The Foundation of Truth

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

If someone tells you that they have a simple way to explain the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity, don’t believe him for a second. It’s a scam! If it was so simple, our Lord Himself would have taken every effort to explain the concept exhaustively and leave nothing to chance or speculation. If it was so easy, then the volumes of tomes on the subject would have been unnecessary. Our Lord did not dismiss the complexity of the topic. In fact, He acknowledged at the beginning of today’s passage that He “still (has) many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now.” Our experience of God can resonate with this truth bomb. In all humility, how could the finite claim to fully comprehend the infinite? At the popular level, even among Christians, the Trinity is generally thought of as a hopelessly obscure piece of doctrine at best and a self-contradiction at worst.

Of course, one should not stop with the first line of our Lord’s words in today’s gospel passage. To do so would be to condemn ourselves to perpetual intellectual darkness when it comes to contemplating the mysteries of God, an impenetrable brick wall that prevents us from seeing beyond the “cloud of unknowing.” We will never be able to “know” God, and progress in our relationship with Him because to love Him and serve Him and be with Him in Paradise forever is premised on our knowledge of what He has revealed to us in the first place. We should, therefore, continue to the next line, a line which changes everything with the coming of the Holy Spirit: “But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come.” It is interesting to note that the Spirit’s role in the complete revelation of God, the Most Holy Trinity, is reflected in our liturgical calendar. The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity falls no earlier than the Sunday following Pentecost Sunday.

What is this “complete truth” which our Lord is referring to? For one, it is objective and eternal. In other words, truth is not a matter of consensus. We don’t fashion truth to suit our opinions or desires. It is common today to speak of “your truth” and “my truth,” and that is instead of looking at objective facts, we often hear people speaking of their “lived experiences,” suggesting that every person’s truth is unique and irreplaceable and therefore, infallible and unchallengeable. The complete Truth of the Lord, however, cannot be something malleable, easily moulded according to our personal agenda, our likes and dislikes. Rather, it is we who must conform to the objective Truths revealed to us by God; and if we are humble and strive to be faithful, then the Holy Spirit will gently lead us and transform us with that Truth, into God’s own likeness.

But the most complete Truth is not like any other objective truth which we can speak of. The self-revelation of God is in fact that “complete truth,” for above the Truth of God, there can never be any other truth, and all truth found in the created world is only a shadow and a reflexion of His Truth. The inner Truth of God is this: that the most original and unconditional love of the Father is matched and answered by the equally absolute reciprocal love of the Son. We can understand and participate inwardly in this mystery of love, if the Spirit, who is both the mutuality and fruit of this eternal love, is made to penetrate us. The Spirit binds us to divine love itself. Indeed, this is what St Paul proclaims to the Romans in the second reading, that “the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us.”

Far from being obscure, the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity is the breath-taking Truth that makes sense of all other truths, the Luminous Mystery that illuminates all other mysteries, the dazzling sun that allows us to see all things except itself (and this is not because of darkness but its excess of light). All of human thought and experience point in one way or another to the summit of knowing and loving that we call the Trinity. It is the revelation that makes sense of everything in our experience, everything.

It is an undeniable reality that we who believe in the primacy of the Truth revealed to us by God, are now engaged in a direct confrontation with the greater culture which denies the existence of objective truth, what more the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity that finds no equivalent correspondence in this life. Perhaps, the world continues to reject the revelation of the Trinity, precisely because we have been bad witnesses - our lack of love or care for others, our penchant to be selfish and individualistic, our tendency to pander to the maddening crowd, rather than stand up to defend the Truth. How wonderful it would be if we could just reflect the life of the Most Holy Trinity in our own lives? That would be our most convincing and effective way of evangelising - not just with eloquently profound theological explanations (which are undeniably necessary) but, simply through the way we live our lives.

And so, on this day we affirm once again the truth of the One True God in three persons, co-equal in dignity and substance, we recognise that it is less important to focus on the math of the Trinity and more important to focus on the why. Why would God go to all the trouble of creating the world, creating us, and then sending His Son to save us and His Holy Spirit to guide, inspire and sanctify the Church? We arrive at the same answer as the early disciples. God is love. God is not revealed to “be” love in any other religion in the world other than Christianity because in order for there to be love, there must be a beloved. It is impossible to love in the vacuum and to claim to love “no one.” We need an “Other” to love. From all eternity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have poured themselves out into each other in an infinite act of love, which we, as Christians, are called to experience through faith and the sacraments by which we are lifted up into that very love of God itself (Romans 5:1-5). “God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: ‘Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened His hand’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 293).

Yes, “the key of Love has opened His hand.” It is the love of God - the love of God the Father, the love of God the Son, the love of God the Holy Spirit - that binds us, heals us, and makes us children of God. It is this love which compels us to know Him, not just partially but fully, in order that we may love Him fully, and not just partially, and then serve Him wholeheartedly so that we may share in the eternal life which He has promised us from the very beginning. That is the complete Truth, and nothing less than the complete Truth. That is the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. May His Holy Name be praised!

In the One we are one

Seventh Sunday of Easter Year C

Not even an hour had passed after his election as the supreme Roman Pontiff, and when his name was announced from the central loggia of the Basilica of St Peter, both Catholics and non-Catholics began trawling the internet to gather as much background information as possible on this dark horse candidate which no one seems to have predicted or mooted. Despite delving into past social media postings, quotations from recent speeches and homilies, reading perhaps too much into his words and papal attire, Pope Leo XIV remains an enigma. We can only speculate as to the future of his pontificate from what he had said or done in the past, but there should be humility in admitting that the jury is still out as to how he is going to steer the Church, the barque of St Peter. I am in agreement with one commentator that we should just let “Leo be Leo” instead of trying to shape his pontificate in “our image and likeness.”

A clue that can throw light on his fundamental theological and pastoral position is his motto: “in Illo uno unum,” which translates as “in the One we are one.” The phrase is paradoxically both simple and profound. It is taken from Saint Augustine's Exposition on Psalm 127, where the great doctor of the Church explains that “although we Christians are many, in the one Christ we are one.” Being an Augustinian priest before his elevation to the episcopacy, it is natural that this self-styled “son of Augustine” should adopt his motto from the Augustinian tradition.

