GOD IN COMMUNITY OF DISTINCT PERSONS
The Most Holy Trinity is the Feast of God in community of distinct Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The unfathomable mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the celebration of God in the community. It is also a feast of the individuality of distinct Persons in the community of the Divine Godhead. In this mystery, we see the individuality of the Divine Person in the community as opposed to the individualism of man in the human community.
In other words, we celebrate the communitarian God. That is three distinct Persons in One Divine Godhead of perfect harmony and working for the creation, salvation and sanctification of the world. Hence, the feast of Godhead: the Most Holy Trinity is not only one of the profound mysteries only but also one of the great challenges to us all as Christians to live in harmony and community among ourselves.
Notably, the Christian community life is a communal life of unity in the diversity of individual Christian or person. The mystery of God in the community respects the individual nature of the three Divine Person: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Therefore, we can also conclude that Trinitarian God we worship and adore is not a communist God. As such, the Christian community life is not a communist lifestyle that robs the individual of their liberty or freedom to be, or becoming what we are in our nature: as distinct and unique persons.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all other mysteries of faith, and the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faith.” (CCC 234:cf. Baptism, the Sign of the Cross)
HISTORY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY IN THE CHURCH
Today, the universal Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity first developed out of the Scriptures and the communal prayer of the early church. The doctrine was officially developed at the Councils of Nicea (325) and Constantinople (381).
The Trinity is the affirmation of God’s intimate communion with us through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Christians believe that God intervenes in our lives and is involved in human history. From the beginning of creation, God tried to communicate and relate to all creatures.
In the Old Testament God did so through events and the prophets. Additionally, in the fullness of time, God became one with humanity in
Jesus Christ. By the power of the Holy Spirit, God continues to be altogether present to us, seeking everlasting communion with all creatures.
OUR THEME
The readings of the Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity explicitly or implicitly reveal to us the nature and character of God. They also invite us to embrace this mystery of the Most Holy Trinity with a sense of awe and adoration.
Equally, in this great mystery where the Church celebrates our belief that God is One and yet Three distinct Persons. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one in the divine nature and equal in majesty and glory, but different in character as distinct Persons. The mystery of One in Three and Three in One.
Hence, in this mystery of the Divine Godhead, we also identify ourselves in our adoptive sonship in Christ Jesus as children of God the Father through the action of the Holy Spirit. That is, our Christian identity is through or in the Trinitarian God and the work of salvation.
The reading also presents that the Christian and the Church´s mission are commissioned in the name of the Trinitarian God.
THE FIRST READING: DEUTERONOMY 4:32-34, 39–40
Moses, the servant and prophet of God presented the awesomeness of God´s salvific work among his people. Implicitly, he articulated the mystery of Godhead and its characteristic nature of closeness or nearness of God to us. This attributive nature of the God of Israel and the Israelites debunked the notion of a remote and distant God.
The Trinitarian Closeness is what marks the Jewish and Christian God different from other gods. The Trinitarian God is not only a God in the community but also a relational God who comes to encounter us in worship and our personal or communal experience.
The psalmist in Psalm 33 invites us to celebrate our Blessedness as the people the Lord has chosen to be his own. Demonstrating to us vividly the communitarian and relational God who reaches out to us.
THE SECOND READING: ROMANS 8:14-17
St. Paul presents us with the Trinitarian theology of our adoption as children of God. That is, the Spirit of God makes us adoptive sons of God as such the Spirit of adoption makes us cry Abba: Father: Papa and heirs and co-heirs with Christ Jesus. Here, we see the Trinitarian formula at work in salvation history.
Interestingly, the concept of adoption is a great metaphor in which Paul describes the new relationship of the Christian to God. He speaks of the Christian being adopted into the family of God. Many biblical scholars, like Williams Barclay, believed that Paul used the adoptive concept of the Roman world,
ROMAN SYSTEM OF ADOPTION
As such, to fully grasp the meaning and understanding of our adoption in Christ Jesus, we should look at the steps or stages of the Roman approach to adopt a child.
The adopted person lost all rights in his old family and gained all the rights of a legitimate son in his new family. In the most binding legal way, he got a new father.
