20190616 ENCOUNTERING THE
HOLY TRINITY THROUGH THE MYSTERY OF LOVE
16 JUNE, 2019,
Sunday, The Most Holy Trinity
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour:
White.
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First reading
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Proverbs 8:22-31 ©
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Before the earth came into being, Wisdom
was born
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The Wisdom of God cries aloud:
The Lord created me when his purpose first
unfolded,
before the oldest of his
works.
From everlasting I was firmly set,
from the beginning, before
earth came into being.
The deep was not, when I was born,
there were no springs to gush
with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
before the hills, I came to
birth;
before he made the earth, the countryside,
or the first grains of the
world’s dust.
When he fixed the heavens firm, I was
there,
when he drew a ring on the
surface of the deep,
when he thickened the clouds above,
when he fixed fast the springs
of the deep,
when he assigned the sea its boundaries
– and the waters will not invade the
shore –
when he laid down the
foundations of the earth,
I was by his side, a master craftsman,
delighting him day after day,
ever at play in his presence,
at play everywhere in his world,
delighting to be with the sons
of men.
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 8:4-9 ©
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How great is your name,
O Lord our God, through all the earth!
When I see the heavens, the work of your
hands,
the moon and the stars which
you arranged,
what is man that you should keep him in
mind,
mortal man that you care for
him?
How great is your name,
O Lord our God, through all the earth!
Yet you have made him little less than a
god;
with glory and honour you
crowned him,
gave him power over the works of your
hand,
put all things under his feet.
How great is your name,
O Lord our God, through all the earth!
All of them, sheep and cattle,
yes, even the savage beasts,
birds of the air, and fish
that make their way through
the waters.
How great is your name,
O Lord our God, through all the earth!
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Second reading
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Romans 5:1-5 ©
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The love of God has been poured into our
hearts
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Through our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we
are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through
Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about
looking forward to God’s glory. But that is not all we can boast about; we can
boast about our sufferings. These sufferings bring patience, as we know, and
patience brings perseverance, and perseverance brings hope, and this hope is
not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the
Holy Spirit which has been given us.
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Gospel Acclamation
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cf.Rv1:8
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit;
the God who is, who was, and who is to come.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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John 16:12-15 ©
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The Spirit of truth will lead you to the
complete truth
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Jesus said to his disciples:
‘I still have many things to say to you
but they would be too much for you now.
But when the Spirit of truth comes
he will lead you to the complete truth,
since he will not be speaking as from
himself
but will say only what he has learnt;
and he will tell you of the things to
come.
He will glorify me,
since all he tells you
will be taken from what is mine.
Everything the Father has is mine;
that is why I said:
All he tells you
will be taken from what
is mine.’
ENCOUNTERING THE
HOLY TRINITY THROUGH THE MYSTERY OF LOVE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ Prov 8:22-31; Ps 8:4-9; Rom 5:1-5; John 16:12-15 ]
Christianity is one of
the three monotheistic religions in the world, along with Judaism and Islam,
which believe in One God. While
the truth of One God understood in a strict monotheistic sense is attractive,
it poses an inner contradiction. If God is love, then God cannot be
“alone”, otherwise He would be loving Himself and that would be clearly
narcissism. If God is truly love, He would need a partner to love.
Who is the partner of God’s love? It cannot be us, His creatures, because
we are not on the same level as God. It must be someone who is also God.
This is why the Church
speaks of a Trinitarian God as the answer to ‘God is love’. Christians believe that in this One God,
there is an inner distinction in His being, namely, the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit. This doctrine is called the Mystery of the Holy
Trinity. This doctrine indeed is a continuity of Israel’s faith in God
who is love, but with greater depth and breath. In God, there are three
persons, the Father loving the Son, the Son loving the Father, and the love
that binds the Father and the Son together is what we call the Holy Spirit.
This knowledge of the
inner life of God is of course rooted in revelation. Without God’s revelation of
Himself, we will never be able to know His inner life. This revelation
began in the Old Testament in the Book of Proverbs where we read,
“He made the earth, the countryside, or the first grains of the world’s
dust.” God is therefore experienced first as Creator and our Father, who
is the origin of life. Indeed, when we contemplate on the wonders of
creation, especially the creation of man as the summit of God’s creation, we
cannot but be awed by His love and care for us. The psalmist,
contemplating on the dignity of the human person, sees Him as one that is both
powerful and weak. God in His goodness loves human being in a special way
as to make him His co-creators. He wrote, “When I see the heavens,
the work of your hands, the moon and the stars which you arranged, what is man
that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him? Yet
you have made him little less than a god; with glory and honour you crowned
him, gave him power over the works of your hand, put all things under his
feet.” This is what it means to be created in the image of God, to share
in His authority over creation. His special dignity is the source of
man’s greatness which cannot be violated. Every atrocity against man is a
crime against God who is His creator.
But the Book of Proverbs
also hints that Wisdom is also differentiated from God. The first reading presents Wisdom as a
person who spoke of Himself as a partner in the work of creation.
Before creation came about, there existed Wisdom alongside with God, before
time, and was eternal. The book of Wisdom says, “The Lord created me when
his purpose first unfolded, before the oldest of his works. From everlasting I
was firmly set, from the beginning, before earth came into being. When he
fixed the heavens firm, I was there … when he laid down the foundations of the
earth, I was by his side, a master craftsman, delighting him day after
day.” Alongside God as creator, there was also the Wisdom of God
personified. This wisdom of God shares the powers and dignity
of God and yet is distinguished from God the creator.
