THE SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY (2023)
Readings:
Exodus 344:4-6, 8-9
Daniel 3:52-56
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
John 3:16-18
Today we celebrate that which us mere mortals find fully impossible to understand – the Trinity. It is the theological concept (doctrine) that states that there are three persons in the one God. Most Christians will avoid delving deeper into the concept by hiding behind the veil of ‘mystery.’ It is, indeed, a mystery, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get closer to an understanding of the nature of the God we so often worship. In fact, we invoke the Trinity (in Christian circles) every time we pray “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” What we celebrate today is not so much a concept, as it is a relationship, and that relationship could never be understood were it not for the divinely revealed pages of the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments. However, don’t go there looking for the word Trinity, because the word is never used in the Bible.
The pages of Scripture are shared with the Jewish faith, hence our Judeo-Christian tradition. We believe those pages are divinely inspired because they reveal to us who God is. On the pages of the Bible in total, is God’s self-revelation, and because of that we can believe that what was said earlier (“fully impossible to understand”), is not completely true. The Scriptures are what led the Church to embrace the notion of one God, with three distinct persons, an understanding that came to fruition in what we now pray as the Nicene Creed. That process took the Church nearly 400 years, so don’t feel bad if you have difficulty “fully” understanding the concept.
The Catechism teaches, and highlights the “relationship” dimension of a proper understanding of the Trinity, that “by sending His only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed His innermost secret: God Himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and He has destined us to share in that exchange” (221).
If we reflect back to the beginning of this new liturgical year (Advent 2022), we might be able to highlight what the Church is trying to teach us in a three year cycle of carefully chosen readings. We have just finished the longest continuous season (Easter) in the Church’s calendar, and hopefully there are readings we can remember when God was telling us something about Himself. Today’s readings, from various parts of the entire Scriptures, should give us a sense of God revealing Himself to us, just as He revealed Himself to Moses in the passage from Exodus. God literallyrevealed Himself to Moses by telling Moses His name – YHWH, Adonai, a name so holy the Jewish faith never repeats it. The encounter of Moses with God is not frightening; God wishes to reveal Himself. It is of the utmost importance that Moses comes to know who God is, and what God asks of him. So engaging is God, that Moses can invite God “to come along in our company,” after declaring God to be “a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” While Moses doesn’t come to fully know God (he could never have imagined a “Trinity of distinct Persons”), he has learned something essential about the “relationship” he is meant to have with God.
God’s goodness is praised in a departure from the customary use of psalms in a passage from the Book of Daniel. Our second reading, the conclusion of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, should be a familiar passage since it is used at the beginning of every celebration of the Eucharist: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ [1] and the love of God [2] and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit [3] be with all of you. It is one of earliest passages where the one God is referred to with His Trinity of persons. It is a passage such as this that shows the earliest of Christians were very much aware of the distinction of persons in the God who they adored, even though it would take the Church at large, in the midst of much-heated theological discussions, 400 years to get everyone on board.
Finally, our gospel reading from the evangelist John, while not mentioning the “Trinity,” reinforces the relational dimension of God, and it does so in one of the most famous single passages of Scripture, John 3:16: “God so love the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.” At football games and tennis tournaments, a simple poster can usually be found with just “Jn. 3:16” printed on it. Some Scripture scholars suggest that 3:16 is best translated as, “For in this way God loved the world….” Everything about Jesus’ life is a sign of just how much God loved the world, and continues to love the world. We are meant to be drawn to and caught up in that same love that exists in the Trinity of persons that we call God. The Collect (opening prayer) makes the connections explicit: “God our Father, who by sending into the world the Word of truth and the Spirit of sanctification made known to the human race your wondrous mystery.”
When we hear the conclusion of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians as the greeting at every Eucharist, may we recall how important our Trinitarian faith is. May we be drawn into that intense love which exists between the distinct persons of the one God, in order that we might be more loving in our time on earth.
“O my God, Trinity whom I adore, let me entirely forget myself that I may abide in you, still and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity; let nothing disturb my peace nor separate me from you, O my unchanging God, but that each moment may take me further into the depths of your mystery! Pacify my soul!”
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
Canonized by Pope Francis on October 16, 2016
parishionersforjustice.com 