, I see the Bible focusing on relationships. Relationships require a back and forth. They need the autonomy of the other who receives and engages.  Within the diversity of our scriptures, I see this relational thread and the difficulty of living in relationship. I see the relationship between us and God, I see the relationships I have with others, and the way I relate to creation. Even the two greatest commandments of Jesus are relational. We love God because God also loves us. Jesus also commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves. So here I am called to care for the way I relate to others and to myself. The pages of the Bible exist for relationships.

This Sunday we celebrate the Holy Trinity. This solemnity (a term for our most important feasts) is always the Sunday after Pentecost. It is here to remind us that at the core of our triune God is relationship. The center of the Trinity is love in relationship. The Trinity is three, and it is one. The Trinity is love and relationship. The church is many, and Jesus prayed that we would be one. Our neighbors are many, and we are told by Jesus to love them in the breath that follows Him telling us to love our God. From the very first pages of the Bible, we are invited to reflect on the way all these relationships unfold. 

One of the most radical things that Jesus and the early church did was throw wide open the doors of love and welcome. This wasn’t completely new. There were many moments in the Old Testament where people acknowledged that God loves those they don’t and will forgive and accept them. One of the best examples is Jonah, who knew God’s mercy would pour out upon the people of Nineveh. Our God is boundless, and limitless are His love, mercy, and patience.

It is no surprise that one way that the love of God is expressed is through a call to go and share His love with others. Jesus tells his disciples to do this in a passage known to many as the Great Commission (in Matthew 28). I have an interesting relationship with this passage. When I was still in school, I was a part of churches and ministries that focused mostly on the first part of ‘Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them’ part. In many ways, for them, the passage seems to have ended there. I find myself now far more drawn to what Jesus said next: ‘teach them to obey all I have commanded you. And remember, I am always with you, to the end of the age.’ Jesus commands us to love God and our neighbors. It was an embodied love that was witnessed, experienced, and modeled by the disciples.

It was upon this foundation of love that our ancestors built the early church and Christian monasticism. I will continue to work on bringing the love and presence of Jesus into my call to go and make disciples. I must start with love and presence, for I am not sure how a movement can reset their foundations upon love when so many within have accepted and built upon something else. It has been two decades since I finished my undergraduate degree and was in a world where converting people into disciples was their goal, and not love. I won’t return to a place where the love and the presence of God is not the life, movement, and breath from which everything else flows and in the end is all that matters.

Relational love is different from the love of a good book, my favorite music, or a piece of art. I can love things because of what they do for me. Love in a relationship takes work. Yes, I have to be open and receive love, but I also have to do the work of love. I see our God doing this across the pages of scriptures and across the days of my life. God creates. God sustains. God shows up. 

The way that God is committed to us feels a lot like our monastic vow of stability. The vow of stability is a commitment to the city you live in, and to our community. It is a commitment that I will do the work. This vow is the way I fulfill the call to go and make disciples. I was sent here. I am home here in Paris. I will live and love with God in this city. I will work for its future, and for love to heal what hatred and oppression continue to break. For Jesus commanded me to love and will never forsake me. I will do my best to follow His example in this place. I will create, I will sustain, and I will show up. 

May the love of our God give life to your relationships and hope.

Readings for the 9^th Sunday of Ordinary Time · Year A

Sunday readings from the Revised Common Lectionary

Photo Credit
Paul Prins on 26 June 2023 in Paris.