Trinity Sunday

Catholics are always used to making the sign of the Cross at the beginning of their liturgical activities and also at the end, and that is the invocation of the BLESSED TRINITY, God that Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Many of our protestant brothers and sisters have always had problems with that, questioning its origin in the Bible. To be able to understand this, let us look at this: The story is told of St Augustine of Hippo, a great philosopher and theologian. He was preoccupied with the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. He wanted so much to understand the doctrine of one God in three persons and to be able to explain it logically. One day he was walking along the sea shore and reflecting on this matter. Suddenly, he saw a little child all alone on the shore. The child made a whole in the sand, ran to the sea with a little cup, filled her cup with sea water, ran up and emptied the cup into the hole she had made in the sand. Back and forth she went to the sea, filled her cup and came and poured it into the hole. Augustine drew up and said to her, “Little child, what are you doing?”
She replied, “I am trying to empty the sea into this hole.”
“How do you think,” Augustine asked her, “that you can empty this immense sea into this tiny hole and with this tiny cup?”
She answered back, “And you, how do you suppose that with your small head you can comprehend the immensity of God?” With that the child disappeared.
The doctrine of the inner relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in such a way that each of them is fully and equally God, yet there are not three Gods but one, cannot be fully comprehended by the human mind. It is a mystery.
If we expected today’s readings to give us a clear and elaborate presentation of the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, we have found out that they simply do not. The doctrine of three persons in one God, equal in divinity yet distinct in personality, is not explicitly spelt out in the Bible. In fact the very word “Trinity” is not found in the Bible. Early Christians arrived at the doctrine when they applied their God-given reason to the revelation which they had received in faith. Jesus spoke about the Father who sent him (the Son) and about the Holy Spirit whom he was going to send. He said that the Father had given him (the Son) all that he has and that he in turn has given to the Holy Spirit all that he has received from the Father. In this we see the unity of purpose among the three persons of the Trinity.
In the story of salvation we usually attribute creation to the Father, redemption to the Son and sanctification to the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, though they are distinct as persons, neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit ever exists or acts in isolation from the other two persons of the Godhead.
Like Augustine we may not be able to understand the how of the Trinity but I think it is very important to understand the why. Why did God reveal to us this mystery regarding the very nature of the Supreme Being? The importance of this doctrine lies in this: we are made in the image of God, therefore, the more we understand God the more we understand ourselves. Experts in religion tell us that people always try to be like the god they worship. People who worship a warrior god tend to be warmongering, people who worship a god of pleasure tend to be pleasure-seeking, people who worship a god of wrath tend to be vengeful, and people who worship a god of love tend to be loving. Like a god, so the worshippers. Therefore, the more important question for us to ask today is: What does the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity tell us about the kind of God we worship and what does this say about the kind of people we should be? On this, I have two points to share with you.
(1) God does not exist in solitary individualism but in a community of love and sharing. God is not a loner. This means that a Christian in search of Godliness (Matthew 5:48) must shun every tendency to isolationism. The ideal Christian spirituality is not that of flight from the world like that of certain Buddhist monastic traditions where the quest for holiness means permanent withdrawal to the Himalayas away from contact and involvement with people and society.
(2) True love requires three partners. You remember the old saying “Two is company, three is a crowd.” The Trinity shows us that three is community, three is love at its best; three is not a crowd. Taking an example from the human condition we see that when a man A is in love with a woman B they seal the loving by producing a baby C. Father, mother and child -- love when it perfected becomes a trinity.
We are made in God’s image and likeness. Just as God is God only in a Trinitarian relationship, so we can be fully human only in a relationship of three partners. The self needs to be in a horizontal relationship with others and a vertical relationship with God. In that way our life becomes Trinitarian like that of God. Then we discover that the so-called “I-and-I” principle of unbridled individualism which is acceptable in modern society leaves much to be desired. The doctrine of the Blessed Trinity challenges us to adopt rather an I-and-God-and-neighbour principle. I am a Christian insofar as I live in a relationship of love with God and other people. May the grace of the Holy Trinity help us to banish all traces of self-centeredness in our lives and to live in love of God and of neighbour.

