SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY (2025)

SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY (2025)

Readings:

Proverbs 8:22-31

Psalms 8:4-9

Romans 5:1-5

John  16:12-15

Sister of Saint Joseph, Mary McGlone, says very simply something that is anything but simple: “The most unique aspect of Christianity is our understanding of God as triune, a community of three persons, equal and different, each of whom are who they are through their relationship with the others.  They continually draw one another into being whose uniqueness is called forth through their ongoing relationship.”  To be in relationship with God we, too, must acknowledge that we are part of “community” which involves a “relationship” with others.  You will recall the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis, when after the creation of all that exists, God creates His crowning achievement, man.  Adam was created in “God’s likeness,” and had access to all that was; Adam wanted for nothing.  Yet, Adam was unhappy.  He could name the animals and plants, but that didn’t take his loneliness away.  God’s solution to Adam’s loneliness was to create another who was like him, but different from him, someone who could call him by name and love and challenge him to grow (and, sadly, challenge him to sin).  With the creation of Eve, Adam achieved genuine personhood, for to be in “God’s likeness,” involves being in community, being in relationship, having someone to love.

Human beings are meant to be images of God, the always interrelating, ever-loving Trinity.  Entering into God’s joy in communal existence is the why and the goal of our lives.  As Jesus said in so many, many ways, “the more we love, the more we relate, the more we enter into his participation in the Trinity (McGlone).”

In the earliest days of my nearly 49 years of priesthood, I always was tempted to take a pass on this celebration, and suggest it is a “mystery,” something that can never be completely understood, and thus something one should not spend too much time on.  But the more I realized how interwoven the Trinity is with who we are as Catholic Christians, the more I realized the accumulation of even small insights brought me closer to understanding what the Trinity is about, and why this Solemnity right after the Easter Season and Pentecost is so important.  And, it is timely.

The Catholic members of the present administration in Washington will have much to answer before a Triune God when they admit that they have unnecessarily excluded and demonized vast segments of the U.S. population.  Paul says to the Romans, “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”  Indeed, we come to know the glory of God better through every Christ-like relationship of love.  Each and every person we encounter can draw us more deeply into our union with God and all that God loves.  That is the special tragedy of the present moment- men and women like us, created in God’s very image, are being treated as chattel, pawns on a political chess board, moved about without any reference to their human dignity.  Instead of respect, they get derision; instead of love, people have been taught to hate them.  And make no mistake about it – those who have already been deported, those they are seeking to deport in L.A., are not all criminals or dangerous.

Living a Trinitarian life is living in relationship, living in community, and loving that community in spite of our differences.  In many areas of Africa, the word ubuntu is a key to each person’s identity.  It’s translated, “I am because we are.”  This describes personhood as happening through our relationships, through community.  Those who understand ubuntu have uncovered one of the deepest truths of Christianity, and an understandable image of our mysterious Trinitarian God.  On this Trinity Sunday may we live our lives in a gentle, communal way, recognizing that it is the God we worship who gives meaning to all of the relationships with others that we will ever have.