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Fr. Joseph’s Weekly Missive for the Most Holy Trinity Sunday Year A
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June 1, 2023
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” (2 Corinthians 13:13)
The major theme for this Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity focuses on the mystery of the triune God, who is one God in three distinct “persons.” This mystery is one of the most difficult doctrines to explain, understandable only with our hearts, but not with our heads. We believe in this divine mystery because Jesus Christ taught it, the Evangelists recorded it, the Church’s Fathers tried to explain it, and the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople defined it as a dogma of the Christian Faith.
St. Patrick, the missionary patron saint of Ireland, uses a shamrock to explain it. St. Cyril, the teacher of the Slavs, uses the sun as an example to explain it. He says, "God the Father is that blazing sun. God the Son is its light, and God the Holy Spirit is its heat — but there is only one sun, one God. St. John Maria Vianney uses lighted candles and roses on the altar and water in the cruets to explain it. He said: “The flame has color, warmth, and shape. But these are expressions of one flame. Similarly, the rose has color, fragrance, and shape. But these are expressions of one rose. Water, steam, and ice are three distinct expressions of one reality. In the same way God reveals Himself to us as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” St. Augustine uses love to explain this mystery. According to him, God the Father is the “lover,” God the Son is the “beloved one” and God the Holy Spirit is the “personification of the very act of loving.” This means that we can understand something of the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity more readily with our heart than with our feeble mind.
God does not want us holding a relationship of Transaction but Transformation. Therefore, Dynamic Christian disciples are those who (1) BELIEVE, (2) GROW, (3) SERVE, (4) LOVE and (5) LEAD others to Jesus. Today’s topic invites us to accept the divine mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, to imitate the communal nature of our triune God, to follow Jesus Christ more closely, to repent our sins, to exercise our Christian stewardship, to use our time, treasure, and talents to love God above all and to love our neighbors as ourselves, participating in the works of mercy, to accomplish God’s will in our lives to glorify God.
How can we help each other recognize the Holy Trinity’s indwelling within us and practice the Trinitarian and communal relationship of love and unity under the mystery of the triune God?
Wishing everyone a blessed week in the Lord.
