THE MOST HOLY TRINITY
12 JUNE 2022
Last
Sunday, we ended the Easter Season when we celebrated Pentecost. But the Church
likes to do things in threes. Even
though we have returned to Ordinary Time, we add two more Solemnities to reach
that number of three: today’s Solemnity
of the Most Holy Trinity and next Sunday’s Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and
Blood of the Lord (Corpus Christi).
Preaching
about the Trinity can be a daunting task.
It is a challenge to convey a Dogma that we priests spent hours studying
in Systematic Theology classes to put into understandable language that speaks
to a congregation. The Trinity is a
Mystery that defies our understanding.
How do we get our minds around a Mystery that there is one God and three
distinct Persons? Truth be told, that is
the challenge of all the Mysteries that we celebrate. At Christmas, we were invited to believe that
the infinite God became a finite man in Jesus.
During the Sacred Paschal Triduum, we reflected on the reality that the
crucified, dead, and buried Jesus was raised to new and eternal life. On Pentecost, we tried to grasp how ordinary,
uneducated fishermen could lay the foundation for a Church that has lived on
for over two thousand years.
We may not
understand any of these mysteries. But
we embrace them in faith, because we remain open to the wonderful ways that God
has chosen to work with us. The same is
true of the Doctrine of the Trinity.
There are three distinct persons in one God, existing at the highest
level of being in absolute love. The
Doctrine is all about relationship.
Jesus reveals to us that God is our Father, and that God is love. Love is the binding force that holds all relationships
together. Trinitarian theology teaches
us that the love relationship between the Father and the Son (the Creator and
the Redeemer) is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Saint Paul
expresses the power of this Mystery when he writes to the Romans in our second
reading today. He insists that hope does
not disappoint. That hope is not based
on our efforts to reach out to God. That
hope is based on the Trinitarian love of God reaching out to us. We see that love in the Book of Genesis and
believe that the Father has created everything out of love for us. We see that love in the person of Jesus
Christ who gives himself totally to us in reconciling us to God, despite all
the times we choose to break those bonds of love. We see that love in the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit who makes present the redemptive love of God in so many ways, but
especially in the sacramental life of the Church.
Saint Paul talks
about the afflictions he has suffered in bringing the message of God’s love in
Jesus Christ to so many people around the Mediterranean Sea. He has been rejected by his own people. He has been stoned and scourged. He has endured hardship in his travels and
shipwreck on the seas. In all of these
afflictions, he boasts in hope of the glory of God. His reason is simple. The Holy Spirit has been poured out in him,
giving him that hope which does not disappoint.
The presence of the Holy Spirit produces endurance and proven character
and ultimately the virtue of hope.
The Dogma
of the Holy Trinity may be a Mystery that cannot be defined in human
words. But the Trinity is a bond of love
drawing us to be union with the Trinitarian God. It is easy to become discouraged and despair
in a world so filled with division, hatred, war, violence, racism, and a lack
of respect for the dignity of human life.
Through the indwelling of the Trinitarian God, we are given the gift of
hope, which will never disappoint. The
Trinitarian God invites us to be open and respond to that love, giving it to
others.
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