26 May 2024 – The Most Holy Trinity
26 May 2024 – The Most Holy Trinity, Year B
1st Reading: Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40
The Lord himself is God in heaven above and on earth below: there is no other
Moses said to the people: ‘Put this question to the ages that are past, that went before you, from the time God created man on earth: Was there ever a word so majestic, from one end of heaven to the other? Was anything ever heard? Did ever a people hear the voice of the living God speaking from the heart of the fire, as you heard it, and remain alive? Has any god ventured to take to himself one nation from the midst of another by ordeals, signs, wonders, war with mighty hand and outstretched arm, by fearsome terrors — all this that the Lord your God did for you before your eyes in Egypt? ‘Understand this today, therefore, and take it to heart: The Lord is God indeed, in heaven above as on earth beneath, he and no other. Keep his laws and commandments as I give them to you today so that you and your children may prosper and live long in the land that the Lord your God gives you for ever.’
Responsorial: Psalm 32:4-6, 9, 18-20, 22
R./: Happy the people the Lord has chosen to be his own
The word of the Lord is faithful
and all his works to be trusted.
The Lord loves justice and right
and fills the earth with his love. (R./)
By his word the heavens were made,
by the breath of his mouth all the stars.
He spoke: and they came to be.
He commanded; they sprang into being. (R./)
The Lord looks on those who revere him,
on those who hope in his love,
to rescue their souls from death,
to keep them alive in famine. (R./)
Our soul is waiting for the Lord.
The Lord is our help and our shield.
May your love be upon us, O Lord,
as we place all our hope in you.(R./)
2nd Reading: Romans 8:14-17
A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Romans
You have received the Spirit that makes you God’s own children, and in that Spirit we call God: Father, our Father!
Everyone moved by the Spirit is a son of God. The spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons, and it makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’
The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness that we are children of God. And if we are children we are heirs as well: heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, sharing his sufferings so as to share his glory.
Gospel: Matthew 28:16-20
Baptise them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit
The eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.’
Not such a remote God
In bygone times practically everybody agreed about the existence of God. At those days, religious divisions came from conflicting beliefs about God, rather than any conflict between theism and atheism. This is not the case nowadays. Not only do many openly profess their lack of faith, but the quality of life we pursue tends to promote a kind of atheism in all of us. Especially in our large cities, surrounded by a world of largely human inventiveness, people are at a distance from the things of nature. As a result even the rural-based of our population are bound to feel in some degree God’s apparent remoteness from our situation, God’s silence, remaining hidden to the end of our earthly days.
Today we celebrate the Most Holy Trinity, the revelation of the mystery of God’s inner life. This mystery will remain for all of us as long as we live in this world, even though the veil which covers it is lifted ever so little. Our Bible assures us that not only is our God a personal God, but God exists as three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while remaining one God. Although we cannot even begin to give a logical explanation for this, our faith enables us in some small measure to experience the presence of God. How this can happen is stated by St Augustine in a most beautiful passage from his “Confessions” (p. 211). “What do I love when I love my God?” he asks. Then he continues; “Not material beauty or beauty of a temporal order; not the brilliance of earthly light, so welcome to our eyes; not the sweet melody of harmony and song; not the fragrance of flowers, perfumes and spices; not manna or honey; not limbs such as the body delights to embrace. It is not these that I love when I love my God. And yet, when I love him, it is true that I love a light of a certain kind, a voice, a perfume, a food, an embrace; but they are of the kind that I love in my inner self.” “So tell me something of my God,” he asks. And loud and clear they answered, “God is he who made us.”
Seeing God will change us utterly, and this salvation is a pure gift that always comes from the Father, announced and realised in his divine Son, and made effective in each of us through the action of the Holy Spirit. St Paul tells us that “in one Spirit we have access through Christ to the Father” (Eph 2:18). But the God’s reaching down to us must be answered by the up-reach of our soul to God. To succeed in this we must break free from the sinful pursuits which hold us captive. Then as Paul says, like mirrors we will reflect the brightness of the Lord, until finally we are changed into that image which we reflect (2 Cor 3:17f). For this great promise, glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, forever, Amen.
