Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity 2020 Renewing our trust in the essence and actions of God during this time of difficulty Readings: Exodus 34: 4B-6, 8-9 / 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13 / John 3: 16-18
For the Sunday Mass celebrating and highlighting God in his fullness – as Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the Church chooses three of some of the briefest readings proclaimed at any Sunday liturgy. The most profound and primary mystery of our faith proclaimed with readings of 3-4 verses each.
Today’s readings are short in length, but long in significance and possessing simple clarity. In each of them there are no lofty or esoteric terms and concepts about God, but qualities like merciful and gracious, kindness and fidelity. In each of the readings, we hear of God in relationship with us; God actively engaging the lives of his people.
In the Gospel reading, from John, chapter 3, Jesus himself describes God, his Heavenly Father, not by his essence, but by his actions: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son... For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
We are given several words, verbs, which clearly demonstrate action: loved, gave, send, saved. They are all deeds and actions by God for our good and salvation. Jesus is describing God, his Heavenly Father, but in the same breath and thought Jesus is referring to and including himself. Christ is integrally a part of the saving action of God, the fullest expression of God’s love.
Jesus Christ became human and walked among us with a purpose: to make real God’s love for us. God is now seen and experienced, not as a distant or uninterested, but as with us and deeply concerned about us.
The previous Sundays – the Easter Season and Pentecost – have prepared us for today’s celebration. Jesus has spoken freely of his relationship with his Heavenly Father: “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me …" He has also spoken of asking the Father to send us the “Spirit of truth.”
All these words, promises and actions have an intended effect: to expand our understanding of God and remind us of our relationship with him. This is possible because it is how we have known and experienced God and his love: as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The question for us as Christians arises: how deeply does this important relationship become rooted in our lives? The reading from St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians gives a simple greeting which we hear at celebrations of the Eucharist and highlights an understanding of God by expressing it in prayer and community. He writes, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”
Here we have in use the ancient principle of “lex credendi, lex orandi” (as given in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “The law of prayer is the law of faith”). At the dawn of the second generation after Christ ascended into heaven, Paul shows that our early Church already spoke, prayed and worshipped in a manner that reveals they knew who God is, what he is like, what he does and how he comes to us: as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In addition to doctrine, we have God expressed as part of the Church’s life.
Our expanded understanding is not meant to be limited to the intellectual sphere but concerns deeply and directly our most important relationship: union with God through Christ and in the continual and sustaining presence of the Holy Spirit.
As we pause and reflect on God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it becomes clearer that our understanding of God must express all that we know and believe that He has done and does. This is both a matter for personal prayer and our Church’s deposit of faith.
When it comes to the eternal mystery of God, let not our struggle with intellectual understanding of God’s essence interfere with his desire: to love us and bring us into communion with him.
Perhaps the greater mystery is expressed with the question, “Why?” Again, because of God’s great love for humanity and his giving of himself once and for all and continually and for that relationship to be made real and eternal.