The Circle with Love at the Center

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the way we Christians systematically account for the deepest meaning of human existence and systematically express our experience of the ultimate source of that meaning, which is the Triune God, disclosed through Jesus Christ and abidingly active as the instrument of reconciliation and unification in the Holy Spirit.

The doctrine invokes deep thoughts, which when followed logically; it is difficult or impossible to be totally comprehended. Faith is all we need to flow with it. Our approach to the doctrine of the Triune God should be more of description and application rather than definition and explanation.

There have been a lot of efforts in trying to explain the meaning of One God in three persons. Jesus Christ used the term “Father” in talking about the Creator God and “Son” in referring to himself who is the Redeemer God. In John 5:26, Jesus states "As the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself." The Holy Spirit is always considered neutral. If we have to go by this interpretation, women will be wondering if they have a chance in this triune God, since none of these persons of the Blessed Trinity is said to be a woman; however, this is not about gender. Also how would children whose parents were divorced even before they could open their eyes to see who is around them and how their environment looked like? How can teenagers and young adults who never had any good experience with the men who should be their fathers, understand this explanation of the Trinity? This is where the description and application of the mystery of the Trinity comes. So let us do more of describing the Trinity God as relationship in the form of a Circle with Love at the Center. No matter from which point we approach the center, we still have the same distance to cover. The beginning and the end of the circle is not known. If any of the ‘persons’ detaches himself from the circle, everything will fall apart since the center cannot hold with a broken circle.

The solemnity we celebrate today will be more relevant to us if we apply the description of the Trinity as relationship in form of a Circle with Love at the Center to our entire existence. After thirty years of dating and twenty four of marriage, a couple wanted divorce because they felt that they were incompatible. They had three children out of their presumed incompatibility. The term of the divorce is that they will share everything the have equally. Inventory of everything they acquired during the years they were officially married was made and everything divided, with their families, friends and secret contenders present. After the division of their properties and everyone was about to depart, the spiritual Director who tried to no avail to dissuade them from taken that rout requested to make a point of order, and he was given a chance. He reminded the couple that there were still very important things they have not shared. Everyone wanted to know what those were; they priest called the three children (fruits of their “incompatible” love) to stand at the center of the circle, and they did. He asked each of the couple to take whatever he/she contributed in producing those children, and their divorce will be meaningful, total and recognized. This was amazing thought that kept everyone in a box. They could not do it; so they began to understand that “incompatibility” is not the issue but that at a stage in their relationship, they broke the circle that formed the love at the center.

Today as we celebrate this solemnity, let us think of the many children, teenagers and young adults who are suffering different kinds of mental, psychological and even physical torture and illnesses because the family that is supposed to be a relationship in form of a circle with love at the center was torn apart. What will happen if God divorces the world he created in love? Of course, we human beings that are the fruits of the love that God has for his creation will suffer like products of divorced marriages and dysfunctional families. But God will never abandon us or divorce his creation.

The same reasons why families and marriages break are also the causes of war, terror and all kinds of violence in our world. What are these reasons? Counterfeit love (love that does not want to get committed; love that is selfish and only sensual); pride and superiority complex; non forgiving spirit and revenge, belief in temporary things and deceptive powers; three uncompromising forces operating in one person (the body does not agree with the mind, and the mind quarrels with the spirit) thereby creating frustration and violence as consequences; and greedy, etc.

The solemnity of the Holy Trinity is a challenge to fix all our broken circles of relationship so that we could find love at the center. Our thoughts should agree with our words, and the actions we perform should confirm our words. The Trinity as a mystery of relationship of love teaches us never to put ourselves at the center to be worship or feared but to form part of the circle with love at the center: and God is love.

