Today is Trinity Sunday, and we observe and venerate the deepest mystery of our faith – the fact that God is One, but in Three Persons. This great mystery of love spurs us on to conversion of mind and heart.
Let us spend some time today reflecting on the readings of this Solemnity, the Trinity, and the great mystery that we, as human beings, have the free will to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself” (CCC 234). By way of Scripture and Tradition, God allows us, mere creatures, to glimpse His own character, to glimpse His own divine identity. The readings that the Church gives us for today, however, begin with the reality of stubbornness: In the First Reading, Moses bows down to the earth, worships God, and says “Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.” To be a stiff-necked people means to be haughty and resistant to the Holy Spirit. Moses prays that God forgives the people’s sin. We do the same today, as we pray: despite our willfulness and obstinacy, O Father, Creator of heaven and earth, Source from whom all being flows, adopt us as your sons and daughters. We too, your children of the 21st century, are stiff-necked, difficult to lead, and proud. Father, many of us live as if you do not exist. Others think that even if you do exist, your existence does not directly affect their lives. Still others think that it is technology that is the real saviour of the human race. Father, we beg forgiveness, also because many of us have adopted ideologies that take us further and further from you: atheism, materialism, and the pride of self-reliance. Others have adopted the ideology of gender, an ideology that challenges the vision of our being created by you as male and female, made for a communion of persons. Father, we come to you as your stiff-necked people of the 21st century – but please do not give up on us.
The Second Reading speaks of the “communion of the Holy Spirit.” Let us strive for this gift of communion: communion with God, but also communion with our neighbours. We can do so by being charitable and courteous, to those who are near the faith, and far from the faith. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to descend into our minds, and illuminate them with His uncreated light.
The Gospel speaks of the Father sending His only Son in the Holy Spirit into the world, not to condemn the world, but so the world may be saved. Saved from what, someone may ask? We need to be saved from a vision of man without God. We need to be saved from the thought that we can run our lives, our families, our households, our countries, and our globe, without God. Christ, the only Son of the Father, speaks of His love in the Gospel verses. He repeats that He came so that we can have eternal life, and not perish. However, at the end of John 3:16, a beautiful verse, and one of the most popular in the Bible, Christ does spell out that “The one who does not believe is condemned already, for not having believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.” We have been given the name through which we are saved, through which we are healed. St. Augustine puts it very starkly: “For why is He called the Saviour of the world, but because He saves the world? The physician…heals the sick. If the sick despises or will not observe the directions of the physician, he destroys himself” (Catena Aurea, vol. 4, 2014, St. John, pg. 95). Let us take care that in our pride and self-reliance, we too, do not destroy ourselves.
June is the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is the Sacred Heart of Jesus that gives us grace upon grace. When we doubt God’s goodness, when we doubt God’s plan, when we doubt God’s relevance to us and our lives, may the Sacred Heart be a source of healing for our unbelief. As Oblates of Mary Immaculate, we can count upon the special assistance of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, because the entire OMI congregation was consecrated to the Sacred Heart in 1873.
Finally, a few words about the Trinity and Our Lady, taken from St. John Paul II: “By repeating ‘Totus Tuus’ to [Mary] every day and living in harmony with her, we can attain an experience of the Father in confidence and boundless love, docility to the Spirit, and transformation of self into the likeness of Christ” (St. John Paul II, Address of the Holy Father to the Participants of the 8th Mariological Colloqium, 13 October 2000, #3). Mary will prepare our hearts for the indwelling of the Holy Trinity.
Eternal Trinity, we come as your stiff-necked people, but ask that you protect us from evil, and help us come near to you. Help us to accept the offer of salvation that flows from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
(Fr. Paweł Ratajczak, OMI, June 4, 2023)