Trinity Sunday (A)
(Exodus 34:4-6,
8-9; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; John 3:16-18)
God so loved the world that He gave His only Son,
so that everyone who believes in Him might have everlasting life; he will not
be condemned. But whoever does not believe has already been
condemned.
God, in His
infinite perfection is immortal, has everlasting life. He so loved the
world that He sent us His only Son, and therefore the Son – our Beloved Lord
Jesus -- not only represents God’s love for us but even presents
it to us in both its fulness of divinity and in its supreme
‘accessibility’ for our human minds and hearts. That is why:
Whoever does not believe has already been condemned.
Condemned,
however, by him – her – self, not by God. Whoever will not accept
God’s love cannot be embraced by the eternal God and must therefore, and
indeed thereby, perish.
That, dear
People of God, is a fact of the spiritual life. Just as whoever will not
eat food, drink water, or breath air, will thereby die … so whoever wills
not, chooses not -- by denial, rejection, or indifference -- to believe
in God’s only-begotten Son among us will, thereby and therefore, die
spiritually and eternally. Get rid of all modern sentimentality and
godless self-love, People of God, there is nothing cruel in a fact of life:
(Can) a human being talk back to God? Will what is
made say to its maker, ‘Why have you created me so?’ (Romans
9:19)
However,
God did not simply create us to be free in His own likeness, He sent and
encouraged His only-begotten Son to ultimately embrace outrageous suffering and
death in our flesh to help us use our freedom aright for our supreme blessing
and fulfilment and for God’s greater glory.
As a result
of that, dear People of God, we Catholics and Christians know of and adore a
Most Holy Trinity in sublime and eternal glory in Heaven, and we also know of
-- and even experience in a faithful measure -- a most Holy Trinity at work
here on earth for our eternal salvation, and to Whom we give most heartfelt
thanks, selfless trust, and obedient love. Let us consider that
Trinity of our earthly Catholic and Christian spiritual experience somewhat
more closely today.
Jesus is
for us the Way (in His Body), the Truth (in His teaching and
example, His salvific Death and Resurrection), and the Life (by the
power and inspiration of His Spirit). After His bar-mitzva youthful
experience of God His Father (‘My Father’s house’) mediated to Him by the
Temple Liturgy, Jesus spent long years (18!) waiting on and waiting for His
heavenly Father to call Him. He knew His Father was at work in John the
Baptist’s ministry and so, it would seem, to admire His Father’s work and draw
as physically close as possible to that manifest presence, He went to John’s
baptizing in the Jordan where -- to His Father’s great joy – He joined Himself
to those confessing pilgrims and humble penitents, showing
Himself thereby to be indeed, even instinctively, Son of Man.
That inspiration to search for His Father to the utmost was a direct
inspiration from the Holy Spirit (not just a deeply spiritual aspiration born
of the Temple liturgy as before) and so, this time all was authentically
reciprocated by the Father most manifestly embracing His Son, Whom He had
indeed, by the Spirit, brought here to begin His public mission of salvation
and redemption for mankind, and to enter upon the ultimate destruction of
Satan’s realm among men.
Likewise,
when Jesus later took Peter, James, and John with Him to the mountain top where
He was transfigured before them, surely it was, at that most decisive moment,
the Spirit’s direct inspiration and the Father’s will that brought Jesus where
the Father wanted to glorify Him before His specially chosen disciples, and
where, with the witness and testimony of Moses and Elijah representing all
those prophets and martyrs who, at God’s behest, had throughout OT times spoken
of and worked for the Messiah’s advent to Israel, He willed to strengthen,
enlighten, and embolden His beloved Son before the trials so ominously
awaiting and threatening Him.
Let us
therefore, dear People of God, try live out our spiritual life in a
‘Trinitarian’ way, so to speak, ever seeking with Jesus, following His
teaching and His example, for the Father in all things, under the
power and spiritual guidance guidance of His Holy Spirit, bestowed on us
through His sacraments, above all the most holy Eucharist, and in our dutiful
and loving prayer.
Before my
Catholic days, as an aspiring lieder and concert hall singer, I was for several
years at the Royal Academy of Music in London and I sought to take advantage of
what that great city offered by hearing as much music of the highest quality as
I could. My aim was not so much to continually and critically assess with
my mind what I heard but to imbibe into my very being what was beautiful
and true musically … and even today nearly 70 years I still delight to hear
‘my’ local blackbirds giving me wonderful lessons on tonal quality and voice
production!
Now that is
not unlike my present aspiration to living the spiritual life in a
‘Trinitarian’ way. Try to live with Jesus as much as
possible: a blackbird can always speak to, teach me about singing; let
Catechism doctrine, holy reading, Catholic devotions, life’s lessons, gratitude
for blessings and experience of suffering, speak to you about Jesus, about His
love for His Father and for you. It is a matter of constantly
trying … No! not trying to think, imagine, work out, for there is so
much of self in such endeavours, so much secretly trying to bring about what is
wanted. Infinitely much better, for the Psalmist (51:8) says of God:
Behold You desire true sincerity, and secretly You teach me wisdom,
it is by
constantly wanting, hoping, watching, waiting, and longing for Him and ever
asking Him to teach you about God, the Father, Who is, as Jesus Himself said,
My God and your God, My Father and your Father.
Now this
living with Jesus is utterly dependent on our listening for the Holy Spirit
Whom Jesus bestows on us above all in His Eucharist, and through the sacraments
of Mother Church. For now, Jesus teaches us from without, through the
words He once spoke, the example He once gave, the salvation He won for us; and
all that is ‘brought’ into us, into our hearts and minds, becoming part of our
way of living and the joy and confidence of our prayers, by His Holy
Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit alone Who thus can speak most
convincingly and authoritatively, most beautifully and alluringly, about Jesus
to us who aspire to live and grow spiritually before God.
Mother
Church’s doctrine of the Holy Trinity is sublimely beautiful but her liturgy,
at least in some of her monastic liturgies, can easily be bogged down by the
incessant repetition of ‘accepted’ sayings bedevilled by ‘One’ and ‘Three’ in
all sorts of arrangements. Here we should most profitably recall Our
Blessed Lady, Mother Church’s supreme model and example in her love for Jesus,
who, Scripture tells us, ‘treasured all these things in her heart’, and
now from the heights of heaven can treasure in her heart and help us treasure
in our hearts the wonder and beauty of the Most Holy Trinity that pervades her
whole being. Dear People of God, let Mary help you, may the Holy
Spirit lead and ‘inspire’ you, to know and ever more appreciate the
Catechetical purity of Mother Church’s doctrine of the Holy Trinity and to
celebrate it both humbly and whole-heartedly in your own personal liturgy of
love and admiration, prayer and thanksgiving, and life-long endeavour.
