Trinity Sunday
Today the Church celebrates the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, one of the most basic tenets of our Christian belief and underlying principle of our faith.
As Catholics we utter the name of the Holy Trinity many times. Let us see how we live this mystery in our daily life. Usually we begin all our prayers, in the church as well as in our private lives, with the invocation of the name of the Trinity, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” and end the prayers by glorifying God the Trinity. While doing this we also make the sign of the cross touching our forehead, symbolically the whole head, our chest, symbolically our heart and our shoulders, symbolically our whole body. I feel it is a powerful symbol of calling on God to be in our thoughts, to be in our feelings and emotions and to be our strength, in other words to be in and through us. At the same time, we see, all the sacraments are also administered in the name of the Holy Trinity, reminding us that the various stages of our life too are being nourished by the presence of the Holy Trinity.
When we are so much connected and filled with the grace of the Holy Trinity, it is our responsibility to make an effort to know a bit more about this surprising God of ours, who is presented to us by Jesus as a loving Father. Now Jesus did not use the term Trinity but he revealed to us the presence of the Father, whom he lovingly called Abba, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, whom he called an advocate, as he lived his life on this earth.
When we see the readings today, they give us a beautiful picture of the Holy Trinity. The running theme of all the three readings and the Psalm today is Triune God’s outpouring of Love towards humanity. And it is captured beautifully in this Gospel passage, God loved the world so much, that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).
We, as the followers of Christ are invited to do likewise, above all, by loving as God has loved us. We are called to love unconditionally where no love, and sometimes even hate, is returned. On the other hand we also need to be aware that we are created in love, to be a community of loving persons, just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are united in love. From the day we are baptised, we belong to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Are we not privileged to grow up in such a beautiful family? We belong to the family of the Triune God.
Now let me ask some questions; how often do I sit and ponder over the mystery of the Holy Trinity in my life? How much have I experienced this overwhelming reality in my daily life? Is it only once a year on the solemnity of the Holy trinity that I search the Church documents to get some ideas for my homily? Is it only this day that I think of saying something of the Holy Trinity to my family members, or students or children?
I remember a short story told of a missionary, who found a beautiful sundial during one of his trips back home. He took it along with him to his mission area, where the people had never seen a sundial before. The chief of the tribe asked the missionary to install such a beautiful thing in the middle of the village. The villagers were fascinated that it could tell them the time of the day. After spending some time in this mission, and being delighted that he gave something valuable to the people to know the time of the day, the missionary went to another village. A few weeks later when he came back to the village, he had a surprise waiting for him. The people of the village had put up a tent over the sundial to keep it safe from rain and sunshine!
Have we put up a tent over the mystery of the Trinity, instead of living it in our daily life? Have we taken it for granted the mystery of this marvellous truth? If not then we can acclaim joyfully, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, God who is, who was and who is to come.”
Amen.