The Fullness of Love
Much debate in the 20th century centred on the thought of three outstanding figures, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, described irreverently as “the unholy trinity.” They pushed us into the modem world, often in spite of our protests. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was greeted, particularly by the established churches, with howls of derision, and had to battle hard for recognition. Sigmund Freud opened up the universe of the unconscious and profoundly affected conventional attitudes. The socialist theories of Karl Marx came to dominate one half of the planet and considerably influenced the other. Of the three, only Darwin and his theory of evolution remain intact. Recent events in the Eastern Bloc have largely discredited Marx. The theories of Freud are more and more contested in recent times. Time has taken its toll of “the unholy trinity.”
The Holy Trinity, whose feast we celebrate today, is beyond the reach of time and the grasp of human reasoning. It is a mystery of our faith. We can only fumble in the dark in search of glimmers of light. “Two is company, three is a crowd” is a popular expression. The gospel would have it otherwise. There, the figure three symbolises completeness and perfect symmetry, and re-appears at all the key moments of the Christ story. His life itself constantly reflected the Trinity. Three figures make up the nativity scene in Bethlehem — the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Their first visitors were the three wise men. Later, in the desert preparing to begin his public life, Jesus was tempted three times by the devil. A good story should have a beginning, a middle and an end. Christ was a storyteller par excellence and three figures prominently in his parables. The Prodigal Son is about a father and his two sons; the Good Samaritan tells of the behaviour of three passers-by, the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan; the sower sowed his seed in three different types of terrain, yielding three different levels of harvest. The end of his life, as the beginning, has again the three motif. During his Passion, Peter denied him thrice. On the road to Calvary, he fell three times. The crucifixion scene has three figures, Christ between two thieves. Before his resurrection, he spent three days in the tomb.
God is love. There are Three Persons in the Trinity, the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. Together they represent the fullness of love. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father. The Holy Spirit is their love for each other. We are made in the image of a triune God. God the Father, who created us, his Son who saved us, and the Holy Spirit who continues to guide us. Our lives should reflect the Trinity. We should be always creative like the Father, compassionate like his Son, and dispose our talents in the service of others like the Holy Spirit.
We do not worship the Doctrine of the Trinity, the clarification of the full divinity of Son and Spirit at the Councils of Nicea (325) and Constantinople (381). Rather, the Creed points us back to the encounter with the living God, as one showing forth his creative power and turning to us lovingly as He sends his Word and his Spirit. The Trinity has deep roots in the faith of Israel, where the Word and the Spirit of God are so often invoked (see Ps 32 today). The Word exists “toward God” (John 1:1, pros ton Theon) and toward us, dwelling among us (Jn 1:14) and unfolding to us the unseen God (Jn 1:18). The Spirit “proceeds” from the Father — ekporeuetai, a word the Creed borrows from Jn 15:26. The meaning of “Holy Spirit” is not to found in scholastic disquisitions but in listening again and again to what the Johannine Christ says about the Spirit: Jn 14:26; 15:26; 16:7-14. Like the Word, the Spirit, too, is turned toward us—as a second Paraclete, counselor, advocate. In meditating on the Trinity we should focus not on ontological riddles but on the words of Paul and John which bear witness to the bedrock experience of the Spirit crying “Abba” in our hearts (Rom 8:15-16), and of Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith (Eph 3:17) and making us children of God (Jn 1:12). These words need to be set in the entire context of Pauline and Johannine vision, and this in turn opens out to the entire life of the Church, upheld by God’s incarnate Word and his life-giving Spirit.
Key Message:
We cannot surely understand the Holy Trinity, but we are certainly enjoying their blessings!!
Homily:
Testimony 1: To me God the Father always looks like the Father of the Prodigal Son. The father in this parable gives time and space to make mistakes and then return back to the Father, does not keep count of the child’s mistakes, takes time to celebrate and enjoy the little victories, waits for the lost son with a longing heart and caresses the just son asking him to enjoy his life not just working alone!! I am able to relate myself to either the prodigal son or the first son depending on how I behave. But I am always able to relate to God my Father as the Father of the Prodigal son. So the name of God closest to my heart is “El-Shaddai” – “Almighty Father with the breasts of my feeding mother”. While praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet, when we recite “Abba Father”, I feel the heart of our Almighty Father longing to forgive us.