The Rule of St Augustine to which Augustinians live under and are guided by, is really big about discovering God in community. Augustine believed that shared love of something always generated love of one another. Shared affinity sparks synergy which leads to unity. And that’s the meaning of Pope Leo XIV's motto: “in illo Uno unum” - in the One we are one. We're made one by loving the One. Someone noted: “Fans of the same team like each other. Music lovers normally get along well. And Christians should love Christ passionately enough that it translates into loving each other.” The members of the Church are supposed to get along because of the One we love in common. We all stand and fight under one big banner that flies above us as a standard and identity marker of who we are and what we stand for.

Perhaps, this is a most necessary corrective in an age where the Catholic Church seems threatened by factionalism, where we witness members who are fiercely individualistic and tribalistic, where Catholics most often than not identify themselves with commonly used political labels, whether on the left or the right or in the middle, rather than in the foundation of our common bond as Catholics.

Just in case you think that this is exclusively an Augustinian thing, our Lord reminds us in today’s gospel that this is fundamentally a Christian thing, indeed a most Catholic thing: “May they all be one. Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.” We are one because our Lord wills it and because He and the Father (and the Holy Spirit) are one. The Church, the Christian communion, has a fundamentally Trinitarian structure and foundation. And the truth of the Most Holy Trinity, Unity in Diversity, is most evident when expressed in authentic community living.

In today’s Gospel, taken from the High Priestly prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper, our Lord prays for the whole world, asking that the love with which the Father had lavished upon Him might also be ours, and that through us the Father’s love might be evident to the world. That is what He died for. This prayer is not just empty rhetoric. The prayer puts into words the very mission of Jesus, the project of Jesus, that is to bring about the community of humanity in communion with the Most Holy Trinity. “Holy Father, I pray not only for these, but for those also who through their words will believe in me. May they all be one.” The Lord’s death on the cross, the gift of Himself to us, was the embodiment of these intercessions; and His resurrection embodied the Father’s answer to that prayer.

And so, the prayer of our great High Priest, that “all be one,” transcends time and space. This unity is not meant to be sustained by a long history of human endeavour. In fact, just like in the past, human endeavour to preserve unity had often proven inadequate and the weak members of the Body of Christ had been responsible for causing great divisions and injury to the unity intended by Christ. We are not the primary agents of the Church’s unity. No, the bonds of unity among the disciples of Christ must be built on a much stronger and studier foundation. The unity of God’s people can never be fabricated by man. It must be generated by the Spirit of God. True authentic unity in the Church is never achieved by sharing an ideology or personality. Our unity, our communion, can only be found in our love for God. In Him we are one. Christians are drawn to one another because they are drawn to a common centre, Jesus Christ Himself. For that is the source of the power of that unity. As long as we remain separated from Him or His will through wilful sin, as long as we insist on our way of doing things or our opinions are the only correct ones, we will never be able to arrive at that unity.

As we await Pentecost and the return of the Holy Spirit, let us as members of the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, call upon the Bridegroom to come, for we wish to be united with Him and through Him, with each other. At the Mass of the Initiation of his Petrine Ministry, Pope Leo XIV made an impassioned call to unity, but it is a unity not built on sharing one ideology or another, but on Christ. Let us continue to pray for him and the Church whom he leads as we heed his words: “Look to Christ! Come closer to him! Welcome His word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to His offer of love and become His one family: in the one Christ, we are one.”

Central Mystery of Faith

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity Year B

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday. On other days in our liturgical calendar, we primarily celebrate the mystery of the life of Christ, His Incarnation, His ministry, His passion, death and resurrection and the impact this has on the Church and her members, in particular Mary and the saints. But today, we celebrate the mystery of who God is — the Most Holy Trinity. It is one of only two dogmas that actually have a feast day in the liturgical calendar. The term “mystery” is appropriate for the celebration.

I hate to do it but whenever I’m asked a question of clarification about the Most Holy Trinity, transubstantiation or the Incarnation, I would start with my standard curt reply: “it’s a mystery.” Though, this may appear to be a brilliant deflection and avoidance of answering the question directly, I can presume that it must sound awfully frustrating and condescending to the enquirer. But it is not my intention to deflect or avoid and I’m hardly trying to be condescending. I would proceed to explain what a mystery means in its theological context. It’s hardly Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew or Agatha Christie stuff which I am talking about. A mystery of faith is of a different category entirely.

When the Church refers to a teaching, a dogma, as mystery, she is not referring to something which is hidden from our knowledge - it is not some esoteric secret. In fact, mysteries of faith are part of divine revelation - their secrets have been revealed to us. But when the Church describes something as mystery, she is making the point that this truth cannot be known to us independently of such revelation from God. Our natural faculties including our intellect would not be able to arrive at this conclusion without God Himself having revealed or shown it to us.

And so it is with the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity. God is so far above us that we can never fully understand Him. We mortals would be incapable of knowing that God exists as One but in three distinct persons if this has not been revealed to us through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. In fact, the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity is not just one example of a mystery among many. The Catechism of the Catholic Church declares: “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in Himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them” (CCC 234). It would be ironic if we wish to delve into the meaning of other mysteries of faith and yet deliberately choose to ignore the central mystery of our faith just because it is the most inexplicable and most likely to give us a major headache.

There could be two major mistakes we are prone to make when considering the Most Holy Trinity as a mystery, even though it is uniquely described as the “central mystery of Christian faith and life.”

The first is to treat the dogma as a fascinating but abstract concept, a cosmic Rubik’s Cube that challenges us to fit all the pieces into their place through elaborate, brain-twisting moves. What might begin as a sincere desire to understand better the mystery of One God in three persons can be a dry academic exercise. If we’re not careful, the Trinity can become a sort of theological artifact that is interesting to examine on occasion, but which doesn’t affect how we think, speak, and live.

The second mistake is to simply avoid thoughtful consideration of the nature and meaning of the Trinity. The end result of this flawed perspective is similar to the first, minus all the study: to throw up one’s hands in frustrated impatience, “Well, it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t see what it has to do with me and my life!” While many Christians might not consciously come to that conclusion, the way they think and live suggests that is, unfortunately, their attitude.

