Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity – Year B – May 30, 2021 Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40 / Psalm 33 / Romans 8: 14-17 / Matthew 28: 16-20
The University of Houston, where I have been serving since August 2018, is a wonderfully diverse university community in many senses. One of those senses is the religious diversity we find on campus. During my first year, as part of our interfaith dialogue dinner, I had the experience of sharing a table with 5 non-Christian students. We shared our religious experiences and beliefs, which brought up many questions, one of which concerned our Christian understanding and belief in God as holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It seems that question always comes up.
The question can be difficult to explain, but it always makes me reflect more on our faith. Rather than engaging in an intellectual debate and explanation, I began by saying that the holy Trinity is the way that God has revealed himself to humanity and continually accompanies us. In other words, our way of defining God and understanding him has less to do with our ideas and more to do with how God relates to us.
In this sense, I am always consoled by the wisdom of Pope emeritus Benedict XVI from years ago: “The doctrine of the Holy Trinity did not arise out of speculation about God, out of an attempt by philosophical thinking to figure out what the fount of all being was like; it developed out of the effort to digest historical experiences.”¹
Historical, yes, but real-life experiences of God in Christ. Benedict XVI goes on to offer an insight into God as holy Trinity by reminding us of what was first lived and witnessed, well before it was hammered out into dogma.
In today’s reading from the end of the gospel according to Matthew, the Lord Jesus gives final instructions for the apostles and all of us to continue his mission but in the name of God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Christ is teaching us what to do and how to believe. He gives us a command to carry out and he provides the definition of who God is and expresses the fullness of his identity. A key aspect is that it all comes from him.
As shown in the gospel readings from the last few Sundays, the relationship of Jesus Christ with his Heavenly Father provides a necessary backdrop for today. It is not something that we, through doctrine, have come up with. Rather, we believe what Jesus makes quite clear in his own words and devotion: oneness with his Heavenly Father. “Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying: ‘Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one’” (John 17: 11b-12).
When Jesus Christ is visibly present with the disciples, he never acts and speaks alone; his Father is with him and he always makes that clear. The good news, as his words remind us, is that we are part of the relationship. He speaks of who he is but in relation to his Heavenly Father and to us: “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. I am the vine, you are the branches.’” (John 15: 1-8).
Understanding God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is yet another reminder not to consider God as distant or unrelated to his creation, especially our human experience and struggle, but to rejoice in Christ as God reaching out to us and redeeming us and, through the Holy Spirit, always with us.
Peace be with you! Fr. Charles Johnson, O.P.
Notes:
¹ Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Ben. XVI), Intro. To Christianity (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 163.