4 June 2023 – Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity

4 June 2023 – Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity

1st Reading: Exodus 34:4-6, 8-9

The Lord God, ruler of all, merciful and loving

With the two tablets of stone in his hands, Moses went up the mountain of Sinai in the early morning as the Lord had commanded him. And the Lord descended in the form of a cloud, and Moses stood with him there.

He called on the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘Lord, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness and faithfulness.’ And Moses bowed down to the ground at once and worshipped. ‘If I have indeed won your favour, Lord,’ he said ‘let my Lord come with us, I beg. True, they are a headstrong people, but forgive us our faults and our sins, and adopt us as your heritage.’

Responsorial: Daniel 3:52-56

R./: Glory and praise for ever!

You are blest, Lord God of our fathers. (R./)

Blest your glorious holy name. (R./)

You are blest in the temple of your glory. (R./)

You are blest on the throne of your kingdom. (R./)

You are blest who gaze into the depths. (R./)

You are blest in the firmament of the heaven. (R./)

2nd Reading: 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Try to grow perfect. Help one another. Be united

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Brothers, we wish you happiness; try to grow perfect; help one another. Be united; live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with the holy kiss. All the saints send you greetings. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with you all.

Gospel: John 3:16-18

God sent his Son to save the world through him

Jesus said to Nicodemus,
‘God loved the world so much
that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him
may not be lost but may have eternal life.
For God sent his Son into the world
not to condemn the world,
but so that through him the world might be saved.
No one who believes in him will be condemned;
but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already,
because he has refused to believe
in the name of God’s only Son.’

***********

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.

2 Comments

  1. Thara Benedicta says:

    Key Message:
    Can we give our heart to the Holy Trinity to abode?

    Homily:

    One of my friends noticed a blind beggar explaining a Bible verse on the topic of the overflowing love of our Almighty God to another beggar. Our friend found it profound and joined the conversation. After listening to the blind beggar, our friend checked with him why he was begging. He explained that he was working in an unorganised chemical shop, he lost his eyesight slowly. To take care of his family (his wife and a daughter), he has resorted to begging. Now he is unable to find a job for himself, he has a family to take care of, he is not able to see now, moved to the streets without anything for himself. All this happened without him being responsible for it. Still, he loves God. He was not even a little bit angry at God. He never complained. Instead, he is reaching out to the other beggars who do not otherwise have an opportunity to understand God’s presence and love.

    Though his physical eyes are closed, his spiritual eyes are wide open.

    Our blind beggar friend taught me a big lesson. Sufferings are never sufficient to stop our love for God. It is not that God is seated as the Holy Trinity on the throne in Heaven. That throne is our heart. That’s the throne they will long for. Our God loves us whether we love Him or not. But when we love Him, He makes His abode with us. Our Lord Jesus says this in John 14:23, “If a man loves me, He will keep my words; and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.” God has made His abode with the blind beggar. Can we also give our heart to Him as His abode?

    Our Triune God loves to sit there and listen to our songs. So let us sing praises to Him. Psalm 22:3 says, “Yet You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.” Saint Antony was always praising God. So God did not allow His Holy tongue to decay. God would also like us to talk with Him. Not only sad times but always. That is why He is sitting in our hearts secretly!!

    I remembered one of the childhood conversations in our school lunch-time. The children were chatting about the Triune God, “Why is God – 3-in-1?” One child answered, “God created the world as ‘Our Father’. Then God had to wash away our sins – so He washed away the sins of the world as ‘The Son – Jesus’. Still He wanted to be with us always, so He came down as ‘Holy Spirit’.

    In whatever form He can help us, He takes it”.

    This simple statement summarises the story in the Bible. In the Old Testament, God mainly took care as “Father”. Our Father gave lots of laws and commandments. You will be good if you follow them, not good if you do not follow them. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. In John 4:24, God is a Spirit. But it does not mean that He does not have a form. He has a form as explained in Revelation. “He looked like a Sapphire stone”. Daniel 7:9 “He was as white as snow…” But God cannot reveal Himself in this personality – His glory is too much for us to take. He said, “No man can see me and yet live”. So in different times, He appeared as different forms. He appeared as a traveller to Abraham, appeared as an angel to Joshua. He appeared to people but did not stay with them day and night.

    In the New Testament till the Ascension of our Lord Jesus – It was the Son. He was not talking about punishments. It was about forgiveness. If you slap me on one cheek, I will give you another cheek. If you want to spit on my face too, you can do it. It was His laws. He is the Immanuel “God with us”. He is the God who always stayed with us for 33 years just like any other human being. When people looked at Jesus and His works, they were able to see the glory of God. He was both the Son of Man and Son of God too. He was sad, happy, tired, cried, hungry, angry just like any other human being. In the mountain of Transfiguration, His dress became white like the sun, His face shone, He walked on the water, calmed the storm, drove out the devils, cured the sick and suffering as God. So He was both God and man. God had become man to wash away our sins. By His blood we are washed clean from our sins. By His wounds we are cured from our diseases. He was born from the womb of a virgin, crucified, died, buried, resurrected, ascended and seated at the right hand of our God the Father Almighty. He sat at the right hand of the person who looked like the Sardius stone. He is still there. Until He comes back, He will be there.

    From Pentecost till the end of the world – it is God the Holy Spirit. When our Lord Jesus ascended to Heaven, He said, “Who will be there with you? I will ask my Father to send you the Holy Spirit. He will be the comforter”. Who is the Holy Spirit? He is the Spirit of God. God who came to chat and walk with Adam in the Garden of Eden, has come to chat and walk with us as the Holy Spirit. He is also our Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul says, “Christ lives in me”, because He was filled with the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit explains how to practically apply the laws of our Lord Jesus Christ in our day to day life. He whispers the laws with His silent voice. That is why our Lord Jesus said, “The world cannot know Him, but only you can know Him.” So they are three different kinds of persons in the same God.

    Our Lord Jesus says in John 14:16, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be with you.” We can see the presence of the Holy Trinity here. Our Lord Jesus Christ is saying that God our Father will send His Holy Spirit on us.

    In the book “The story of the Soul”, there is a beautiful conversation between two sisters, Saint Thérèse and her sister Celine. Celine asked little Thérèse, “How can Almighty God be present in such a small Host?” Little Thérèse immediately replied, “Because He is Almighty. He can do whatever He wishes”.

    So God can sit in our little hearts too. Can we call Him?

  2. Ikpogu Martin Chiwetalu says:

    Most Holy Trinity (is) like a tripod stand that can hold a pot stabilized in an agreement to function effectively unto a common good for all.

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