Far from being a distant concept remotely removed from our everyday lives, it is fundamental to our identity as Christians. In a sermon given in the early 1970s, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) wrote of how “the Church makes a man a Christian by pronouncing the name of the triune God.” This is what our Lord wishes to communicate in today’s passage as He commissions His disciples with this mission: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.” The baptism that takes place is to be done in the name of the Most Holy Trinity.

Although the word “mystery” implies a certain distance, it involves an intimate encounter. A relationship would remain shallow if the parties are not willing to open themselves to the other. As some people would argue, there should be no secrets between lovers. The reason why God would unlock and reveal a mystery to us is because He loves us and wishes to engage us and wants us to enter into a relationship with Him. Through this relationship we come to know Him and by knowing Him more and more, we get to deepen our relationship with Him. This knowledge, admittedly, is not exhaustive but engaging. It draws us closer to the One who can never be fully known. It is a relationship of love. Just like the more you get to know someone you love, the more the person is revealed to be a mystery.

Now that we know His motivation is love, but why would God bother to reveal Himself to us? That we might have Eternal Life. And what is eternal life? It is actually sharing in the supernatural life of the Blessed Trinity. How can we share in a life which we have no knowledge of? Impossible. That is why, the more we come to know God, the more we wish to enter into a deeper communion with Him.

Far from being abstract or of little earthly value, the Most Holy Trinity is the source of reality and the reason our earthly lives have meaning and purpose. Because God is, we have a reason to be. Because God is love, we are able to truly love. Because God is unity, we are able to be united to Him. Because God is three Persons, we are able to have communion with Him. This is the reason why this dogma is the central mystery of faith.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus once wrote, “Above all guard for me this great deposit of faith for which I live and fight, which I want to take with me as a companion, and which makes me bear all evils and despise all pleasures: I mean the profession of faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” (CCC 256). We may not completely grasp the height and the depth of this great mystery but what St Paul wrote to the Corinthians helps us to embrace this mystery and relationship: “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:12-13). May we guard our belief in the Triune God with our lives. And may we better know the Most Holy Trinity, so that “we may love Him, serve Him and be with Him in paradise forever”.

The Trinity is Love Loving

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity 

John 3:16 is undoubtedly one of the most popular and memorable verses in scripture. It is so popular that even we Catholics, who are notorious for our short-term memory when it comes to memorising bible verses, are able to recognise this verse, with some even able to spew verse and chapter at will. “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.” 

The verse has sometimes been described by evangelical Christians as “the Gospel in a nutshell” because it provides a stunningly succinct summary of the Christian faith. We Catholics and they can agree that there is perhaps no other single verse that so powerfully captures God’s heart for His creation and love for us in sending Jesus. He could have sent His Son to judge us, to punish us for our waywardness, to condemn us for our sins, but this would not be the motivation for the Son’s mission. Instead, Jesus revealed this Truth, a truth which only He alone knew to be true before this, “For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.” 

It is clear that this verse is an unending, unyielding, unchanging proclamation of the utmost form of love—a message of hope from God to us. It concretely sets apart our God from the many other gods worshipped in this world, if such gods were to even exist. Other gods demand fear from their devotees but ours invite us into a relationship unlike any other we could ever experience. It is at its core the very essence of our faith. But how could this revelation be connected to the solemnity we celebrate today? Yes, the passage speaks of the Father and the Son, but no where is the Holy Spirit mentioned in here, unlike St Paul who concludes his Second letter to the Corinthians with this Trinitarian blessing: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” 

So what does it mean for God to be love? It doesn’t necessarily mean God is simply loving. Judaism and Islam and Mormonism proclaim a God who loves. But when Christians teach that God is Himself love, they’re saying that real love itself has its origin and essence in God. And this cannot be true unless God is a Trinity. At the heart of this equation that God is Love is a summary of what the Most Holy Trinity means. God cannot be love unless there is something for Him to love. Think about it: A solitary god cannot be love. A God with no one to love means either God who is desperate or loveless. Neither qualifies as a true God of love. He would be a pitiable god but not worthy of our worship and devotion. God who is love can neither be loveless nor needy. Real love requires relationship. 

In the doctrine of the Trinity we finally see how love is part of the fabric of creation. Creation was not the condition of God’s love but the consequence of it. God did not need His creation in order to have something to love, because if that were true, He could not be complete without it. If that something whom He loves were not part of Himself, He would not be perfect. In other words, St Augustine reasoned that God must be love inside Himself. Before creation came to be, God was already in a relationship from all eternity. The Father is the One who loves, the Son is the One who is loved and who loves the Father in return, and the Holy Spirit is the love that flows between them and binds them together. 

So, the Trinity isn’t some weird religious invention Christians have stupidly clung to. It’s the answer to the deepest longing of the human heart. Now, we understand the perennial riddle of why we choose to love and seek to be loved. The Trinity answers the question. It makes us go deeper than sentimental notions and ethereal feelings and elusive emotions. It puts us on solid ground with all this love stuff we’ve been chasing forever. The convoluted, complicated, and incomprehensible doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity is swallowed up into the simplest concept of all – Love. In fact, the doctrine of the Trinity comes to life by swallowing us up into the love God has enjoyed since before time began. The Trinity is real because love is real and it is only so because the Trinity is the source and foundation of all reality. 

Therefore, to speak of love and the Most Holy Trinity would not be speaking of two different and unrelated concepts. Just as the Trinity is the most profound mystery of God, love is the most profound mystery of man, made in the image and likeness of God. The Trinity is the revelation that God is Love. The Trinity is Love Loving – dynamic, unfathomable, inexhaustible, eternally complete and creative. Yet, here is the great wonder. We only know this because the Father gives Himself to be known in His Son and the Son gathers us into this eternal self-giving through and in the Spirit. In other words, the fact that we can speak at all about God as Trinity is already a sign that we are beginning to participate in God’s Triune life: we know and experience that the Trinity is Love Loving us. 

The Trinitarian Life of God is our school of Love and we can never fully grasp and practice true love unless we are absorbed into the mystery of the Three Persons in One God. And this is what we mean when the priest chants the doxology at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer and we respond with the great Amen: “Through Him, with Him, In Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, All Glory and honour is yours Almighty Father. Forever and ever, Amen."

