The Solemnity of the Holy Trinity – 12th June 2022
Lectionary Readings: Prov. 8:22-31; Ps. 8:4-9; Rom. 5:1-5; Jn. 16:12-15
Theme: The Mystery of our Triune God
Today’s solemnity invites us to celebrate a mystery: “one God in three persons!”. It is thus an invitation to contemplate the God who is love, family and also community. This God created human beings so that they could participate in this mystery of love. In the face of this great mystery we can only say with the psalmist: “How great you are in all the earth, Lord our God!”(Ps. 8)
Chapter 8 of the “Book of Proverbs” presents us with a speech put into the mouth of “wisdom”, as if it were a person: a literary device, through which the author intends to give strength and dramatic intensity to the invitation he launches, in the sense of welcoming and loving “wisdom”. The author states that wisdom would be the first work of God and she is an assistant of creation. “Wisdom”, always present in creation, reveals to human beings the greatness and love of the Creator God. Jewish tradition will eventually identify this “wisdom” with the Torah; and the Church Fathers with Jesus or the Holy Spirit.
The second reading, from the book to the Romans, was written when Paul was finishing his third missionary journey and he takes advantage of the letter to speak to the community of Rome and to all believers about a very present problem in the community: unity. That is why it was necessary to say that the love our God “has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit”. This is the force that unites and that saves every believer, making no distinction between Jew or Greek or Roman.
In the Gospel Jesus defines his mission in the world, but he warns that this path will be opposed, but that the disciples will be supported by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit will not present a new doctrine, but will make the Word of Jesus always the reference of the community that walks through the world and that this community knows how to apply the message of Jesus to each new circumstance that life presents.
The celebration of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity is a moment of contemplation of a God who is love and who is community. To say that there are three persons in God, as there are three persons in a family – father, mother and child – is to affirm three gods and to deny faith. Also, to say that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three ways of presenting the same God, as three photographs of the same face, is to deny the distinction of the three persons and is also to deny faith. Given our smallness and imperfect language, we can say that the divine nature is of a God of love, of a God of family, of a God of community, the God of the family becomes a trinity of distinct, but united, people. And when we get here, we have to stop, because our finite and human language cannot “say” the mystery of God.
In this Solemnity we are invited to contemplate the love of a God who never gave up on human beings and who always knew how to find ways to meet us, and to walk with us. Even though we so often insist on selfishness, pride, self-sufficiency, sin, God continues to love us and make us signs of eternal life.
For Reflection and Discussion: 1. Are our Christian communities really the expression of that God who is love and who is community? 2. Have I, with the help of the Spirit, listened to the eternal Word of Jesus and let myself be guided by it?
Bibliography: McKenzie, J.L. Dictionary of the Bible (New York: 1965)
This week’s Sunday Liturgy Commentary was prepared by
Nayon Nigel Cezar, NDS, Israel, Bat Kol Secretary.
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