Blessed Trinity Labouring in Us with Love

The Most Holy Trinity Sunday - Readings: Exodus 34:4–6, 8–9; Daniel 3:52–56; 2 Corinthians 13:11–13;  John 3:16–18

(The vision of St Ignatius of Loyola of the Blessed Trinity at La Storta, Rome, painting by Arul Anthony, SJ, 2018)

Holy Trinity is our God

The God whom we Christians worship is Holy Trinity. When I say that I pray to God means I am praying to the Blessed Trinity. When I say that I am praying to Jesus means I am praying to the Blessed Trinity. When I tell others that I am praying to the Holy Spirit, that means I am praying to the Blessed Trinity. The question of the Most Holy Trinity intrigues all of us because of the composition of this word "Trinity" itself: Three in One and One in Three. By virtue of its very difficult and complex composition often we find hard to grapple with this mystery. Fortunately, God is a mystery and not a puzzle or myth. Our scriptures give us ample evidences to tell us who that Triune God is. Jesus in the Gospel of St John speaks at length on God the Father and Holy Spirit. Jesus also speaks about his relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit (John, Ch 14 -16). The very moment of his Baptism at river Jordan we see the Holy Spirit resting on Jesus in a form of dove and the voice of the Father from heaven speaking, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” (Mt 3:17).  Even  though intricacies are involved in understanding the concept of the Holy Trinity, however down the ages Christian faithful have grappled with this holy mystery. Moreover, it is the Holy Spirit who has helped in understanding the Triune God (Rom 8:26; 2 Cor 2:14). 

Holy Trinity labours in the world.

When Moses went up to Mount Sinai to speak to God with two tablets of stone that he had made in the same form as he had broken them earlier which had been given by the Lord, now God passes through them with his words being uttered into those tablets. God says about Himself, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and faithfulness..."(Ex 34:6). Later on we know the story about these tablets. These stone tablets would symbolize, God's presence among the Israelites and wherever the Ark of the Covenant was carried these two tablets made their home in it. This was a reminder that God is always with them both in good times and bad times. 

Before God we stand nowhere because of our finiteness, fragility, mortality, temporality, limitedness and shallowness. However, God has fashioned us in his own image and likeness from the beginning of His creation (Psalm 89:47). However, God dwells amidst us and continues to labour in His creation and the creative acts of the human person. How human civilizations and human intelligence have progressed down the centuries in making one's life comfortable and interesting is a proof of that divine presence. In the same vain we could say with all certainty that we are tossed to an utter helplessness when the sickness engulfs us, natural calamities destroy man made structures, civilizations and creative works of art and architecture. 

The present context in which we live describes poignantly what we are speaking about. Today, the world is sick, humanity is ill. Corona infection has pushed us to the corner to weep and sleep without rest. It has made us aware of our fragilities and the deep inequalities that wound us all; it has shown us our vulnerability and our poverty. Where as rest of God's creation like plants and animals are living and thriving without any disease or sickness. 

Triune God dwells in relationships, in fact, in good relationships

The revelation of God as Triune, therefore, is not a mathematical formula or a logical puzzle, but it is a mystery of relationship. Our relationships are built on love; love for each other. How a relationship grows in bringing forth life between two human beings who are of opposite sex, different cultures, languages, communities, nations, religions is itself a mystery or puzzle to sort out. Consequently, while speaking of God, we are attempting to speak of the depth of infinite love and the eternity that exceeds our limited human capacities. This infinite love and eternity surrounds the Trinity in every way of understanding. Precisely because there is such an abounding and unfathomable richness and splendour that elicits in us wonder, glory, praise, holy desire and prayer. 

On the other side, we can break the cycle of the monotony of hatred and suspicion into utter selflessness and be beacons of hope, ready to go out of our self-centredness. All this is possible because of that spark called love, compassion, mercy towards my fellow neighbour. Human relationships do not close us to an enclosure but opens us to others because of the divine image that we carry within us. In this context we need the gift of the Holy Spirit to re-create and renew this life of abundance; to bind us into a deeper universal community of love and hope. 