Coming to our senses

Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Our lengthy passage provides us with three parables of lost-and-found scenarios. All three paint an unforgettable picture of the overflowing love and forgiveness of God. It opens with the one lost sheep, for which the owner scales hills and valleys, ravines and outcrops, until he reconnects it to the other ninety-nine. The passage continues with one lost coin for which the woman of the house does a thorough cleaning to find it. And our trilogy concludes with the story of the Prodigal Son. Perhaps our familiarity with the Parable of the Prodigal Son dulls our perception of just how radical this father’s love is.

Today, I would like to pay attention to the third and longest of the three parables. Its most common name is the Prodigal Son, but I would prefer to give it a title which follows the pattern of the earlier two stories. If the first two stories speak of a lost sheep and a lost coin, what we have here is a lost son. But the younger son wasn’t the only one lost. The ending of the story shows that his elder brother, who seems to have fulfilled his filial duties to their father, is equally lost, but with a big difference. There is no turning point in the elder son’s story.

I’m going to spare you another paraphrasing of an already lengthy but vividly told story with its many twists and turns. I would just wish to turn to the turning point in the story of the younger son, the wastrel who abandoned his duties at home, cursed his father to an early death, and lived a life of hedonistic excesses and debauchery. St Luke tells us that after having experienced a radical reversal in his fortunes and at the critical point when he had lost everything - his friends, his wealth and his dignity - “he came to his senses.” This is the moment of awareness, the long-awaited regret, the needed sorrow for his mistakes. It is matched by an overwhelming realisation of what he had lost - his father’s immeasurable benevolence shown even to lowly servants. He begins the long track home.

It is this point in the third parable which makes it unique among the set of three. I don’t think that the lost sheep in the first parable nor the inanimate and non-sentient coin in the second, could ever come to their senses. Only man is capable of doing this because only man possesses the freedom of intellect and will need to repent of his ways.

But let’s not be under the impression that “coming to his senses” meant that he had fully acknowledged his culpability and was now truly repentant. His reasoning was still quite self-serving: “How many of my father’s paid servants have more food than they want, and here am I dying of hunger!” Yes, there was an acknowledgment that he had made a miscalculated move. He thought he would be better off on his own without his father but now realises that even his father’s servants have it better than him. But this was short of a contrition for his past faults. Hidden within this selfish and self-centred logic, is also the uneasy acknowledgment of his father’s generosity - that the servants under his father enjoy a lifestyle better than they could ever deserve and would ever need. But such acknowledgment was the first step to his repentance.

We are then presented with another amazing fact that the father in this story, whom every reader now understands, refers to God the Heavenly Father. “Nowhere else,” remarked the theologian Hans von Balthasar, “does Jesus portray the Father in heaven more vitally, more plainly.” This father, or God whom he represents, has never given up hope on his wayward and ungrateful son. The son may have turned his back on his father, he may have wished his father dead, he may have squandered his inheritance which the father had given him, but now returns to a father who has never given up or written off or turned his back on his son.

In Rublev’s icon of the Hospitality of Abraham, or more commonly known as the Icon of the Most Holy Trinity, the symbol in the backdrop which identifies one of the three nondescript angelic figures as a representation of God the Father (most often identified as the figure on the left), is a house with a tower and a large window. From this tower, it is said, the father of the Lost Son would keep vigil, look out throughout the day and survey the horizon so as to catch the first sign of his son’s return. As much as we are reminded to keep vigilant and stay awake for the Lord’s return, know this to be true: God never lets His guard down, God is always watching for our return.

And so, we have this poignantly beautiful description of how the reconciliation of the father and the son takes place: “While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly.” The father meets the son more than halfway, embraces him in love, even before the son was given an opportunity to utter his first words of apology. God’s “I love you” always precedes our pitiful and often half-hearted “I’m sorry.” “When you are still far away, he sees you and runs to you,” wrote St. Ambrose, “He sees in your heart. He runs, perhaps someone may hinder, and He embraces you. His foreknowledge is in the running, His mercy in the embrace and the disposition of fatherly love.” God offers life and love to every wayward soul; He runs to embrace the returning sinner.

How is the reconciliation sealed? One would imagine that the son is expected to pay back what he owed his father (with interests thrown in) or, work to pay off the debt and to prove his trustworthiness after this massive loss in confidence. But the father’s love goes beyond what we could ever imagine. Instead of demanding for recompense, the father lavishly pours out more gifts on this son: “Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we are going to have a feast, a celebration…”

What do we see in these 5 gifts? All these point to the Son. Who is this son? Definitely not the lost son who had sinned against the father and now returns in shame. Neither do these belong to the older son, who at the end of the parable has yet to “come to his senses,” which makes his younger brother better than him. You can’t earn these gifts. No, these gifts are the birthright of neither of these two sons but they belong to the One who is telling this story. It is Jesus Christ, whose garments are stripped from His body, who now confer the garment of righteousness upon those who have been baptised in His name and who now share in His death and resurrection. It is Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, who now places the ring upon the finger of His Bride, the Church, whom He has washed clean with His blood shed on the cross. It is Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life, who now invites us to walk in His shoes, His sandals. And it is Jesus Christ, the unblemished Paschal Lamb, the fatted calf, who offers His life as a sacrifice on the cross and now feeds us with His Body and Blood in the endless feast of the Eucharist.

Yes, we all need to come to our senses. We all need to recognise that life can never be good apart from God. We all need to acknowledge that God owes us nothing, whether by virtue of our birthright, as in the case of the younger son, or by earning it like the older son. God’s riches and our inheritance of Eternal Life can never be earned nor is it something we are entitled to. Because He loves us, God has lavishly poured out upon us His most precious treasure of all. As St John so beautifully puts it: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Welcome to the Lord's table

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

One of the most famous of all Russian icons by the great 15th century Russian iconographer, Andre Rublev, is a beautiful and compelling visual expression of the passage we’ve just heard in the first reading that describes Abraham’s hospitality to three travellers. Although the icon is most commonly titled by our Orthodox brethren as “the Hospitality of Abraham,” it is better known in the West as the icon of the Most Holy Trinity. How can we reconcile these two seemingly irreconcilable epithets? The first title seems to focus on the action of Abraham as the main actor, whereas the second focuses on the Three persons of the Most Holy Trinity. The most obvious connexion between these two realities is that the number of travellers whom Abraham welcomes, corresponds to the number of persons which make up the Divine Trinity. But is that all?

Very early on, Christian exegetes noted that even though there were three travellers who showed up at Abraham’s tent, when he prostrated before them, he addressed them in the singular as Adonai, “Lord,” a title which is used to address God in a most reverential way to avoid naming Him. Some commentators interpreted Abraham’s greeting to mean that one of the visitors was God, and that He was accompanied by two angels. However, the interpretation that became classic was that Abraham’s three visitors were the three persons of the Most Holy Trinity, whom he believed in as the One true God. There is a concise Latin dictum which captures this truth: “Tres vidit, unum adoravit” — He saw three, he adored one.

We can now see how the passage is not just a story of Abraham’s hospitality offered to his visitors, but more importantly, it is the hospitality offered by the three visitors, presumably the Most Holy Trinity, to Abraham. Yes, the theme of hospitality strings together both the first reading and the Gospel, but whose hospitality you may ask?

To find an answer to this riddle, it would be good to look at the first reading through the lenses of Rublev’s icon. The icon, being a window into the unseen world by using symbols from the visible world, shows us something amazing which we would normally miss in our reading of the passage from Genesis. In the famous Icon of this scene, the hospitality of Abraham, you can see the three figures sitting at the table, but you can’t see Abraham. The table is rectangular with four sides. Three sides are occupied by each of the angelic figures but the fourth side, the side closest to the viewer is empty. There is room at the table for another. That space is welcoming Abraham in, welcoming us in, to sit at the table with God, the Most Holy Trinity.

When Abraham gives them the water, who really gives the water of life? When Abraham refreshes them by washing their feet, who really makes who clean? And when Abraham offers them bread, who really gives the bread of life? If you can figure out this riddle, you are one step closer to enlightenment. I’ll give you a clue… it isn’t Abraham who is the giver of all gifts. This isn’t a story about ordinary hospitality. And neither is the Gospel reading too. It wasn’t Abraham who was really being hospitable. It was God, God giving Abraham the bread of life and the water of life and the washing of salvation.

And this is how we should read and understand the dynamics of the two sisters, Mary and Martha, in today’s Gospel passage. Our Lord is in the home of Martha and Mary, and the story seems to be another tale of misguided hospitality. Most people would just notice the obvious: Mary listens to Jesus but Martha is distracted by the tasks of the world.

But there is more to the story than meets the eye. First, Martha isn’t just distracted by the cares of the world. Luke says she is distracted by something very specific. She’s distracted by diakonia… ministry. It’s where we get the word “deacon”. Martha isn’t distracted by looking up the latest fashions nor busy pursuing a career like a 21st century modern woman. She’s distracted by something which is really important. Ministering to others. She was distracted, ironically, by her desire to serve. Distractions come in all forms – sometimes by things which seem blatantly frivolous and selfish, and sometimes even by the things that appear selfless.

Second, does the Lord actually criticise her because she is distracted by her work? Let us look at His words: “Martha, Martha,’ He said ‘you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken from her.” His point—one of them, at least—is that hospitality does not consist in impressing our guests with how much we are doing for them, but in our willingness simply to be present to them and to listen to what they have to say. Martha, if you think about it, is doing exactly what Abraham was doing… offering the Lord some refreshment. The thing she has missed, is what the Lord really wants from her and from us… our love and our complete attention. This is what Mary does and what she is praised for. She allows the Lord to serve her with His teaching and presence.

Both of these apparently simple but exceedingly profound biblical stories offer a guiding word to Christians who yearn and thirst for hospitality, as we struggle to offer the warmth of hospitality to others. So, what should we do? Should we make like Abraham and Martha to scramble to serve our God who lives among us? No. Remember Mary who sat at the feet of the Lord. If you think the Christian faith is about doing enough to earn God’s love… then you’ve completely missed the point. The astounding paradoxical truth is this: we don’t serve God. God serves us. We don’t need to feed God. God feeds us. We don’t need to provide for God. God provides for us. We don’t need to protect God. God heals and holds us in our brokenness. We don’t need to sacrifice to God. God has already sacrificed Himself for us.

At this and every Eucharist, God invites us to the altar of His perfect sacrifice, to the meal which is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, to have a seat at the table and share in the fellowship of the Most Holy Trinity. It is here where we will be fed, we will be refreshed, and where we are saved. As we nervously approach the altar, fully aware of our unworthiness, we hear the Lord who beckons to us, as how He had gently spoken to Abraham, Mary and Martha: Come… sit down… and taste. Fret no longer in what you can do but pay attention to what I can do for you. With me you will learn love. With me you will discover life. With me you will find a most welcoming eternal home.

The Paradox of Love

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

St Augustine once wrote this about the Most Holy Trinity, that “in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more profitable.” Yet, the Most Holy Trinity is not some obscure concept which is alien to us. On the contrary, it pervades every aspect of our faith life - from the sign of the cross made in the name of the three persons of the Triune God, to the Trinitarian Pauline greeting which the priest uses at the beginning of the Mass and the blessing at its end, to how prayers (especially liturgical ones) are formulated, to the Creed which we profess, and to the formula used when we were baptised. And yet, it’s one of those topics which many, including us clergy, would attempt to avoid talking about, because it’s one of those things that we find most challenging to explain. Of course, to be honest, the greater challenge is for us priest, to wrap our heads around it before attempting to unpack it for others.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity as the central mystery of our faith, which is a huge claim. The doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity is not just one teaching among many. It is the Christian teaching of the very nature of God … the core belief and the essence of our Christian faith. Everything a Christian does, flows from this teaching, is centred upon this teaching and leads back to this teaching. Yet, we have to acknowledge that this mystery seems to be the most mysterious among the hierarchy of truths which the Church professes and teaches. But how should we understand it as a mystery?

There is a misconception that the mystery of the Trinity is difficult to understand and therefore difficult to teach. We have to get past that. The “mystery” is no mystery in the sense of a puzzle – it isn’t like an impossibly complex mathematical riddle to be solved. Rather, it is a mystery in the same way love is a mystery. We all understand love. Yet, love is inexplicably hard to describe without resorting to metaphors, analogies or symbolic and poetic language. And like love, we don’t need to be able to fully articulate it before we can grasp it. While I can never fully comprehend the incomprehensible, I can be loved by it. The mystery of love is that it is a paradox—the more we give of ourselves to another, the more we receive; the more we unite ourselves to another, the more we become our true self. The Trinity is a mystery in the very same way.