Testimony 2: I have appointed the Infant Jesus as my Project Manager. I worked very hard in my office. But there are lots of people working against me. I do not know where to go for help. The Infant Jesus sees my truthfulness. So I have told Him that He is my Project Manager and He should bless me accordingly. I have entrusted my entire career to Him.
Testimony 3: I feel the Holy Spirit is my friend. Whenever I want to decide on something and if I do not hear the silent voice of the Holy Spirit, I feel I am left alone. When I hear His silent voice, I feel secure and have complete joy in my heart. He is my constant companion. I cannot imagine a life without His silent guidance.
All the above testimonies are the experiences of the same God in three different persons. Either we choose to talk with God our Father, God the Son or God the Holy Spirit, it is finally the same Triune God.
God our Father:
Revelation 4:3 says God our Father looks like Jasper and Ruby. His Glory is so great that in Exodus 33:20 our Almighty Father said, “No man can see me and live”. In the “Story of a Soul”, Little Thérèse of the Child Jesus noted – “Celine asked little Thérèse, “How can such a big God hide in a small Host?” Little Thérèse replied, “Because He is Almighty, He can do whatever He wants”. Yes, our Almighty Father reveals Himself according to the spiritual maturity of the person He is interacting with. He appeared to Abraham as a Traveller, to Hagar his female slave as an Angel, to Joshua as an Angel and so on.
God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ:
God wanted to shower His love and live with His children. He came as His Son our Lord Jesus Christ, as a very very comfortable person to be with. He was born as a very poor baby in a stable to very poor parents. He was sleeping on a crib, suffering from hunger, lack and thirst. He paid His taxes and cooked for His friends. He washed His friends’ feet. When people hit Him, He said “No Problem”. When people spat on Him, He said, “No problem”. When people scourged Him, He said, “No problem”. He never said “STOP”. When crucified, He prayed, “Father God forgive them”. There was nothing He couldn’t forgive on the cross. He exhibited the real forgiveness of God our Almighty Father. He carried the cross, and died hanging on the cross. In the cross He did not even look like a human being. If we had seen Him carrying the cross, we would have thought, “Why should God undergo scourging or carry the cross like this? If Jesus is God, why should He undergo all these pains?” Our Lord Jesus sacrificed All of Himself just for the sake of us.
Our Lord Jesus did not make anyone feel lesser to Him. He is always approachable. Even though we are big sinners, when we repent, He immediately throws away our sins.
God the Holy Spirit:
When the Spirit of God resides in us, He lovingly guides us. Guidance of the Holy Spirit is the most precious gift we can have in our lives. Little Thérèse said that she was surprised by the clarity she had when she was placed in the position of Novice mistress. The Holy Spirit will give us the clear picture of the action items we are supposed to do. Testimony: “This morning when I was arguing with my mother, I could hear the Holy Spirit advising me not to give back answers. But I did not listen and made things bad.” The Holy Spirit takes care about everything that we do in our life, especially the little, little ones. Let us seek Him and obey Him always.
The Angel Gabriel testified about the Holy Trinity to our Mamma Mary during the Annunciation: “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God”.
A person once shared, “When I was growing up, ‘God’ meant ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’ only for me. But later when I came to know the Old Testament, my heart became close to the person of ‘Almighty Father’ only. When I imagine God, it was the face of our Almighty Father, not like Jasper or Ruby, but like an elderly loving Father. I loved the person of ‘Almighty Father’ to such an extent, that I used to foolishly say ‘Sorry Jesus, I like speaking to God the Father only’. After hearing the close whispers of the Holy Spirit, my heart longs to see the face of my Father God, speak with my Lord Jesus and listen to the loving guidance of the Holy Spirit.”
For the sake of our souls, God chose to become man. That is why in John 14:8 our Lord Jesus Christ says, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
Though it is unbelievable for Almighty God to be born as a human being, God did it. That too for the love of us. After He left the earth in human form, He came back to earth in Spirit form. God ensured that His presence is with us always!!
We begin and end our lives in the name of the Holy Trinity!!