Sunday Reflection.

Today we celebrate the solemnity of the most Holy Trinity. The mystery of the One God in three divine persons.
We say, it is a mystery for we can never completely comprehend this magnitude of God’s infinite being to its fullness only by using our finite human capacity.
For the simple fact that how can one God manifests himself in three persons? God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
This is why many theologians, jokingly say that this Sunday is sort of a heresy Sunday for many preachers would come up with different types of interpretations, using human languages and analogies to explain this great mystery; the mystery of who God really is.
However, it is very clear that the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that the mystery of the Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself.
Therefore, it is the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlighten them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths and faith.
See, that the Catechism defines the mystery of the Trinity as the mystery of God in himself. That from the very beginning, God is a Trinity. They have the same substance; consubstantial with the Father, as we profess in the Creed.
And you can see this in the language of the Old Testament and the New Testament, particularly today as the book of Exodus says, having come down in a cloud, the Lord stood with Moses there and proclaimed his name, the Lord.
Now, most of the time, when we hear the word, “the Lord”, we tend to think that it refers to God, the Father. However, remember that in the New Testament, Jesus is also called the Lord. He is the Lord and God, Thomas exclaims. And the Holy Spirit has always been described as the cloud. This is the image of the third person of the Trinity. And to top this all of, remember the story of the transfiguration. There is God the Father speaking. There is Jesus and there is also the Cloud covered the whole mountain, where the disciples are with Jesus.
And so, from this image, we can already see, that God from the very beginning is a Trinity, though, it has not been fully manifested yet. It is not fully clear yet, until the day of the Christ and the day of Pentecost.
Now, if God from the very beginning is a Trinity, then it really shows us that God in himself is a community. There is a bond, a relationship among the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
There is a communion between the Father and the Son. And that communion is called a communion of love, bounded by the Holy Spirit.
This is the image of the Trinity who is the mystery of God in himself. This is the image of eternity. The image of heaven. The image of a communion of love in the community of the Holy Triune God.
And certainly, this is what God wants to share with the whole creation. For, God creates us for himself. He makes the whole world as his own. And he wants us after all, to be united forever with him in the community of the Holy Trinity.
God mysteriously and wonderfully does this, by pouring out his love upon us, by showing and revealing his mercy upon the whole world through Christ Jesus, as St. John says; God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
From the fountain of his boundless love, God pours out his mercy to the whole world, through Christ Jesus that through him and with him, the whole creation, this sinful world, aided by the Holy Spirit may find a way to God himself.
This is the mystery, we celebrate today; the central mystery of our Christian faith and life.
Now if this is the mystery of the communion of love which we celebrate today, then the fundamental question is what is its significance for us, who celebrate it?
I guess, in a nutshell, if peace and love is the highest point of our dream, if it is what we want to create in our communities and homes, our neighborhoods and places of work, our society, then, every effort, no matter how small it is, significant and insignificant, must be inspired and driven by the spirit of justice and equality, love and mercy, compassion and forgiveness, tolerance, respect, and solidarity with the poor, the forgotten and marginalized.
And we do all of these, from our own homes every single day, for what we learn, what we talk about around our kitchen tables, what we see in our society today, what we experience and what we do within our own families, it makes a huge difference in our public life.

Oleh : Pastor Dominic Baok, SVD

Immaculate Conception Parish, Montgomery, West Virginia. USA.