June 12, 2022 – Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061222.cfm)

Our faith in the Holy Trinity is central to our Christian Faith and Tradition. So let me remind you that our faith in the Holy Trinity, recognizes and worships the TRIUNE GOD. God’s self-revelation to us takes the form of three different Divine Persons – that is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

We also need to understand and have a firm belief that each Divine Person in the Holy Trinity is different. This means that God the Father is not God the Son, and that God the Father and God the Son is not God the Holy Spirit. Yet, they are One God. Quite confusing right? Don’t worry, this mystery of the Holy Trinity also confused many because it is beyond logic and beyond the basic mathematical formula.

Nevertheless, the HOLY TRIUNE GOD, as much as the Bible revealed to us and our ancestors in the faith, like the Church Fathers many centuries ago taught us, God’s self-revelation or God’s Divine Revelation in our human history is through the Person of God the Father, through the Person of God the Son and through the Person of God the Holy Spirit.

Since, God is One in Three, this must also be understood that even at the very beginning, the Triune God is responsible for the creation of the world, though we attribute creation with the Father, as the creator. The same also with the redemption of the world from sin and death, the Triune God out of great love for the world sent Jesus Christ, the God the Son. The same also goes in sanctifying the world. It is the Triune God that sanctifies and renews the face of the earth through the sending of the Holy Spirit into the world and into our hearts.

With these, I want you to pay more attention to the word RELATIONSHIP. As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, each of us today also is called to share in the life of our God. We can only share that life through our relationship with the Triune God.

Now, allow me to journey with you through the readings we have today and see how this relationship is unfolded in us and how does this call today.

The Book of Proverbs tells us that the Wisdom of God is being personified. It was proclaimed, “Thus says the wisdom of God: “The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways, the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago; from of old I was poured forth, at the first, before the earth.”

This expresses that the wisdom of God is responsible for all the things we have in the world, both the seen and unseen. More than that, this also tells us how the wisdom of God nurtures life. The wisdom of God creates and recreates, animates and gives life. Thus, this is how the love of the Father-Creator overflows to us, to every living and non-living being.

This is affirmed in our Psalm today, God’s fingers and God’s hands created many wonders. And everything is created out of love and out of goodness. So, look around you, see and realize how the wisdom of God is revealed to us every day and in every single moment of our life. This, indeed, is #relationshipgoal with the Father-Creator whose wisdom and love gives and nurtures life.

Moreover, the second reading from the Letter of Paul to the Romans tells us also about the grace of peace. Paul speaks of this grace through his faith in Jesus. That faith develops and nurtures his relationship with Jesus. This tells us too that faith, certainly, is not something abstract or a mere idea in the mind. But, it is a relationship with God.

But, let us also remember, St. Paul, at first, did not like Jesus because he did not understand him. Paul hated Jesus because everything about him was an insult to his personal belief and perspective in life. In fact, his hatred for Jesus made him a violent torturer of the first Christians. But then, something happened. Paul whose name before was Saul, met Jesus when he was on his way to Damascus. And when he met Jesus, what he only saw was light and that light blinded him.

His blindness moved him to seek help and seek the grace of healing. Thus, his encounter with Jesus brought him to the true light. This was how he recovered his sight but now seeing in a different perspective. He began to see and understand things through the love of God to him.

This was how Saul got his name Paul, as a way of change in his life, his story of conversion to Jesus’ friendship. Now, Paul became convinced of this friendship with Jesus, in fact, in his letter to the Romans, Paul expressed his #friendshipgoal with Jesus. Paul personally felt and experienced God’s love and forgiveness for him through the person of Jesus.

Finally, in today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about the Spirit of Truth who shall be our guide. The gift of the Holy Spirit as we have celebrated it last Pentecost Sunday, is God reaching out into our hearts, to bring that peace, renewal and life in us. Thus, the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father and the Son (John 14:26 and 16:7) so that God may be in us and we, in God. This is how the Holy Spirit purifies and sanctifies us or makes us holy in our daily lives.[1]

This is now the #relationshipgoal with the Holy Spirit. Moreover, St. Paul reminded us in his letter that the Holy Spirit has been given to us already. In effect, the gift of the Spirit makes us comfortable with each other. It means that we don’t consider ourselves as strangers to one another, but a family, a group of friends not afraid of one another. Because in this friendship we open up ourselves to one another and to God, all our imperfections and weaknesses, sharing our strengths, talents, riches and our very life.

Now, out of these, there are three more hashtags that calls to grow in our #relationship-goal with the Holy Trinity.

First, #Nurture. As God the Father nurtures the whole creation, as a person, nurture your talents and gifts so that you may be able to develop and realize your every potential in the way God desires it.

Second, #Buildrelationships. As Jesus came and dwelt among us, he encountered people personally by building friendship with them. This is evident on how he gathered and called his disciples. Through a personal encounter, Jesus built lasting and intimate friendships. Thus, as a person, make friends, build healthy relationships.

Third, #ReachOut. God has reached out to us through the Holy Spirit who shall remind, teach and guide us. Through the Holy Spirit, God’s presence dwells in us. That is why, be daring enough to reach out also to others, make your presence felt by those who need a friend. Be bold enough to extend and give yourself for the sake of others, for that brother or sister who may be struggling right now. Be there for that person. Be God’s presence for those who are troubled. Kabay pa.

---

[1] Arlandson, “A Brief Explanation of the Trinity.”