2020/06/07 — Trinity Sunday — Year A

Trinity Sunday was June 7 this year. Before it is too far in the past, here are some thoughts about the doctrine of the Trinity and the scripture passages assigned for this year.

First Reading — Exodus 34:4b-6,  8-9
Second Reading — 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Gospel — John 3:6-8

Introduction

The most appropriate readings the Church could find to set before us on the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity deal with peace, mercy, kindness, and salvation for eternal life. Although there are other passages which speak more explicitly of the three persons of the Trinity, and we hear some of them in other years, this year’s readings seem to direct us to think about what this God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit means for our lives.

We Can’t Understand

But for starters, lets just listen to some of the ways the doctrine has been formulated through the centuries, as recounted by Wikipedia.

In Trinitarian doctrine, God exists as three persons or hypostases, but is one being, having a single divine nature.[81] The members of the Trinity are co-equal and co-eternal, one in essence, nature, power, action, and will. As stated in the Athanasian Creed, the Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, and the Holy Spirit is uncreated, and all three are eternal without beginning.[82] "The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" are not names for different parts of God, but one name for God[83] because three persons exist in God as one entity.[84] They cannot be separate from one another. Each person is understood as having the identical essence or nature, not merely similar natures.[85]
According to the Eleventh Council of Toledo (675) "For, when we say: He who is the Father is not the Son, we refer to the distinction of persons; but when we say: the Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, and the Holy Spirit that which the Father is and the Son is, this clearly refers to the nature or substance"[86]
The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) adds: "In God there is only a Trinity since each of the three persons is that reality — that is to say substance, essence or divine nature. This reality neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds; the Father begets, the Son is begotten and the holy Spirit proceeds. Thus there is a distinction of persons but a unity of nature. Although therefore the Father is one person, the Son another person and the holy Spirit another person, they are not different realities, but rather that which is the Father is the Son and the holy Spirit, altogether the same; thus according to the orthodox and catholic faith they are believed to be consubstantial."[87]

The doctrine of the Trinity is mind-boggling. But we believe it because Jesus said to baptize people in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And we realize that our minds are limited. Here as elsewhere in speaking of God, we can say things which are not false, but even when we say things that are true, they can’t fully express the truth, and often, we can’t even fully understand them.

So what can we say beyond, “We can’t understand”? We can say what John says in his first epistle: God is love. And that’s what we see in the readings of today’s Mass. We see a God who is merciful and will accompany us despite our disobedience. We see a God who comes into the world to save, not to condemn. We see a God of peace who calls us to live in peace.

Trinity Sunday — 2016/05/22

There are many references to God as Father throughout the scriptures, and in the New Testament Jesus, in calling God his father indicates that he is God's son, and he speaks of the Holy Spirit whom he and the Father will send. Last Sunday, we celebrated the descent of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul speaks of living in or according to the Spirit. In short, the New Testament is clear that there is God who is Father, that Jesus is his son, and that there is a Holy Spirit. Jesus commands us to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 28:19.

Several centuries of reflection and theologizing were needed before the 4th Century Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople were able to proclaim the doctrine of the Trinity with precision. They did it in response to a priest of Alexander, Arius, who believed that Jesus was a being inferior to God the Father, a creature. The councils declared that the scripture-witnessed faith of the Church is that Jesus is of the same nature and substance as the Father. In other words, he is fully God. The Holy Spirit is likewise fully God. Over the next thousand years, the liturgical celebration of this belief gradually developed, from the writing of the Roman Missal's preface of the Holy Trinity in the 4th Century, through the composition of a Mass, to the insertion of the Feast into the Church's calendar in 1334. Now, each of the three years of the lectionary cycle has its own assigned readings.


Although the Old Testament gives no explicit teaching that God is a trinity of persons, there are adumbrations, as in today's first reading — Proverbs 8:22-31. There we hear of Wisdom as a person who preexisted the creation of the world, who was present at the creation, who was God's craftsman in creation. God delights in the presence of Wisdom. The beginning of the Gospel of John say, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," and goes on to say that "through him all things were made." John 1:1, 3. So we can identify the Wisdom in this reading with the Word of John's gospel. When today's passage speaks of Wisdom as "poured forth," we can see this as an expression given a systematic precision in the phrases of the creeds, "his only-begotten son," and "born of the Father before all ages, … begotten, not made." And in the conclusion, "playing before God on the surface of the earth; and I found delight in the human race," we can be drawn to consider the ultimate expression of this in the incarnation of the Word of God: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." John 1:14.


The responsorial psalm — Ps. 8:4-9 with refrain from verse 2a — takes up the theme of creation from the first reading and then goes to the theme of the human race from the end of the reading. While humanity may seem small in the vast scale of the universe, God cares for us, and indeed exalts us over the rest of the world. Reading more carefully, we notice the phrase, "the son of man." while this may have been a generic term in the mind of the psalmist, we are led to think of the Son of Man, the incarnate Word of God, the Wisdom of God, who has been exalted at the right hand of the Father as Lord of creation.


