Trinity Sunday, June 19, 2010

Scripture: Lectionary # 165. Exodus 34:4-6.8-9. Daniel 3:52-56. II Cor.
13:11-13. John 3:16-18.

Love is the centerpiece for today's liturgy especially in the Gospel that
emphasizes love based on a faith that is committed to believing in the Son
of God, Jesus. Love is emphasized in the second part of John's Gospel, but
it is so essential to the mystery of the Trinity that already in the
beginning of John's Gospel we find one of the strongest and clearest texts
on love. We can spend some time reflecting on this passage--so short that
it lends itself to contemplation.

St. Francis Xavier got my attention with the way in which he speaks of
teaching the children he instructed in India, Japan, and the Spice Islands
-- long ago in the 1500 hundreds! He was so excited about their
willingness to learn the simple prayers of the Hail Mary, the Glory be, and
the Our Father and Creed that he could only cry out in his own personal
prayer, "O Most Holy Trinity." In a sense, that says it all on this most
profound of the mysteries of our Christian faith.

It is the love of the Trinity that is seen in what we call the "ad extra"
workings of the Trinity, that is, in its love and mission to us. The
Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, and that love is the Holy
Spirit. We believe though many who have studied tracts on the Trinity have
attempted to syllogize this mystery, it just does not work according to
human insight and logic; it is a profound mystery of our belief in God and
in the unity and diversity seen in God through the Godhead and then through
the Persons, Father (Creator), Son (Savior), Spirit (Sanctifier).

Paul frequently alludes to the different persons but it is not a systematic
development as philosophers and theologians would want him to do. It is a
pastoral and spiritual approach based on his experience of God and God's
revelation in words both through the Hebrew Scriptures and the oral
tradition of the Gospels that he learned from the "pillar apostles" during
fourteen years of preparation maybe from 40-54 A.D. We are blessed with one
of his prayers to the Trinity today: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you
all." Perfectly Trinitarian!

We begin each liturgy and prayers before meals with the invocation of the
Trinity and the sign of our salvation: In the Name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. We are initiated into the Body of Christ
in Baptism with the same invocation while water is poured over our heads in
the sacrament of Baptism. In fact, the Trinity is essential to each of our
sacramental celebrations. They are another seven-fold gift of God to us as
a whole and as individuals particpating in some of these sacred events
called sacraments.

There is likewise a mission for us "ad extra" as we read one of the
clearest expressions about the Trinity in Matthew:"Go therefore make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have
commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.
" Matthew 28:19-20.

We are able to experience the Trinity in the liturgical celebrations, the
devotions, and the prayers offered to us in the Church. Theology helps but
the liturgy and our prayers lead to a faith experience of God where
abstractions are left aside. The mystics have a unique way of talking about
God that can be quite different from the way theologians and philosophers
probe the things they read. Here is the way Meister Eckart speaks of the
Trinity and shows us Jesus smiling and laughing and the Trinity all the
moreso: "When God laughs at the soul and the soul laughs back at God, the
persons of the Trinity are begotten. When the Father laughs at the Son and
the Son laughs back at the Father, that laughter gives pleasure, that
pleasure gives joy, that joy gives love, and that love is the Holy Spirit."

In our Eucharistic celebration the Holy Spirit is called upon to sanctify
our gifts that they may become the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God who is the Creator of all things in the universe. And when
we think of the mother of Jesus, Mary, we do well to always associate her
with her Son and with the Holy Spirit (Christology and Pneumatology). By
taking many of the devotional things we say about her we can apply them to
the Holy Spirit who is the source and font of all graces and devotions that
are in harmony with the liturgy and the Scriptures. We may pray with the
Marianist Family of brothers, sisters, priests, and lay people: " May the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be glorified in all places
thorugh the Immaculate Virgin Mary." Amen.