First Reading
Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9
1. God has shown himself to us through the ages, through Jesus. Besides his name, what did God reveal about
himself to Moses on Mount Sinai? What was Moses’ response to this revelation? How do you respond when God
speaks to you?
2. This reading says that God forgives us when we are stiff-necked (haughty and stubborn). Do you forgive
others when they have that malady? What could happen to family squabbles, disputes at work, wars between
countries, racial bias, if forgiveness is introduced into the discussion/argument? How do we ask forgiveness
of the planet for the global warming we have created?
Second Reading
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
1. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” God’s nature is love, and he has invited us to come along in his company. What are the implications for our communities?
2. We can all agree with and/or encourage each other in order to live in peace. How important is this to you? Do you encourage others? Is Paul talking about agreeing on everything or on basic truths?
Gospel
John 3:16-18
1.What action of the Father tells you he “ … so loved the world”? What did the Son do? What is your response to God’s immense love for the world and for you personally?
2. According to Pope Francis, the Trinity is Love and at the service of the world which he wishes to save and re-create. What is our job? Could it be to welcome the One who loves us? Should we let ourselves be “moved” by good ideas and inspirations to help re-create what is broken in creation?
God the Father loves the world so much that, in order to save it, He gives what is most precious to him: his only-begotten Son, who gives his life for humanity, rises again, returns to the Father and together with him sends the Holy Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, today’s Feast Day invites us to let ourselves once again be fascinated by the beauty of God; beauty, goodness and inexhaustible truth. But also beauty, goodness, and humble and close truth, which became flesh in order to enter our life, our history, my history, the history of each one of us, so that every man and woman may encounter it and have eternal life. And this is faith: to welcome God-Love; to welcome this God-Love who gives himself in Christ, who moves us in the Holy Spirit; to let ourselves be encountered by him and to trust in him. This is Christian life. To love, to encounter God, to seek God; and he seeks us first; he encounters us first.