The Honorable Bird...at Pentecost

An Archbishop somewhere recalls the time when he was discussing Christianity with a learned Japanese writer. The writer told Bloom: “I think I understand about God the Father and the Son, but I can never understand the significance of the ‘Honorable Bird’.” The Holy Spirit has traditionally eluded the attention of scholars and preachers like a bird in flight resists capture. This bird-like Spirit flies higher than any airplane; it flies across vast expanse of lands and oceans; it could go down the valleys, along creeks and above the highest mountains. As it flies, it brings blessings, healing, new life and hope wherever it passes.

There are three great Jewish festivals to which every male Jew living within 20 miles of Jerusalem was legally bound to come, they are: the Passover, Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles. Pentecost means “The fiftieth”, and another name for it was “The Feast of Weeks.” It was so called because it fell on the fiftieth day, a week of weeks, after the Passover. The Passover fell in the middle of April; therefore Pentecost fell at the beginning of June. By that time, travelling conditions were at their best: at least as many came to the Feast of Pentecost as came to the Passover. That explains the roll of countries mentioned in this chapter; never was there a more international crowd in Jerusalem than at the time of Pentecost.

The time of Pentecost also happens at the time of harvest of grains, therefore its Old Testament name is Feast of the Harvest (Ex 23, 16); it is also called the “Day of the First Fruits” (Num 28, 26). So at the gathering of nations to celebrate the fruits of the earth, God poured out the fruits of heaven, the gifts of the Holy Spirit on his people. Is this not sending special message to us? Is God not saying to us, “As you enjoy the perishable fruits, open your hearts to fruits of imperishable values because the world needs them more than petroleum, gold, diamond, platinum, copper, silver and the rest of them?

Our language tells us that it is difficult to contain or even describe ‘Spirit’. However, spirit-talk suggests life, movement and energy. We talk of creative energy in inspiration; an energy which has the power to break though barriers, break through records, and go beyond the expected and the mediocre; the energy that breaks through the locked doors of convention and not be bound by any kind of restrictions.

This energy is manifested in creation, when it brought life out of nothing but by the Word of God. This Word of God is Jesus, the Christ, and the action of the Word is the Holy Spirit. He is that Breath of Life that came from God and made humans living beings (Gn 1, 1ff; 2, 18 – 26).

The same energy, the Spirit, also showed his presence and power in the form of Pillar of Fire and Cloud to protect and guide the pilgrim people of God as the march to freedom across the desert (Ex 14).

This energy is the Consuming Fire that ate up the sacrifice of Elijah, the prophet when he challenged the false prophets – those who hide under the cover of religion and spirituality to do evil and oppress others (Ikgs 17 and 18). The same Spirit lived in the prophets who spoke courageously against the social, moral and religious evils of their time. Mary, the virgin, was overshadowed by the power of God, the Holy Spirit, at the conception of Jesus (Lk 1, 18 ff). This “Honorable Bird” appeared again at the baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan (Mt 3).

Now Fifty days after the death and resurrection of Jesus, a group of dispirited followers of Jesus had gathered and locked themselves in the upper room. There was more perspiration than inspiration in the room; there was fear and suspicion, and they listened attentively to every footstep on the stair-case; waiting for the executioners to knock at the door. They must have been praying that no one would discover their hiding place.

In contrast to their expectation, there came the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit as one who is cannot restricted by the boundaries and barriers erected by people. He is not halted by locked doors or locked hearts; he doesn't exclude himself from the restrictive areas that people settle in. When the Spirit comes, it will not be like Spring breeze that whispers unnoticed through a room; it is more like a hurricane that lays flat all the precious protection against its force. The Spirit takes this group of dispirited folks and fries them with new energy; enthusiasm and a new authority. The presence of the Holy Spirit makes the disciples open their lives to others. The Holy Spirit brings the following gifts: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and the fear of God.

One interesting thing about the Pentecost is that all those who receive the different gifts of the Holy Spirit spoke the same message that was understood by everyone who gathered in Jerusalem from various cultures and nations of the world. The message is LOVE. It has the same sound, texture, effect and power in every person, culture, race and country. Paul in the second reading of today reminds the divided community of Christians in Corinth that their diverse gifts are for the good of the community. When love becomes the language we all speak, the powerful breathe of God will be felt by everyone at every time and place.