SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021
THE MOST HOLY TRINITY (SOLEMNITY)
First Reading: Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 33:4-6, 9, 18-20, 22
Second Reading: Romans 8:14-17
Gospel: Matthew 28:16-20
Today the Church celebrates the solemnity of the most Holy Trinity – three Persons in one: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One cannot be a Christian if he or she does not believe the Trinity. It is the central mystery of the Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in Himself and so, the source of all other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them.
The American theologian David Tracy wrote a book he 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 dwells among us.
The Gospel today tells us that God is immanent. He is with us. Jesus assures His disciples, “look, I am with you always, yes, to the end of time.” Although His name is Jesus, which means God saves, Isaiah chapter 7: 14 tells us He is Immanuel, God with us. Why does God remain with us? Because He loves us.
In the first reading from Deuteronomy 4, one thing that distinguishes the God of Israel from others is His closeness to His people. No other people heard the voice of their god speaking to them, nor did any manifest itself to them in signs like the God of Israel. He alone is love, He alone became man out of love for man.
Our faith in a God that is triune is rooted on revelation, on our belief that God is love. It is the revelation of God as love made by Jesus Christ that obliges us to admit the trinity. There is no love in the void. Love must be directed to somebody or something. We can ask, who does God love to be defined as love? We can answer mankind, but mankind only came into existence in time and God is eternal. So, before loving mankind, who did God love? Another answer might be, He loved the world. But the world also came into being in time. Who did God love to be defined as Love? God is eternal and could not have started to love in time. Or, did God simply love Himself?
In all love, there are always three realities one who loves, one who is loved and the love that unites them. Christian revelation teaches us that God is love in Himself because He has in Himself a Son, the Word who is eternal whom He loves from all eternity with an infinite love that is in the Holy Spirit.
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 in the Son through the Holy Spirit and with one another in a common life, i.e., the Church. The Greek Fathers 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 makes each one live in the others without confusion or separation.
The 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 beings who will find their fulfilment in the community. Our being as sons and daughters of God can only be realized in community. 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