Some may argue that if our Lord Jesus truly wanted us to understand this profound concept, which is the mystery of the inner being and relationship between Him and the Father and the Holy Spirit, He should have spelt it out clearly leaving no room for ambiguity. But He did not do so because as pointed out in today’s Gospel passage, Christ still has “many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now.”

But this would change with the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, because when “the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learnt…” Our Lord knew that the Church had to do more than repeat His words and tell stories about His deeds and the adventures of the early community. That is why He gave His apostles and their successors “the Spirit of truth” to guide them as they sought to make His saving truths known in every time and place.

What is this “complete truth” which our Lord is referring to? For one, it is objective and eternal. In other words, truth is not a matter of consensus. We don’t fashion truth to suit our opinions or desires. It is common today to speak of “your truth” and “my truth,” and that is instead of looking at objective facts, we often hear people speaking of their “lived experiences,” suggesting that every person’s truth is unique and irreplaceable and therefore, infallible and unchallengeable. The complete Truth of the Lord, however, cannot be something malleable, easily moulded according to our personal agenda, our likes and dislikes. Rather, it is we who must conform to the objective Truths revealed to us by God; and if we are humble and strive to be faithful, then the Holy Spirit will gently lead us and transform us with that Truth, into God’s own likeness.

But the most complete Truth is not like any other objective truth which we can speak of. The self-revelation of God is in fact that “complete truth,” for above the Truth of God, there can never be any other truth, and all truth found in the created world is only a shadow and a reflexion of His Truth. The inner Truth of God is this: that the most original and unconditional love of the Father is matched and answered by the equally absolute reciprocal love of the Son. We can understand and participate inwardly in this mystery of love, if the Spirit, who is both the mutuality and fruit of this eternal love, is made to penetrate us. The Spirit binds us to divine love itself. Indeed, this is what St Paul proclaims to the Romans in the second reading, that “the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us.”

It is an undeniable reality that we who believe in the primacy of the Truth revealed to us by God, are now engaged in a direct confrontation with the greater culture which denies the existence of objective truth, what more the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity that finds no equivalent correspondence in this life. Perhaps, the world continues to reject the revelation of the Trinity, precisely because we have been bad witnesses - our lack of love or care for others, our penchant to be selfish and individualistic, our tendency to pander to the maddening crowd, rather than stand up to defend the Truth. How wonderful it would be if we could just reflect the life of the Most Holy Trinity in our own lives? That would be our most convincing and effective way of evangelising - not just with eloquently profound theological explanations (which are undeniably necessary) but, simply through the way we live our lives.

And so on this day, we affirm once again the truth of the One True God in three persons, co-equal in dignity and substance, we recognise that it is less important to focus on the math of the Trinity and more important to focus on the why. Why would God go to all the trouble of creating the world, creating us, and then sending His Son to save us and His Holy Spirit to guide, inspire and sanctify the Church? We arrive at the same answer as the early disciples. God is love. “God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: ‘Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 293). That is the complete Truth, and nothing less than the complete Truth. That is the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. May His Holy Name be praised!

God is Relational

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity 2021

Let me start in treacherous territory. It’s already mind-boggling attempting to understand the concept of the Trinity, One God in three persons, what more explain it. If you are not already familiar with this, there is also the concept or belief in the three goddesses in neo-pagan religions like Wicca, often depicted as the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone, or the Hag. Each of these characters are said to be non-distinct aspects of one divine reality and they basically correspond to three life stages of a female. In other words, the Maiden is the Mother and the Crone, except, in three different stages of her life as she ages.

The point I’m trying to make here is not to suggest that the Christian belief in the Most Holy Trinity is not an original idea or even a cultural appropriation of some pre-Christian religious tradition, but quite the opposite. The dogma of the Most Holy Trinity is distinctly unique. It proposes not just a schizophrenic God with multiple personality disorder or different forms or modes of one Being, or one who likes to play different characters to make life more colourful, but that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, though not three gods but one, are each distinctively unique, which is why we use the word “persons” to refer to each of them.

This is what a relationship is fundamentally about, a connexion made between “persons,” at least two are needed. I’m not trying to diminish the fact that some people do describe themselves as having a relationship with a myriad of things or objects. For example, I know that many enjoy indulging in mental conversations with themselves, provided that they are aware that the voice in their head is actually they thinking aloud and not some distinct imaginary person. Likewise, there are those who have meaningful conversations with their pets, or their favourite plant or furniture. As much as one could try to stretch the meaning of the word “relationship” to cover all these, as woke culture is so fond of doing, we have to face the reality that nothing can come close to an authentic relationship between real persons.

The fact that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are persons, tells us that they are authentically relational. God is not just an impersonal principle like a force in nature. The fact that our God is a personal God means that He is a relational God; first in Himself, possessing and capable of a dynamic relationship between the three distinct persons of the Most Holy Trinity, as well as with the rest of His creation, with us in particular because man (and woman) are made in His image and likeness, are the only creatures apart from the angels, who possess distinct personhood which makes each of us unique, irreplaceable, and relatable.

The fact that they are three distinct Persons, not being identical in personality, like clones, nor are they merely phases in the development of man’s understanding of God, nor are they God putting on different masks at different times to appear more relatable to us at a particular moment in time, is a fundamental truth to our faith. The Church has unequivocally rejected any of these alternative explanations and labelled them heresies. No. Though there is only one God, and the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father. The fact that there are 3 distinct persons in the Trinity, is a key foundational truth. And yet we profess and believe that there is only one God. That too is another foundational truth.

So, we see the uniqueness of the Christian faith. We defer from strict monotheistic religions which reject any differentiation of persons in the one God. We also reject the premise adopted by polytheistic religions which argue that there are more than one God. And of course, our belief stands against those religions which have a modalistic view of God, that the one God appears in different forms or different modes, but each mode is fundamentally just another form of the same God.

