Trinity Sunday Year A
Exodus 34:4b–6, 8–9
Psalm, Daniel 3:52, 53, 54, 55,
2 Corinthians 13:11–13
John 3:16–18
The great mysteries of the Catholic faith have often been taken as matters for “intellectuals” and “theologians.” In truth, they are more “down to earth” than they might seem. There is a flow to the mysteries that is evident when you contemplate them.
The first and greatest mystery is the Most Holy Trinity. The Triune God is one God, three Divine Persons. Many have attempted to describe or “explain” the mystery. A glimpse of the truth might be communicated in this way, but, more often, we are left in confusion or with more questions.
To “grasp” the Trinity is more practical. It is a matter of “jumping into” the mystery, responding to the invitation to share the life of the Trinity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit speak to our hearts and give us an intimate experience of the life and love They share with One Another.
God is a Family united in love. Knowledge, will and activity are all shared as One. Yet Each of the Divine Persons touches us, breathes into us, draws us in in a unique way.
The Father pours out love among us through the gift of the Son and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Son shares His intimacy with the Father, inviting us to enter His prayer as He calls God “Abba.”
The Holy Spirit sanctifies us, makes us radically capable of receiving all that God offers and of sharing God’s Being. The Spirit “divinizes us” after the pattern of the Son, Jesus Christ, Who lives among us as a human being and as a Divine Person.
The life of the Christian community is intended to be a mirror of Trinitarian life. We are in the world, but by God’s gift of Himself to us, we are part of the whole communion of saints. We share in time in the “holy things,” that is, the sacraments, and we taste the life of eternity through our communion with the holy ones, that is, our Mother Mary and all the saints in glory.
Each human person is destined to be a sharer in the divine life. We are created to be temples of the Holy Spirit and the dwelling place of God, the living God. We can resist our call and miss the opportunity for this to happen in us through sin and through our failure to open our lives to what is offered.
Moses acknowledges that the people of God entrusted to him are a “stiff-necked” people, but he also stands in the breach and invites God to share our life: “If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own.”
The most famous verse of Scripture is John 3:16:
“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
This Gospel reminds us that relationship with God is a mystery of love. We receive love from God, Who loves us first, and we can return God’s very love to God, which frees us to share the mutual love of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Loving God, then, with every neighbor, we also live in mutual love and draw Jesus to live among us so as to take us to the Father, Who so loves us.
St. Paul invites us to a personal expression of this divine love: “Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.”
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit!