“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” (2Cor 13: 13.)
Before I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes, I always liked to take coffee, sugar and milk for breakfast. With these three different substances, we put them in a cup and pour hot water on them, and they become three in one or one in three. When we drink, we can taste the differences between coffee, sugar and milk but mingling together as one.
Dear brothers and sisters, in the liturgies for this Sunday after Pentecost, we celebrate the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and although the analogy of coffee, milk, and sugar falls short of the reality of the Trinity. The Holy Trinity is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three Persons in one God and One God in three Persons. The three Persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct from one another and yet united in One God. In other words, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father, but each person is fully and equally divine. They all share the exact same divine essence, nature and attributes.
The Holy Trinity is the foundation of our faith and our identity as Christians and especially as Catholics. In the Nicene Creed we recite every Sunday and on solemnities of the Lord, we profess that “God the Father Almighty is the creator of heaven and earth”. We also profess that God the “Son Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father” became the redeemer of the world, and God the “Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son is Lord and giver of life, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified”. These truths about each person of the Holy Trinity were not invented by the human mind but revealed to us by God Himself in Jesus and through
the Apostles and the Church.
The Holy Trinity is our identity for we have become children of God by being baptized and receiving the other sacraments in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The first thing the priest does in baptism is trace the sign of the cross on our forehead. We are taught to practice that sign all the time. So, whenever we make the sign of the cross, we say: in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. By doing that, we are praying to the Holy Trinity to be in our mind, in our heart and in our whole being. It becomes our habit to do the sign of the cross in the morning when we wake up and before sleep at night, before and after meals, before and after
work, before travelling, when passing in front of a church or a statue. I am impressed when I see sport people make the sign of the cross after scoring a goal on soccer fields, after making a try in rugby fields, etc……. it shows that the Holy Trinity has been integrated into their mind, heart and in their whole being.
More importantly, the Holy Trinity is a divine and eternal family that consists of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit related to each other with perfect love. Scripture describes God the Father as the lover, God the Son as the beloved and God the Holy Spirit as love. The love of God is so tremendous and unconditional that out of it He created the world and He designed humanity in His own image and commanded us to love one another as taught by St. Paul in our second reading today: “Brothers rejoice, mend your way, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of peace and love will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss” (2Cor13:11). When we fail to obey Him, He forgives and has mercy on us as Moses described in our first reading today: “The Lord, the Lord is a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity” (Ex 34: 6). The Holy Trinity is a communion of Persons in love who has created us to live in communion with Him and with one another in love. Our gospel today from John tells us: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life’ (Jn 3: 16). Jesus was sent from heaven to come and reveal and share his love with us, so that with the Holy Spirit in us, we inherit His sonship as adopted sons and daughters of the Eternal Father.
In our world today, there are a lot of prides, desires for power, hatreds, rejections, and violences which lead so many people to die and to be detached from the basic needs of life. Let us not be discouraged by ‘le mal modern’ of our times but let us continue to live in peace and love and share with one another especially those who are in need. Let us unite also to our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, praying for peace in the world.
May the love of the Father be upon us! May the love of the Son be in us! May the love of the Holy Spirit be our communion! Amen.
Fr. Maleselino Kauvaetupu (Lomano) MSC