It followed that he became heir to his new father’s estate. Even if other sons were later born, and it did not affect his rights. He was inalienable co-heir with them.
In law, the old life of the adopted person was completely wiped out; for instance, all debts were cancelled. He was a new person entering into a new life with which the past had nothing to do.
In the eyes of the law, he was absolutely the son of his new father. The adoption ceremony was conducted in the presence of seven witnesses.
OUR ADOPTION IN CHRIST JESUS THROUGH BAPTISM
Invariably, in Paul´s mind, the same time happened when a person becomes a Christian. He or she is adopted in the great family of God: the Trinitarian God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is why we are baptized into this adoption in the name of the Most Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
By our adoption, through baptism, we lost our sinful human nature, especially the Original sin we inherited from our first parents Adam and Eve. While we gained new grace to the divine nature and life of God. That is, in Christ Jesus, we become children of God through the action of the Holy Spirit. God becomes on our Father.
We become heirs to the divine rights, privileges, and inheritances of God as his adopted children automatically. Additionally, even co-heirs with Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God. It implies Christ’s entire portion is also ours: that is his suffering, death and resurrection to glory.
Under the divine adoption, we have a clean slate as our old life is completely wiped out and we are a new creature in Christ Jesus. Our past had nothing to do with our new life of adoptive children of God.
Fundamentally, we have a new Father in Christ Jesus through the Spirit of God that habits in us. Hence, we can call God: Abba, Papa, and Father as Jesus did. The adoption is not only through the Holy Spirit, but also He is the key Witness.
The Trinitarian sharing is all about a God who shares with us his divine nature through our adoption in Christ Jesus. The adoption process is profound proof of a Trinitarian God who more than willing to share himself with us.
THE GOSPEL: MATTHEW 28:16-20
This reading is the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the Resurrected Christ was met and worshipped by the disciple in Galilee for the last time before ascending to heaven. The brief passage we read today is known as the “Great Commission,” it tells of the risen Christ sent the disciples forth to all the nations.
TODAY’S GOSPEL READING OFFERS FOUR SIGNIFICANT MESSAGES:
First, the Risen Christ assures us of his power and authority, when he declares to his disciples, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Surely, nothing was outside the power of him, who had died and conquered death.
Now, they were the servants of a Master whose authority and power upon the earth and in heaven were beyond questioning by anyone or anything on earth and in heaven. All Christians share in this divine power and authority conferred on Jesus Christ by God.
Second, the power and authority of his disciples involve a mission. Hence, they were commissioned to continue Jesus’s mission by proclaiming to all men and women the love of God and inviting them to become one in the “family of God: Trinitarian God” through baptism.
In this mission, the mission of the Church was born and the mission of every Christian especially baptized Christians. This is the great commission that makes the Church and its members missionaries. “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Third, Christ made an everlasting promise to remain or abide with his disciples forever. This is the promise of the Holy Spirit of God who proceeds from God the Father the Son. He promised them a presence, “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
We are consoled with this living promise, “I am with you always…” as such, the universal church and all Christians have a blessed assurance, an unshakable guarantee, and eternal security: God is always on our side no matter the circumstances: peaceful and crisis times.
Finally, in the great commission of disciples with the Trinitarian formulae to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” The doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity is fundamentally established. It is the doctrine “par excellence” in the theology of relationships: God is with us, we are with God, and in God, we are all one.
One basic fact here is that the Christian community or church is one in and with the communitarian God. In this way, in Christ Jesus, we are commissioned to act in the Trinitarian power and authority to do everything at all times in the name of God. The Trinitarian permanence and closeness to us.
CELEBRATING THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY IN CHRISTIAN FAITH AND LIFE
It is an unfathomable mystery we could understand its manifestation in the history of our faith and salvation and accordance to/with reveal the truth and adore its profundity in liturgical celebrations.
It is interesting to know that this mystery permeates every facet of our Christian pieties, devotions and liturgical celebrations. We begin and end our prayers personal or communal, the celebration of the sacraments as well as our meetings or gatherings as a people of faith with the Trinitarian sign or greeting or blessing.
GOD OF COMMUNITY AND INDIVIDUALITY OF PERSONS
This holy mystery of the Godhead three persons in one God, distinct in character and equal in divine nature is something incomprehensible. Yet, this mystery, the reality that though equal to divine nature. God the Father is not God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit or Vis versa.
