Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
First Reading: Proverbs 8:22-31
Second Reading: Romans 5:1-5
Gospel: John 16:12-15
Today the Church celebrates the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity – three persons in one: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The catechism of the Catholic Church says, “It is the mystery of God in Himself and so, the source of all other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them.” It is the central mystery of the Christian faith and life so that not believing that God is one and three, one will not be Christian.
We are often tempted to think that we know just about everything about God. God is infinitely unknowable in Himself. St Augustine said, “si comprehendis, non est Deus” (if you have understood, it is not God). The American theologian David Tracy wrote a book called “The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism.” He talks about the paradox that confronts us when we talk about God. God is both hidden and revealed. He is both comprehensible and incomprehensible. He is transcendent and immanent. God is wholly other, but He also dwells among us.
All we know and can say about God is what He has revealed to us. In the Gospel of this Sunday, Jesus reveals something about the inner life of God; aspects of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. He teaches that the three divine Persons have the same nature when he says that everything that the Father has belongs to the Son and everything the Son has belongs to the Father and that the Holy Spirit also has what is common to the Father and the Son; the divine essence. The Greek Fathers of the Church used the Greek word perichoresis to explain and describe the communion in the Holy Trinity. It is the reciprocal giving and receiving that occurs among the three divine persons that make each one live in the others without confusion, fusion or mixture.
We celebrate this great mystery not by thinking deeply about it or analyzing concepts but by opening our hearts to the relationship it invites us to; a relationship with God the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit and with one another in common life, i.e., the Church.
This Trinitarian communion is the origin and source of all communions and community life. Our life in common is the fruit and demonstration of that love which springs from the heart of the eternal Father and is poured out upon us through the Holy Spirit which Jesus gives us to make us one heart and one mind. God is a community of persons. He created us in His own image so that we too may live not as monads but as beings who will find their fulfilment in the community. Our being as sons and daughters of God can only be realized in the community.
God is immanent. The Holy Spirit, who is the third person of the Holy Trinity will guide you to all truth. He does not guide us from outside, He dwells in our hearts and leads us to the Father through the Son who is the truth. The second reading today captures the core of our celebration today. Paul says, “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Here, Paul is talking about God’s love for us manifested in the sending of the Holy Spirit and the love God places in our souls to enable us to love Him and to love one another. Let us pray in this mass that we may be more and more selfless in loving as so become more and more like God who is love.
Happy Sunday
Fr Chidi Onwuka MSSCC