Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

This Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity is a celebration of an inexhaustible mystery at the heart of our Christian Faith which tells us that our God is One in three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is a mystery that tells us that the Eternal God is in himself, is a communion of a self-giving and life-generating love, a communion of Persons.

Right from the book of Genesis 1 we see this creative communion of the Divine love. There we heard of the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters, and God the Father speaking his eternal divine word, Jesus through whom all things were made. Immediately we sense this harmony in this communion of love which then brings all creation into existence through the constant self-giving between the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit.  As the Father speaks and gives Himself completely in the Son, and the Son in turn gives himself completely to the Father’s will, this continuous self-giving love is so strong that it is a person, the Person of the Holy Spirit.  Hence, we say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. But they are three equal persons in one God, for what the Father has revealed of his glory, we believe equally of his Son and the Holy Spirit, their unity in substance and their equality in majesty.  

Jesus speaks of this unity and equality in today’s Gospel from Jn 16:12-15 when he said that the Holy Spirit will not speak from himself but will take from what is his. And then he added that all that the Father has is mine. In the following chapter, John 17 Jesus will say that his words are not his own but the word of the one who sent him. You see here how Jesus simply and gently talks about the Trinity.

So, at the heart of this mystery is the truth that our God is not one solitary being out there, but rather persons, a communion of love, a relationship. Being a communion of love, of persons, he is constantly giving himself to us  through Jesus in the Holy Spirit. Having been created in the image and the likeness of God, this mystery also speaks about us. It shows that we are creatures of love, of a pure, perfect and unconditional communion of a self-giving love in whom alone we find peace and true freedom. Of course, this mystery reveals our vocation here on earth and our end here after. For if the final reward of the faithful is God himself, then our end is to share, by grace, more fully in this life of perfect love by participation.

This explains why humanity’s turning away from God and his ways brought so much devastation. It is important to remember that, when humanity first turned away from God, we became incapable of receiving nor giving ourselves in an unconditional love which by the way flows from the life of the Trinity. But at the fulness of time, Jesus, the image of the invisible God, the second Person in the Most Holy Trinity, the Eternal  and uncreated Wisdom (not the created wisdom as we heard from the first reading from Proverbs 8) came to restore again in us the hope of participation in that communion of love in which we were created. What a love, the Psalmist in today’s responsorial psalm would wonder and say, what is man that the lord should keep him in mind.

To accomplish this eternal purpose of our participation in the Trinitarian life, the Father through the Son Jesus,  sent the Holy Spirit into the human hearts, a feast we celebrated last Sunday; the Pentecost, the outpouring of the love of the Father and the Son into the human heart.  This is what St Paul describes in today’s Second reading from his letter to the Romans 5:1-5 when he says, that the love of God has been poured into our hearts through Holy spirit which has been given to us.  Indeed, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into the Human hearts is already a foretaste of that divine communion of love which urges us upwards to the glory set before us, the glory it guarantees (see Eph 1:14-16)

Hence, it says, therefore the hope we have, that hope born of this spirit into our hearts cannot disappoint because it is the fruit of the Eternal divine plan, the eternal love. The end of all this is to bring us all to the complete truth, and the Trinity is the Truth.

As the Lord draws us deeper into this communion of love which is ever dynamic, Jesus in today’s Gospel from John 16:12-15 talks about the Holy Spirit, from whom we must learn and allow to lead us into the truth of this love, because only by our mutual loving submission shall we attain the truth, a communion of love for which Jesus prayed in John 17 that we participate in.  

Through baptism we have been brought into and are called to journey towards and to grow into this communion of love. We therefore rejoice for participating by grace in that communion of love whilst we wait for the fullness of that which we behold now in a mirror.  This mystery debunks the idea of God being some kind of energy or force floating around.  For us Christians, our faith is not a relationship with some energy but rather a personal relationship and encounter with a Personal God.

Our faith is based on this personal communion of love because God loved us first and poured his love in our hearts so that, like the Son, in seeing how much we have being loved we could freely choose to love, giving ourselves in love also.  By so doing we grow in unity, conforming ourselves to that communion of love in and for which we were created.  It is only within this communion could we avoid frustrating the presence of God among us.  For this, the Holy Spirit comes, to help us.

Maybe many of us would love to experience that joy of knowing God’s love not simply as a theological or doctrinal idea but as a relationship with a person whose love for us is perfect and unconditional and in whose love we abide by loving and accepting others as we have been accepted and loved.  We pray that we may experience afresh God’s personal love, God in whom we all live, move and have our being. May our prayers today be the beginning of a new experience of his closeness and personal love for us as we seek to build on earth, within our families and communities, a self-giving communion of love thus witnessing to the Most Holy Trinity in word and in deed.  

Let us pray

God our father who by sending into the world  the Spirit of truth and the spirit of sanctification made known to human race your wondrous mystery, grant us we pray, that in professing the true faith, we may acknowledge the Trinity of eternal glory and adore your Unity, powerful in majesty. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God forever and ever.

The Lord be with you

May the Almighty God bless you, The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

God in Peace and Happy Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.