Trinity Sunday
Proverbs 8:22–31
Psalm 8:4–5, 6–7, 8–9
Romans 5:1–5
John 16:12–15
Ordinary Time resumes immediately after the Feast of Pentecost. However, the Sundays after Pentecost offer a marvelous “overflow” of the Paschal Season with specific celebrations of aspects of our faith in God and the sacramental life of the Church.
The Feast of the Most Holy Trinity follows upon the Solemnity of the Spirit, reminding us that what we are invited to share is the very mystery of the life of God.
The Holy Trinity is the One God Who has been active through creation and salvation history. Through the Spirit, we are invited to experience a “glimpse” of the inner life of the Godhead.
Although our minds will never fully comprehend the mystery, we are taken into the divine perspective as we hear the song of wisdom at the moment of creation: “then was I beside him as his craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the human race.”
We are taken up in wonder at the reality of our own being in the world and in relationship with God. “When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place – What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man that you should care for him?”
The celebration of Easter and the Paschal Mystery, with the outpouring of the Spirit, now draws us into the mystery of God’s own life: the One God is revealed as Three Divine Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The revelation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity comes to us not as something for us merely to know about, but rather as something to experience. We are called to relationship with the One God, Who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
In the Spirit, we address the One Who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as “My God, My God” and as “Abba!” Our human nature has been made radically capable of such a cry through the Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus.
Transformed by the Spirit, we know Jesus as our Brother, Savior, Lord and Friend, as the Eternal Son of the Father Who also entered into time as the Son of Man, one of us, truly human and divine. Jesus Christ is God, and He shares with us His own intimate knowledge of and relationship with the Father, Who sent Him among us to bring salvation.
The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father and the Son, is sent to us to remind us of all that Jesus taught and to share with us the very life of God. We are caught up by the Spirit into the flow of the life of Father, Son and Spirit, and through that life we have power to change the world and to direct it to eternity.
We do not have the capacity to grasp the full meaning of the mystery, but by the power of the Spirit, we do begin to enjoy the depth of relationship that is offered. Time and eternity are woven into one flow of life, the life of God, made known to us in creation and in our relationships with one another. We are caught up in this life, and so we hope for an increase of God’s Presence among us. This hope is our salvation in these times of trouble.
May God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, free us to see the world as God sees it. May wisdom open our eyes to the mystery, and may we share the wonder of the psalmist “O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!”