By: Jude Siciliano, OP

Dear Preachers:

First some background. Today is the feast of “The Most Holy Trinity.” At first glance it may seem like an unusual celebration. We are used to the major feasts of the year celebrating particular events in the life of Christ: e.g. the Nativity, Easter, the Ascension. But today’s feast isn’t originally based on one event in the life of Jesus. Instead, it arose from the Church’s desire to honor the mystery of God revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

From the earliest centuries Christians were already praying and baptizing in the name of the Trinity, as Jesus taught in Matthew 28:19.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

The early creeds of the Church, especially the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, with deeply Trinitarian. Christians believe in one God, yet expressed God as Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. In the fourth century major theological controversies forced the Church to clarify its teaching on the Trinity, addressing such questions as the divinity of Christ, or the Holy Spirit.

The great teachers of the time, such as, Athanasius, Basil, Augustine, etc. defended the doctrine: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equal and eternal: three persons in one God. In 325 the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople (381) helped to define the teaching of the Trinity more clearly. At our liturgical celebrations today we will recite the Nicene Creed.

We celebrate today’s feast on the Sunday after Pentecost. This is meaningful: after celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost we pause to contemplate the fullness of God’s inner life revealed to us through salvation history. But remember: the feast of the holy Trinity is not simply doctrine to be explained, but a mystery to live out in our daily lives. God is an eternal communion of love, and we are invited into that communion through Christ in the Holy Spirit.

Before we move to the Gospel’s teaching let’s look at traces of the Trinity in the Hebrew Scriptures. In our reading from Exodus, Moses encounters God on Mount Sinai, after the tragedy of the golden calf. The people had broken their covenant, yet God doesn’t come forth punishing them but extending mercy.

God passes before Moses and proclaims God’s name and character: “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” This passage shows us the Trinity is not simply a doctrine about God’s inner life; it is a revelation of who God is towards us.

The Trinity teaches that God is a communion of love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Exodus  is already giving us hints of that divine love. Today we are reminded that God is personal, compassionate, forgiving and faithful. The God of Moses meets is not distant, vengeful or cold, but One who desires covenant and closeness to the chosen people, despite their resistance. We Christians will come to see that this mercy is fully revealed in the Father who sends the Son and in the Holy Spirit who remains with the Church.

Note Moses’ response. He bows down in worship and asks God to remain with the people. “If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff necked yet pardon our wickedness and sins and receive us as your own.” The Trinity is not simply a teaching to be explained; it is a mystery into which we are invited. We are drawn into the life of our God through forgiveness, covenant and communion.

So, our Exodus reading invites us to enter and celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity by revealing the deepest and most intimate truth about God: God’s nature is merciful love, faithful presence and saving communion with humanity.

The gospel today presents again the central message of the Bible: God loves the world. Instead of coming down on us humans for our sins God loves us, frees us from our guilt and offers us eternal life. The opening verse (3:16) is a summary of the whole gospel message, “God so loved the world….” In a few words we come face-to-face with the mystery of who our God is and how God has acted towards us.  If you can tell a tree by its fruit, then you can learn about God by what God has done for us: loved us and demonstrated that love by the concrete sign of Jesus’ life.  Love is what moves God to get involved with us. And more, Jesus tells us, God wants to give us eternal life now.

Today’s gospel passage is from a conversation Jesus is having with Nicodemus.  Jesus tells him that we can put faith in Jesus  and what he reveals about God’s love for us –  or we can self-judge ourselves by rejecting Jesus. If we do put faith in Jesus we have eternal life. We usually think of “eternal life” as something that will begin for us at the moment of death and go on and on without end. But that’s not what eternal life is in John. Jesus says that believers can “have eternal life.” He is speaking in the present tense and is offering the gift of eternal life to us – beginning right now!

What might this gift of “eternal life” look like in our lives? First of all, it is union in the very life of God.  We  have that intimacy with God through our union with Christ and the Holy Spirit in Baptism. This union frees us from fear of judgment. In Jesus we can see the true nature of our God – who already loves us. Now we are living in a new age and have passed from death to life. For John, Jesus is our saving gift in this present moment and through the Spirit, believers can recognize God’s gifts already present to us. Not on our own human efforts, but through our faith, we can have optimism, peace and gratitude to God. We can also accept the challenge faith puts before us – to be instruments of the peace and reconciliation to others that Jesus has already given us.

No image can capture the holiness and greatness of our God. What words can describe God? God is more present to us than we are to ourselves. God is at the very core of our being; the source of all we are and can do. The contradiction we must admit today on this feast of the Trinity is this: the closer we get to God, the more alien we feel from our world and its ways. The closer and more comfortable we feel with our world, the more distinctively alien we are from the God the Scriptures reveal to us.

Click here for a link to this Sunday’s readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/053126.cfm