Scripture Reflection for Trinity Sunday

Scripture: Trinity Sunday, May 18, 2008: Exodus 34:4-6,8-9. Daniel 3:52-56
for Psalm Response, II Corinthians 13:11-13. John 3:16-18. Lectionary #
165:

St. Paul ends his epistle in today's reading with a prayer that is
perfect for this feast of the Holy Trinity: "The grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you
all." (II Cor. 13:13). What a beautiful expression of praise and prayer to
acknowledge through faith alone that the Trinity is unity of three Persons
in One God. This paradoxical mystery of the Christian faith is what
divides us from all other monotheistic religions but in its essence
confesses the belief in one true God. It is the most profound mystery of
faith in the Christian religion and only developed in theology after a
hundred or more years. Only the gift of faith given at Baptism and the
influence of the Spirit both in our hearts and in Scripture can give the
Christian person such a gift of faith. No one earns it, and no one can
explain it though Augustine, Aquinas, and theologians try to probe its
mystery. Paul himself shows that he too struggled with it. We know this in
a careful reading of his thoughts expressed in his epistles. His belief in
the Trinity springs more from his heart than his mind, or rather from his
whole being. In a sense, he does for the Trinity what he did in faith as a
follower of the Mosaic covenant, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the
Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with
all your soul, and with all your might." (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).
Our first reading from Exodus 34 gives us the Mosaic Covenant
(Pentecost or Shavuot ) on Mount Sinai and it too is a revelation of the
faith of Israel: "The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to
anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast
love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin." ( Exodus 34:6-7). This like the prayer of Paul is also a
revelation prayer from God to Israel.
Appropriately, on this feast of the Trinity, the Church in its
liturgy chooses and reads a passage from John's Gospel to express what the
Trinity is in a comforting message of salvation through God's revelation,
"Yes, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him may not die but may have eternal life." (John 3: 16).
As Catholic Christians there is this doxology that expresses our
faith through a Marian prayer, " May the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit be glorified in all places through the immaculate Virgin Mary.
Amen."