In the gospel, Jesus made
it clear that “everything the Father has is mine.” Christ came to reveal
to us the Father’s love and mercy.
He is the incarnation of God’s unconditional love and abundant mercy. He
gives us strength and hope by showing us the way to the Truth, to life and
love. Jesus is the Truth, the answer to every riddle, every
suffering and pain in the world. Indeed, the Truth is not a philosophical
answer but an event. He is the Truth of God because He is the Love of God
incarnated. The truth that Christians believe is Jesus Christ who
reveals to us the Love of the Father. By His death and resurrection, He
shows us that our sins are forgiven and we can look forward to a new
life. Indeed, Jesus said to Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen
the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that
I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (Jn 14:9) Jesus is the eternal Son of the
Father. Both the Father and the Son are reciprocal to each other in
relationship.
In the gospel, Jesus
also speaks about a third person, who is the Holy Spirit. Jesus said to His disciples: “I
still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now.
But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth,
since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has
learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He will glorify me, since
all he tells you will be taken from what is mine.” The Holy Spirit,
therefore, is the one who will lead us to encounter Jesus today. He will
give us the wisdom and understanding to recognize that Jesus is our Lord and
Saviour. Most of all, the Holy Spirit, as St Paul says, is the love of
God poured into our hearts. St Paul says, “This hope is not deceptive,
because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit
which has been given us.”
But the Holy Spirit can
lead us to Jesus and through Jesus to the Father only if He were also divine. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is
inseparably one with the Father and the Son because He is the bond of love that
binds them together. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and that
of the Son. Hence, the task of the Holy Spirit is to reveal the Son
to us so that through the Son we might come to the Father. The Holy
Spirit quenches the emptiness of our hearts and leads us into communion with
the Son and the Father. Consequently, we confess that God is the Father
who is revealed through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. Indeed, this is the way
we Christians encounter God’s love. Encountering God’s love through
Christ in the Holy Spirit is what makes us Christians.
Indeed, when we reflect
on our relationship with the Father as our creator, the Son as our redeemer and
the Holy Spirit as our sanctifier, we can better appreciate why God is One
Being in three relationships.
In the Trinitarian Mystery, we understand the divine nature of God as
reciprocal love, intense communion, a dialogal relationship and communion in
mission. Most of all, it tells us that God’s nature is total self-giving,
unconditional forgiveness and self-emptying love. It is this love
of God that is then poured out into the world.
Indeed, God is a Trinity
of persons and He wants to unite us all into a community of love. In the Trinity, God who is Father,
Son and Spirit captures what love is in essence. St Augustine described
the Holy Trinity as the Father as the Lover, the Son as the Beloved and the
Holy Spirit as Love. Indeed, the ultimate purpose of God’s creation is
that we share in the Trinitarian love. To share in the life of the
Trinity is our call to be in communion with Him. (cf 1 Jn 1:1-4) God created us not to share in the
goodness of creation but more than that, to share in His love. Such is the
generosity of God. It is through His grace alone.
What are the
implications for us? It means that if we were to encounter God as love,
we must proceed from the same way God has revealed Himself to us. To find the Father, we need to come
through Jesus who is the sole mediator between God and Man. (cf 1 Tim 2:5). Knowing Jesus’ love and
mercy for us is the way we come to know the Father’s mercy and love.
Hearing Jesus’ teaching is the way in which we come to know the Father’s heart
and mind. That is why we must cultivate a deep love for the Word of God.
But this is not enough.
We must be enlightened by the Holy Spirit because He connects us with Jesus and
reminds us all that Jesus has taught us. Most of all, the Holy Spirit
makes the Risen Lord alive in our hearts and minds when His love, manifested in
His gifts, is manifested in us. This is particularly true when we bear the fruits of
the Holy Spirit, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Gal 5:22) The Holy Spirit, therefore,
fills us with the love God and His gifts. Through the gifts and the
fruits of the Spirit, we live in the Spirit of Christ, sharing in His life and
love.
Concretely, this means
that we are called to live out the Trinitarian love in our lives. We too are called to love intensely
and reciprocally. It means living in unity with others even though we are
different in age, charisms, intellectual capacity or in status. We
must imitate the Trinity where the three persons live in unity. We are
all one in Christ and in Him, we become one with the Father in the Holy
Spirit. (cf Jn 17:21-23)
Consequently, celebrating the Feast of the Holy Trinity, we must endeavor to be
committed to building the Church of Christ into a community of love. We
must take seriously St John Paul II’s call to “make the Church the home and the
school of communion … if we wish to be faithful to God’s plan and respond to
the world’s deepest yearnings. (cf NMI 43)
Without communion among
ourselves, there is no mission because the mission Christ has given to us is
communion. Again,
St John Paul II states succinctly, “Communion is the fruit and demonstration of
that love which springs from the heart of the Eternal Father and is poured out
upon us through the Spirit which Jesus gives us (cf. Rom 5:5), to make us all ‘one heart and one
soul’ (Acts 4:32). It is in building this communion
of love that the Church appears as ‘sacrament’, as the ‘sign and instrument of
intimate union with God and of the unity of the human race’.” (NMI, 42)
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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