Holy Trinity dwells amongst us when we follow the Lord

When we engage deeper into the realities of life and lives of people, when we worship the Triune God in spirit and in truth (Jn 4: 23-24), Lord lives in our midst. The Pentecost was, in effect, a “jump start” for the reign of the Holy Spirit amongst us. With the old covenant specifically a relationship was built up between God and the Jews. However, through Jesus Christ a new covenant was formed, that could be shared by anyone who believed in Him. Earlier God spoke only in Hebrew or Aramaic, and not any other langauge. Now, God speaks in the languages of all the nations. In other words, we need to see God in everything, to see the struggles of people in all people. Because God speaks in those people and labours in them.

On a more personal level, if we have accepted Christ into our hearts and follow His commandments, the Holy Spirit will live within us. Thus we can know God in a way different from how we “know” anything else. He will speak to us in a language that we can understand. In fact Gospel opens up to the world those who are lost, abandoned, and forgotten. Those, too, who may not acknowledge any faith but long for a better world, a more compassionate and just community, a new way of sharing life with the whole of God’s good creation, still becoming and evolving. Through our works of mercy both corporal and spiritual, through our solidarity and communion in action, the Spirit is leading us to encounter the face of Christ in each other. Thus our relationships broken and wounded by sin are healed, restored and redeemed.

Jesus reveals the Trinity and Holy Spirit Empowers Us.

Jesus declares in the Gospel of John that “God sent his Son into the world… so that through him the world might be saved” (Jn 3:17).  Jesus thus reveals the Holy Trinity to us Christians in a most profound and admirable way. God does not remain in distant past or far away. He becomes really real in a more personal way. The intimacy between God and humanity is established. All the more our spiritual life is made possible because of this personal encounter with the Triune God in more intimate and personal way as the titles show the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And faith of our forefathers tells us that Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.  As the Angelic doctor St Thomas Aquinas put it so succinctly: “In the divine nature three Persons subsist: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one God, distinguished from one another by relations only.” If Jesus reveals the Trinity to us then through the Son and the Holy Spirit, we know and love God as our true Father. By this grace of God we know that it is He who created this cosmos and cosmic elite called humanity and who loves us unfailingly. As the Trinity is bound together in perfect unity through love, the Holy Spirit challenges and changes us. He makes me to look at Jesus and my neighbour as brother and sister and in one word Children of One God. 

Questions for reflections:

1. What has been the experience of the Holy Trinity in my life?

2. In what ways have I been a blessing for others during this Pandemic?

3. Have I completely let the Holy Trinity take control of me? If not, what hinders me from doing so?

4. What are those traits that exhibit in my life: Narcistic, pessimistic or self-centredness?

Prayer to the Holy Trinity by St Augustine (in De Trinitate XV.28.51):

Directing my course according to this rule of faith, (God as a Trinity) insofar as I could, and insofar as You made it possible for me, I sought You and desired to see with my understanding that which I believed; and I have argued and labored much. O Lord, my God, my only hope, hear me, lest through weariness I should not wish to seek you, but may ardently seek Your face evermore. Give me the strength to seek You, You who have caused me to find You, and have given me the hope of finding You more and more. Before You are my strength and my weakness; preserve the one, heal the other. Before You are my knowledge and my ignorance: where You have opened to me, receive me when I enter; where You have closed, open to me when I knock. May I remember You, understand You and Love you. Increase these gifts in me, until You have reformed me completely. 

- Olvin Veigas, SJ

07 June 2020

(Today marks the 5th death anniversary of Fr Severin Leitner, SJ, General Assistant to Central and Eastern European Assistancy. He died in a tragic accident on that Sunday 07 June 2015. He is the one who brought me from Moscow to Rome, Italy in 2015 for better medical treatment. With his death my whole life turned upside down and later my subsequent return to my home land. May the soul of Fr Leitner enjoy the perfect peace in the Holy Trinity.)