The second reading — Romans 5:1-5 — gives us one of the instances in which Paul makes reference to God (the Father) Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Paul doesn't present the precise theology of Nicaea and Constantinople — he's not writing systematic theology, he's dictating letters — but it is through Jesus that we gain access to God by faith and through the Holy Spirit that the love of God is poured into our hearts. It is the action of these three persons that we have the strength to endure the hardships of life.


The gospel — John 16:12-15 — shows us Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in a dynamic relationship of cooperation. The Spirit is to guide the disciples to the truth they couldn't bear at the moment Jesus was speaking to them. But he won't be speaking a truth that is his own. He will get it from Jesus, who in turn has it from the Father. The three divine persons work with each other and share everything with each other.


The two councils whose work gave us the Nicene Creed responded to error by defining the truth about the Trinity with precision. But what they said does not fully present the reality of God. It is impossible for finite human minds to fully grasp and express the reality of the infinite God. Beyond that, we may ask what the doctrine of the Trinity means for us. Why is it important. For one thing, it tells us that God is not some impersonal force of the universe. God is relationship within himself, among the three persons not just with us. God is love within himself, among the three persons, not just toward us. God is, in his infinity, what we are to be — to the extent we can be as limited creatures. Created in his likeness, we are created for relationship, we are created for love. We are are not to be isolated, unfeeling, self-absorbed, self-sufficient. We should be in relationships of love with others who share our human nature as the persons of the Trinity are in relationship with one another in their divine nature.

2015/05/31 — Trinity Sunday

The readings assigned to Trinity Sunday this year illuminate different aspects of the doctrine.


The gospel —Matthew 28:16-20 (often referred to as the Great Commission) — contains a direct mention of the three persons of the Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all involved in Baptism, and thus in the life of the Church. Although the doctrine was clarified over the years and the word Trinity was eventually developed to denote it, it was present from the beginning.


The second reading is Romans 8:14-17. It also mentions Spirit, Father, and Christ (in that order). As with last Sunday's second reading, it speaks of being led by the Spirit. It also speaks of our being children of God by adoption. We understand baptism (which is commanded in today's gospel) as being the occasion on which this adoption occurs. When Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan, a voice from heaven proclaimed him God's Son, and the Holy Spirit was seen descending on him in the form of a dove. This tells us what happens in our Baptism: the Father declares us his (adoptive) sons and daughters, and the Holy Spirit anoints us for our mission as Christians.


The reading from Deuteronomy (Dt 4:32-34, 39-40) presents two points. First is the uniqueness of what God did for the Israelites in the Exodus. Second is the call to keep the commandments of the Lord. Just as the Israelites would not have known the Lord or the Law without the Lord's intervention, so we would not know of the Trinity without God's revelation of the mystery. And we too have a call to follow God's law: "led by the Spirit" (Romans) "to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew).


Genesis teaches us that God made us in his image and likeness. We bear the likeness of the Trinity. Pope John Paul II has developed this point in his Theology of the Body. As the Divine Persons are in a loving, self-giving relationship of communion with each other, so we are called to relationship, to self-giving communion. And as the divine communion of persons creates in love, our communions should also be loving and lovingly creative. The highest gift is that of life. Therefore the highest form of human communion, the fullest bodily image of God, is the union of husband and wife in the loving embrace which is for the procreation of new life. But love and communion are not just lived within marriage. All of us are called to love one another as the Lord loves us and to live in communion as members of one family, God's children, led by the Spirit, images of God for the world.

End of Holiday Season; Canada Day; Our Crosses

End of Holiday Season.  This year, the Church calendar had seven major feast days ("solemnities") in the period from May 17 through June 29. All but the last two are based on the date of Easter, and can shift about 2 1/2 weeks earlier or later than they were this year. This year, they were about in the middle of their possible range. So we celebrated —
May 17 — Ascension
May 27  — Pentecost
June 3 — Trinity
June 10 — Corpus Christi  (in many countries its original Thursday date, June 7 this year, is retained)
June 15 — Sacred Heart of Jesus
June 24 — St. John the Baptist
June 29 — Sts. Peter & Paul

I had a whole lot of celebrating to do (even aside from the point that the entire Easter season — April 8 to May 27 this year — is one big celebration, but you can't really party every day). Now there is no comparable concentration of big days until November-January, when from November 25 through January 6 we'll celebrate Christ the King, Immaculate Conception, Christmas, Mary Mother of God, and Epiphany.

Canada Day.  On July 1, 1867, the British North America Act came into effect, making Canada independent as a Dominion in the British Empire. Happy Canada Day to all!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsHSVE5d3sc&feature=related

Our Crosses.  I happen to be reading a book written several years ago by Cardinal Dolan when he was Archbishop of Milwaukee, To Whom Shall We Go? It is a series of reflections on St. Peter's words and actions as told in the New Testament, and I'm at the part where he writes about Peter trying to dissuade Jesus from being crucified. Cardinal Dolan says that we also have to resist the temptation to avoid the crosses in our own lives: the struggles and hardships and difficulties which we must endure if we are to live as we ought.