THE THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE TRINITARIAN GOD WE CELEBRATE TODAY ARE
1. In God, there is a living community or family of love, sharing and cooperating to bring about the creation, salvation and sanctification of the universe and humans.
2. There is an indivisible Unity; a bond of love among the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. God in the community of persons distinct, unique and singular. Yet bounded together an eternal and inseparable love.
3. There is equality of nature in the diversity of Trinitarian beingness. That is, God the Father is not greater or superior to God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit. Though, distinct in Persons, they share equally in divinity, glory and majesty. This is why this mystery is the centre of the Christian faith and life.
4. The unity in diversity of the Holy and Blessed Trinity is all-inclusive with exceptions.
OUR INDIVIDUALITY IN UNITY OR DIVERSITY OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH AND LIFE
Though a communal God, their individuality is not lost in their community of unity. There is a big lesson for us today in the world of narcissistic personality disorder permeating every facet of existence, where we feel entitled to own, control and subsume the other in us. Where they cannot be different from us or remind different from us.
The greatest abuse of Christian life in community living to assume or presume uniformity Christian characters as one when we are diversified with different gifts, talents and personalities in the unity of one body of the church: the church.
Our individuality must and should be celebrated, while we equally uphold unity as a community with a mission to evangelize. This unity in individuality and not individualism should be our focus and celebration in the family. That is either in religious congregations or family as well as biological or human families.
The implication of the Holy Trinity is an active and lively individual Christian life at a time of vibrant Christian unity. Individuality-in-Unity!
NARCISSISTIC CONTROL AND ABUSES IN THE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY
The most existence threatens to the church today is not the scandal or doctrinal error, but the pandemic of narcissistic personality disorders of many Christians or religious leaders. These leaders in their narcissistic entitlement, grandiosity, and superiority have no respect for the individuality of each Christians or persons under their leadership.
Abusively, they see others whether Christians or persons as only an extension of them. Thereby, in the name of religious power and authority creates a communist Christian community or life. Where they are the moral arbiters of everything. While absolutely manipulating or controlling everything their egoistic personality.
The mystery and doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity stand against any form of egoism, individualism or narcissism in the Christian community perpetuated in the name of God or religion. As well, it challenges the Christian faith and life to a unity of purpose, mission and witness to the Kingdom of God on earth. While upholding or fostering individuality of gifts, talents and personality
OUR PRAYER
Oh Most Holy Trinity, we firmly believe that in your divine plan of all ages: God-Abba (Creator) planned our salvation by sending the God-Son (Saviour) and both send us God-Holy Spirit (Sanctifier) to lead us to eternal life.
Today, as we honour the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, let us seek to live this mystery more profoundly in our Christian faith and lives. That is, the Godhead of Three-in-One is a mystery of individuality, community and unity without individualism or division or dissension. May we learn that the Christian faith and life are one of the deep unity and individuality in the God of community. Glory to the Tri-Une God—Father, Son, Spirit, forever. Amen!
THE CHILD BY THE SEASIDE A MEDIEVAL STORY ABOUT SAINT AUGUSTINE
The story goes as follows: while Augustine was working on his book on the Trinity, he was walking by the seaside one day, meditating on the difficult problem of how God could be three Persons at once.
He came upon a child. The child had dug a little hole in the sand, and with a small spoon or seashell was scooping water from the sea into the small hole. Augustine watched him for a while and finally asked the child what he was doing.
The child answered that he would scoop all the water from the sea and pour it into the little hole in the sand. ‘What?’ Augustine said. ‘That is impossible. Obviously, the sea is too large and the hole too small.’
‘Indeed,’ said the child, ‘but I will sooner draw all the water from the sea and empty it into this hole than you will succeed in penetrating the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your limited understanding.’ Augustine turned away in amazement and when he looked back the child had disappeared.
Therefore, it is obvious from this story that the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is an unfathomable mystery, which no human intelligence, reason or mind can fully penetrate or comprehend. Though, as the central mystery of our Christian faith and life, we can only understand it from the divine revelation by the Godhead to us in the history of our creation, salvation, and sanctification.
