Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Prov 8:22-31; Ps 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9; Rom 5:1-5; John 16:12-15
Last Sunday we celebrated the Solemnity of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and marked the birth of a “new humanity, the Church, in which communion overcomes the divisions” (John Paul ii, Homily, 25 June 2001). Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Blessed Trinity. We are taught by the Church, “The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the “consubstantial Trinity.” The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: “The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e., by nature one God” (CCC253).
Thus, today we celebrate, “the central mystery of Christian faith and life (CCC234). We are all invited to participate in the divine life of the Triune God. Every day as Christians we participate in this divine life as we begin our daily prayers with the sign of the Cross. When we become Christians, we renounce the dominion of Satan, and we profess our faith in the Triune God, and we are baptized: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. As we celebrate this Solemnity of the Trinity, we are accompanied by the words of St Augustine who says, “The fullness of our happiness, beyond which there is none else, is this: to enjoy God the Trinity in whose image we were made” (On the Trinity 1.8.1).
The first reading, Proverbs 8:22-31 speaks about the Trinity when it presents God as the Creator and Wisdom as one who was with God at the time of creation. The passage opens with these words, “The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago” (Prov. 8:22). Wisdom was there with God before everything else came into being. In his prologue, St. John uses a similar language to describe the divine relationship between God and the Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. through him was life…” (Jn. 1:1, 4). John clearly states that the Word was God, and this Word became flesh (Jn. 1:14). Pope Benedict xvi makes it clear that this Wisdom of Proverbs is the same Word in John when he says, “Jesus is the Wisdom of God incarnate, he is his eternal Word who became a mortal man” (VD 5). We also notice that what is attributed to Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs is later on applied to Christ by Paul in his letter to the Colossians where he says that Jesus is “the firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15), and St. John also says that Jesus is “the beginning of God’s creation” (Rev. 3:14).
Looking at the work of creation, the Psalmist is filled with awe, and he poses a question: “When I see the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars which you arranged, what is man…?” (Ps. 8,4-5). St John Paul II says that among all creatures, man is the only creature capable of asking this question. Thus, when we think about God, we also think about our relationship with him. We ask: Who are we? Who am I? The Psalmist is quick to answer this: “You have made him little less than a god; with glory and honour you crowned him,” (Ps. 8:5). Thus, man was created in the image of the Triune God. This image is often disfigured by man himself when he slides into sin, when man allows Satan to take dominion over humanity. It is also disfigured by those who deify corruption, poor governance perpetuates armed conflicts and oppresses the poor.
Amidst these sufferings, the late Holy Father Pope Francis gave us an opportunity to gaze on the Triune God with hope when he proclaimed 2025 as a Jubilee Year of Hope. The theme of the Jubilee is taken from the second reading of the Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity of this year: Hope does not disappoint (Rom. 5:5). Even when hope is threatened by sickness, death, unemployment, greed, drug abuse and sexual immorality and lack of commitment to married life, we have hope in the Triune God because “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5). The sufferings and brutality in this world may want to lead us into despair but the Spirit of Truth promised to the disciples by our Lord Jesus Christ will prove the world wrong about sin and will lead us to the truth.
May our Mother Mary intercede for us.