Trinity Sunday in Light of the Theology of the Body

I posted along these lines a couple of years ago, but maybe I can amplify a bit. And If you don't remember what I wrote in 2010, you shouldn't be bored now.

A classic statement of the doctrine of the Trinity is found in what is called the Athanasian Creed (which was probably written in southern France several hundred years after the time of St. Athanasius). In part it says,

"Now the catholic faith is that we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is One, the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal," and later, "The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor created but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son, not made nor created nor begotten but proceeding. … And in this Trinity there is nothing before or after, nothing greater or less, but the whole three Persons are coeternal together and coequal."

But this has often seemed abstract. We believe it because it is defined dogma, because Jesus speaks of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's fine as far as it goes, but it can seem to be a truth without consequences. Thanks to Pope John Paul II, it no longer seems so. Possibly others had this insight before him, but it is through the explanation of his Theology of the Body that I have learned this.

In 1976, as Archbishop of Cracow, he wrote a work called "Sources of Renewal," in which he says the the Trinity is the central element of the faith, to which all other truths are related: it means that God is a communion of persons, and this shows us the nature of our communion with God and with one another. The Book of Genesis tells us that God created humanity in the image and likeness of God. Says John Paul, "Man resembles God not only because of the spiritual nature of his immortal soul but also by reason of his social nature, if by this we understand the fact that he 'cannot fully realize himself except in an act of pure self-giving.'"

The thing is that God is not just a solitary being but a communion of persons who love one another totally, who give themselves totally to each other, and whose love is creative. That is why the greatest commandments are to love God totally, that is with our whole heart, with our whole soul, with our whole mind, and with our whole strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself. These are not merely arbitrary rules. They are what it means to be the image and likeness of a God who is a Trinity of loving persons.

Families and friendships provide occasions for us to love and to give ourselves to others — to be in a communion of persons. We can even do so in dealings with co-workers and and acquaintances and even in chance encounters. Hermits, too, can be in a communion of persons when they give their lives in prayer for their fellow human beings — they are in communion with God and men. But it is in the reciprocal relationships that the image of God as Trinity, as communion of persons, is most clearly visible. And certainly the highest and deepest form of such a communion is in marriage.

According to Genesis, it is as male and female that God creates humanity as a communion of persons. In his Theology of the Body, Pope John Paul says, "Since they are formed in the image of God also inasmuch as they form an authentic communion of persons, the first man and the first woman [are] the beginning and model of that communion for all men and women who in any period unite with each other so intimately that they are 'one flesh.'" He adds that "[p]rocreation is rooted in creation, and every time it reproduces in some way its mystery." As Christopher West explains John Paul's teaching, "[S]exual union is only what it is meant to be as an authentic communion of persons when it is performed in union with God as an expression of his own Trinitarian life — the life of the Holy Spirit. There is no two-tiered distinction between nature and grace here. It is of sexual union's very 'nature' to be full of grace — to be in some sense a sacramental expression of the mystery and inner life of the Trinity." In other words it is a physical, bodily, image of the Trinity.

Furthermore, we can also be in a communion of persons with God.

Today's feast, then, doesn't proclaim some abstract doctrine, important perhaps to theologians, but irrelevant to our daily lives. In a very real way, it tells us something of what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God — what it means to be fully human. And in that way it invites us to reflect on our own lives as communion(s) of persons (and perhaps on how we can make them better in this respect).

Trinity Sunday — May 30, 2010

"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 I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you until the end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20. (Words of Jesus, concluding the Gospel.)

The first Sunday after Pentecost  is celebrated as Trinity Sunday in many Christian denominations. Although the word "Trinity" does not appear in the New Testament, the belief in a distinct Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is clearly attested to in the above passage. The phrase which I have highlighted indicates an equality among the three. But the intended audience would also have known and accepted the Old Testament word that, "The Lord our God, the Lord is one." Deuteronomy 6:4. It took several centuries for the Christian Church to clarify the questions which arise from the juxtaposition of these texts. And the answers by no means exhaust the reality. God is greater that our understanding, and the fact that the word or wisdom of God, and the love of God are somehow persons distinct from, equal to, and united with the Creator in a single deity is something we would never guess on our own without scripture to indicate it.

But for us, apart from mind-boggling speculation, there is the point that God is in relationship, indeed, God is relationship, or, as John says, "God is love," — not some remote, uncaring, and solitary being. And we, as God's image, are to be in loving relationship with God and one another. And just as God's wisdom and love bring forth creation, so our love should be creative.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is quoted as saying that the Father and he will come to us and make their dwelling with us, and they they will send the Holy Spirit to lead us into the truth and be our advocate with God. In other words, God invites us into relationship not only with one another but with him, to share his life, which means to share his eternal joy.

So the doctrine of the Trinity is not merely a theological abstraction which, like all talk about God, can only partially express the full reality. It is also a practical reminder of how we are to live as images of God, and a promise of fullness of life with and in God.

Note: For further thoughts about what the Trinity means theologically and personally, you might check out this post, a homily for Trinity Sunday, by Fr. Tom Washburn, on A Friar's Blog.)