They are not only 3 distinct persons, but each person of the Godhead is intimately involved with the Christian!  The dogma of the Most Holy Trinity is not just some lofty philosophical concept or irrelevant dogma but one which goes to the very heart of our identity as persons, made in God’s image and likeness, made to love, to care and to relate with others.

This is what we see in the second reading which is taken from Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans. He does not provide us with a theological explanation of how the Father, the Son and the Spirit are related to each other but a statement about how they work together in unison and in harmony in every Christian. The Trinitarian connexion reaches out, connects and enfolds. In baptism, we share in the death of the Lord Jesus and we receive the gift of the Spirit which makes us children of God, and allows us to call God Himself, “Abba, Father”.  Saint Paul elaborates on this saying: “And if we are children we are heirs as well, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, sharing His sufferings so as to share His glory.”

So, what does this teach us about human relationships? The first thing is that people need other people. In other words, humans were made to live within community and to have meaningful love relationships with other humans. Why do we know this? Because we are made in God’s image and God has existed for eternity within a love relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God has existed within the community of the Godhead for eternity and since we are made in His image, it should not be a surprise that humans are made to need community.

The Trinity also teaches us that the diversity of roles in any relationship is good. In fact, when our uniqueness as distinct persons are erased in the name of conformity, relationships cease to have value. Members of any human community are not products of assembly lines. Therefore, it is important to preserve and promote the various roles, charisms and parts we play in any human relationship, whether it be in a friendship, a marriage, a family or even in the Church. When gender differences are removed, hierarchical structures within the family or the Church are flattened, we end up with a distorted and revisionist vision of God’s plan. We can see from the Trinity that roles in relationships do not devalue one person over the other. There are different roles in human relationships because there are different roles in the Trinity.

In the gospel passage, in this last scene of our Lord’s climatic commissioning of His Apostles to make disciples of all the nations, to baptise them in the name of the Most Holy Trinity and to teach them to observe all His commands, we are reminded that we are sent by Christ on a mission, on a journey of love, on a pilgrimage to God, the Most Holy Trinity. We do so not as individuals, but as persons called into the Mystical Body of Christ, to be part of the communion of saints, so that through our words and deeds, we can testify that the Lord is with us always, “yes, to the end of time.” And, where Christ is present, the Father and the Holy Spirit are present too, for though each is distinct, they are inseparable.

The Holy Trinity sends greetings

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

People often ask me, “Why start the Mass with a ritual greeting? This sounds so stiff-and-official-like. Why not just start with a warm and friendly greeting like ‘Good Morning’?” Good question. This would, indeed, be the right approach if the Mass were nothing more than a meal with family and friends, but, in reality, it is infinitely more than that. The Mass is not an informal gathering of a group of people.  It is a sacred moment before God.  This is why the Missal gives the formal, stylised greeting that the priest is expected to use.  If we believe the Mass is a representation of the Holy Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, you wouldn’t appreciate being greeted with a happy chirpy “Good morning” as you contemplate our Lord’s suffering and death on Good Friday, would you? Since it is a sacred moment before God, then the formality and solemnity of the words should be befitting God, for the Eucharist is an anticipation of the heavenly wedding banquet which God Himself prepares for us. The Most Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, is now inviting us to enter into their inner circle, into their intimate communion which is the basis and foundation of all other communions.

As far as liturgical greetings are concerned, there are three options available.  Each option highlights the special nature of our gathering for Mass. Today, I would like to consider the first option, the Trinitarian option. The priest utters these words immediately after the sign of the cross. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” As warm and as friendly as a “good morning” greeting sounds to common folks, the liturgical greeting is far more superior. It all makes absolute theological sense. We come for Mass not because of the priest (although truth be told, many people choose their priests. Fr Friendly Smile is always preferred over Fr Prune face). We come for Mass not just to see each other. We come for Mass because of God. And it is only proper that the priest, the minister of God, should greet us in the name of God, the Most Holy Trinity.

These words are the last words of Saint Paul’s second letter to the Church of Corinth, which we heard in the second reading. Since Saint Paul refers to God the Father simply as “God”, this blessing is clearly Trinitarian. It expresses the Church’s belief in one God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It briefly sums up the very essence of the Christian life. This is a good reminder that the Trinity is not primarily the subject of intellectual discourse. No, the Most Holy Trinity is first and foremost, the object of our worship, of our liturgy. To grasp the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, we must do so on our knees, in humble adoration and worship.

In this greeting, Saint Paul does not follow the order in which we normally name the divine persons of the Trinity. Rather, he first mentions Jesus, who is the Son before he names God the Father. This very unusual word order, unlocks for us the theology of Saint Paul about how we are saved. Paul begins the greeting by saying “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ”. He uses the word “grace” to express the salvation event. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled with God. Thus, it is through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that we come to the Father. As Jesus Himself said, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6).

Paul ends the greeting with the words “the communion of the Holy Spirit”. In the translation of the third edition of the English translation of the Roman Missal, “communion” replaces the word “fellowship”. Both words translate from the Greek word “koinonia.” It’s good to unpack this word because the word “fellowship” and the word “communion” have taken on very different meanings from the original “koinonia.”

First of all, the expression “the communion of the Holy Spirit” reminds us of the intimate relationship that every believer has with the Holy Spirit. The Risen Lord pours out His Holy Spirit on each of us. It is because of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, that we can call Jesus “Lord” (I Cor 12:4); and, it is in the power of the Holy Spirit that we call God “Father” (Gal 4:6).

Second, the expression “the communion of the Holy Spirit” also reminds us that the Holy Spirit gives to each of us different gifts for a purpose. Using these different gifts, we are to work together for the good of the whole Church and thus form one body, one communion of faith (I Cor 12:7; Gal 5:22).

Something else needs to be said about the syntax of this greeting. In the original Greek found in Saint Paul’s letter, the word “be” is missing, so it can be understood both as a statement of fact and as a wish. But now with our liturgy adding the verb “be” in the greeting, the Church is confident in declaring her faith in the Trinity – it is not just a wish but a statement of fact, a statement of faith. She is confident of the love of the Father who has called together His children into His Church and who has sent His Son so that by His sacrifice we may be gathered into a communion whose inspirer and unifier is the Holy Spirit. This is what happens at every Mass. In the liturgy, all three persons of the Trinity are taking us up into their life as the one God, and forming us here on earth as the Body of Christ.

