Trinity Sunday

May 30, Sunday

 God Is Love

To most of us today’s feast of the Trinity may not be as stirring and touching as Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, yet it sums up all of these. It is simply the feast of one God who shows three loving faces to us. We can call him Father, even “Daddy,” as Jesus said. We can call him our brother in Jesus. We can call him our breath in the Spirit, who is our force and life and love that keeps us alive and moving and building a Church and a world. And if we want to sum up God in one word, we say with St. John: God is love. If God loves us so much we can do no less than love one another.

 

First Reading: Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40

         Ask questions. Find out what has been going on all these years before you were born. From the day God created man and woman on this Earth, and from the horizon in the east to the horizon in the west—as far back as you can imagine and as far away as you can imagine—has as great a thing as this ever happened? Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Has a people ever heard, as you did, a god speaking out of the middle of the fire and lived to tell the story?

Or has a god ever tried to select for himself a nation from within a nation using trials, miracles, and war, putting his strong hand in, reaching his long arm out, a spectacle awesome and staggering, the way God, your God, did it for you in Egypt while you stood right there and watched?

 Know this well, then. Take it to heart right now: God is in Heaven above; God is on Earth below. He’s the only God there is. Obediently live by his rules and commands which I’m giving you today so that you’ll live well and your children after you—oh, you’ll live a long time in the land that God, your God, is giving you.

 

Second Reading: Romans 8:14-17

So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

 

Gospel: Matthew 28:16-20

Meanwhile, the eleven disciples were on their way to Galilee, headed for the mountain Jesus had set for their reunion. The moment they saw him they worshiped him. Some, though, held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally.

Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.”

 

Prayer
God, source of all life and love,
we sing out to you today
the joy of our faith and our love.
You have loved us first
before we could even know you.
Father, with a love as tender as that of a mother,
our hearts recognize your greatness and your mercy.
You let Jesus become your face,
our brother, near and approachable,
saving us by his death and resurrection.
Your Spirit animates us with your love and strength.
Keep alive in us that love and that joy,
let our gratitude resound all over the earth!
All blessing and praise be to you
through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

 

Reflection

Climb the ‘mountain’

On the Trinity Sunday, the Church invites us to meditate on the mystery of the One God in Three Persons. And the Gospel gives us a method for this meditation – to go up the mountain. The scene told in today’s passage is set on a mountain in Galilee (v. 16). The mountain, in biblical language, indicates the location of the revelations of God. And the invitation is to climb the ‘mountain’. It is not to climb ‘a’ mountain. It is not a material mountain. If you do not climb the mountain, if you stay on the plain, you will just be an admirer of Jesus, but would never get to experience the loving communion of the Father and the Spirit with Jesus.

During his public life, Jesus had introduced to us three mountains: First is the Mount of the Beatitudes. If we do not go up that mountain and we do not start to live the Beatitudes at his side, together with him, we will never fall in love with Jesus. The precepts of the life of a disciple – like the 10 commandments of the Old Testament – are introduced as our life-principles – there in the sermon on the Mount.

The second mountain is that of the Transfiguration. You have to climb that mountain. It is there where you will see the true identity of Jesus. The one who took the form of a servant, the one in his loincloth of the slave, who washes the feet of the disciples, but now is seen on the mountain, in his royal glory. It is this experience on the mountain that gave certainty to the disciples about the Messiah whom they were following.

The third mountain is that of bread distribution. The mountain on which the Master makes us understand God’s sense and design about the goods of this world. All that you have, are given to you and therefore, they are not yours. Give them away and be concerned about the needs of people. If we do not go up this mountain, we begin to cling to all possible goods and we idolize the goods of this world. We do not use them for the purpose to which God has destined them. We consider them ours and we feel owners.

The image of the Church today is that the people are afraid to climb the mountain. They do something … some devotions … but they do not go up the mountain to fully assimilate the thought of Christ. And this is the invitation Jesus makes to his disciples. Experience and share the perfect loving communion of the three persons of the One God.

For your reflection

If living as a Christian is to love as God loves, how do I love those around me?

 

Video available on Youtube: Climb the ‘mountain’