Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity Year B
Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40
Psalm 33:4-5, 6, 9, 18-19, 20, 22
Romans 8:14-17
Matthew 28:16-20
Relationship with the Living God is not something to be taken for granted. Moses addresses the people of Israel: “Ask now of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created man upon the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of?” In his final discourses before Israel enters the Promised Land, he makes clear that this is a full relationship that requires understanding the very nature of God and a willingness to take it seriously.
Moses charges Israel: “You must now know, and fix in your heart, that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other. You must keep his statutes and commandments that I enjoin on you today, that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may have long life on the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you forever.” Accepting a relationship with God means fulfilling our own side of the covenant. We must respond from the heart and with full exercise of our wills, choosing Him as the one God.
The Solemnity of the Holy Trinity opens the Sundays of Ordinary Time. What has been revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ is that the one God is a relation of persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are given a precious glimpse into the heart of reality.
Paul emphasizes the way the Spirit has drawn us into the life of God: “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ... (Y)ou received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” As members of the family of Christ, made so by adoption through the Spirit, we can speak to the Father as Jesus did, as the Spirit cries out “Abba!” in us. The unity of the one God is not harmed by the distinction of persons. Indeed, through the Spirit, we are joined to Christ in His very look at the Father and His cry is our cry: “Abba!”
Every effort to understand with our limited intellect the nature of the Triune God is destined to fail. In this life, we can only get a glimpse of the mystery. But we can without question enter it. Jesus explains how in the Great Commission that is given in the Gospel of Matthew: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Israel responded to Moses’ charge, committing themselves to obey the law given at Sinai. We, who by the power of the Holy Spirit are made one with Christ and the Father, now respond to the mystery of God’s unity and trinity by living divine life humanly through the sacraments and through sharing the Word of Life with the world as we baptize and teach and learn to recognize ever more powerfully the truth that He is with us.
God speaks to each one of us, whispering in our personal prayer and proclaiming clearly in our communal prayer that He is with us. Each person of the Trinity seeks a living relationship. To respond to the Father, we rely on the Spirit to give us Jesus’ cry as our own: “Abba!” To respond to the Son, we put into practice all that He has taught us, standing with Him in His brothers and sisters, especially those most in need. We respond to the Spirit by receiving the breath of life communicated to us by the Risen Lord and sharing the message of the Gospel with all the nations.