So, the next time you are tempted to walk up to the priest and ask him to change the wording of the Mass, so that it would sound less off-putting, less formal, more familiar, remember this simple truth – the Mass is not about you, it’s not even about the priest, it is first and foremost about God, the Most Holy Trinity, whom we worship, and the very same Holy Trinity who now invites us, unworthy though we are, into the community of Persons, where each is distinct and yet perfectly united. “Unity in diversity” is not just a pretty slogan. It is already a reality in the three persons whom we call God. The deeper we grow in union with God, the deeper and more authentic would our communion be.

Mission of the Trinity, Mission of the Church

Most Holy Trinity

Today on this Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, it is logical and expected of priests to attempt to explain the central and yet, most inexplicable doctrine of faith, that is to try to reconcile our Christian belief that there is only One God with the correlative belief that God exists as Three distinctive persons. If any doctrine makes Christianity Christian, then surely it is the doctrine of the Trinity. St Augustine once commented about the Trinity that “in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more profitable.”

If this doctrine is of such great import, then surely it must be the one most familiar to every Christian. But here lies the paradox: when it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity, most Christians are poor in their understanding, poorer in their articulation, and poorest of all in seeing any way in which the doctrine matters in real life. Someone once said, “The trinity is a matter of five notions or properties, four relations, three persons, two processions, one substance or nature, and no understanding.” After hearing our explanations for years, I guess you either understand or you don’t. So, I’m going to take a different approach this year, an approach that is inspired by this year’s special focus – the Extraordinary Mission Year. Instead of talking about the nature of the Trinity, I will speak of its mission, what theologians call the economical Trinity. In fact, it would not be too bold on my part to argue that the Trinity, Mission and the Church can never be fully understood apart from one another. The Church is the icon of the Most Holy Trinity and the mission of God is the origin of the Church’s mission.

If they are so interconnected, then we must first understand the mission of the Most Holy Trinity, before we can understand the mission of the Church. The Trinitarian mission is succinctly summarised in four paragraphs of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The first paragraph spells out the plan or the point of the mission - The Father “destined us in love to be his sons” through "the spirit of sonship" (Eph 1:4-5, 9). Love is the source and the motivation. (CCC 257)

The second paragraph then speaks of this divine plan as the common work of all three divine persons. However, each person does the work according to his unique personal qualities. “One God and Father from whom all things are and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and one Holy Spirit in whom all things are” (The Second Council of Constantinople). But the qualities of the three divine persons are revealed in the missions of Jesus and the Spirit, who both proceed from the Father. (CCC 258)

What then is the content of this mission? Well, it is simply to reveal each Person of the Most Holy Trinity. The Christian life is a communion with all three persons. And we certainly cannot enter into any relationship without first knowing the person whom we wish to relate to. Knowledge precedes love. (CCC 259)

Finally, who is meant to be the beneficiary of this divine plan? The Catechism affirms that this invitation is not just limited to a few elite individuals but is extended to all. God wants every creature to enter into the unity of the Trinity. (CCC 260)

So the mission of the Church, the mission of every Christian, is derived from the very nature of the Godhead. “The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father” (Ad Gentes, 2). The Father sends the Son, the Word, who becomes one with us in Incarnation, and they both send the Holy Spirit to us, thus enabling us already to be spiritually connected to the Trinity as the Spirit makes us members of the Body of Christ. But the picture does not finish here: just as the Word and the Spirit are sent, so are we. Pope Francis reminds us that “this “divine family” (the Most Holy Trinity) is not closed in on itself, but is open. It communicates itself in creation and in history and has entered into the world of men to call everyone to form part of it. The trinitarian horizon of communion surrounds all of us and stimulates us to live in love and fraternal sharing, certain that where there is love, there is God.” That is why the Church, and we the members, are sent out into the world to be the salt of the earth and the yeast through which the whole of humanity will grow and respond to the calling that we all share.

Christ Himself has prepared us for that mission when He says that everything that the Father has belongs to the Son and what the Son has belongs to the Father, and He prays for us, that our unity may also be mirrored in that perfect unity. We are to grow into that unity through the Spirit who will lead us to the fullness of truth. This is not a call for a forced egalitarianism or blind conformity, but a call to love one another in freedom, for there can be no true love if there is no real freedom. Love is at the heart of the life of the community, the life “in communion,” a mirror of the inner life of the Most Holy Trinity. And that is why love is God’s greatest gift to us. As St Paul assures the Romans that in the midst of their human suffering, “the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us.” This love can be nothing other than His own Triune love. In other words, we have confirmation that suffering in this world does not lead us away from God but toward God.

Perhaps, then, it is time for us to renew our mission once more: to share and to reach out to others in this fragmented and divided world who are in need of healing and reunification. Only God can destroy the division, the hatred, the hostility and the separation rooted in man, with this gift of love. God takes the first step in reunifying us with Himself and with each other. It is He who approaches and walks in communion with those who were far from Him. He eradicates the hatred buried deep inside humanity. He makes brothers and sisters of those who were once separated and reunites them in Him. He makes them a community, which is the Church. The Church was born from the overcoming of all hatred, sin and every barrier, all sources of division. This is the mission of God, the Most Holy Trinity. But it is also the mission of the Church. The Church finds its origins in the Most Holy Trinity, and cannot and must not be separated from its source. The Church’s horizon is God’s horizon, the Church’s mission is God’s mission. As we were forgiven, reconciled and made one, so now are we sent with a similar mission to forgive, to reconcile and make one with all whom we meet.

It’s good to always remember that mission, rather than it being simply something the Church does, is first and foremost an action of God, the Most Holy Trinity. The Father sends the Son, and both send the Holy Spirit to us, and the Spirit makes us members of the Body of Christ. And now, we too are sent out into the world to draw all others into this communion of grace and love. The Church in her mission never replaces God or God’s work. Rather, the Church through participation in and witness to God’s mission, makes the invisible work of God visible.

We recall the words of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, “The feast of the Holy Trinity invites us to commit ourselves in daily events to being leaven of communion, consolation and mercy. In this mission, we are sustained by the strength that the Holy Spirit gives us: he takes care of the flesh of humanity, wounded by injustice, oppression, hate and avarice.”