March
22, 2016
Solemnity
of the Most Holy Trinity
Proverbs
8:22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15
Today is Holy
Trinity Sunday. I remember this famous story about the Trinity and St Augustine.
One day St Augustine walked along the sea shore and began reflecting on the
mystery of the Trinity. He saw a little boy scooping water from the sea to fill
up the small hole he made in the sand. Augustine asked the boy what he was
doing. The boy replied, “I am transferring the ocean into this small hole.” Augustine
laughed aloud, and said, “Transferring the vast sea into such a hole, that’s
impossible!” And the boy, who was actually an angel, said to Augustine, “And
that’s what you are doing. In trying to unravel the mystery of the Holy
Trinity, you’re like transferring the ocean into a hole.”
My brothers and
sisters, this story tells us that God’s mystery is beyond human calculations and logic. No
person can fully understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity. But why do we
believe in the mystery of the Trinity? In fact, every time we make the sign of
the cross, we profess our faith in the Trinity as we say, “In name of the Father,
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. Every
time a priest gives a blessing, we also profess our faith in the Trinity as the
priest says: “May our Almighty God bless you in name of the Father, and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit”. We were also baptized in name of the Father, and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit. This is how Trinitarian our faith is. But why did
God reveal himself to us as a Trinity? What does it mean to have a Trinitarian
God? What are its implications in our life as Catholics?
Let
us reflect on these in three points:
OUR
TRINITRIAN GOD IS A GOD OF RELATIONSHIP. The church teaching
on the Trinity tells us that we have ONE GOD IN THREE DIVINE PERSONS: Father, Son
and Holy Spirit. They are not impersonal entities. We call them “persons” because
they live in a loving relationship with one another. God the Father loves His
Son very much. God the Son, who is Jesus, also loves the Father and He showed
this by being obedient to the will of the Father. The bond of love that unites
the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. Our God is a God of relationship. Perhaps one reason why some find it difficult
to have this personal relationship with God is that they don’t look at God as a
person. They look at God merely as an idea, an
imagination or a creation of the mind. But on the contrary, the mystery of the Holy
Trinity tells us that God is a community of persons. We are capable of entering
into a relationship with our Trinitarian God because our God is a God of
relationship. But how can we describe the relationship between the three divine
persons?
IT
IS A RELATIONSHIP OF LOVE - TOTAL GIVING OF ONE SELF. Perhaps one reason why some human
relationships fail is because of selfishness. If we look at the Trinity, one
secret that keeps strong their relationship is the absence of selfishness. They
do not compete with each other. Hindi sila nagpapalakasan o nagpapagalingan.
That is why we don’t end up having three
gods but only one God in three divine persons. In fact the gospel tells us: the
Father gives everything to the Son, then the Son shares everything with us
through the Holy Spirit. This is total giving of one self. Walang ipinagdadamot. Walang itinitira para sa sarili – everything
is given and shared to the other. This is indeed a challenge – to imitate the
love of our Trinitarian God in our own relationship with our loved ones. But
are we really capable of imitating this kind of relationship?
YES,
WE ARE. BECAUSE WE ARE MADE IN THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF OUR GOD. Since
we were created in the image and likeness of our
Trinitarian God, then it means that we have the capacity to imitate
the same love that binds together the Trinity: a love that is not selfish, a
love that does not compete for greatness but a love that totally gives and
shares oneself to the other.
On this feast of
the Holy Trinity, let us remember that our God is a God of relationship characterized
by the total giving of oneself. Let us turn to our Trinitarian God to give us
the grace of strong and loving relationship in our families and communities.
