Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
June 16, 2019
Cycle C
by Rev. Jose Maria Cortes, F.S.C.E.,
Chaplain,
Saint John Paul II National Shrine,
Washington, D.C.
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Sunday Reading Meditations
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In today’s feast, we celebrate God’s innermost secret: he is an eternal exchange of love—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are invited to contemplate the triune God. The mystery of the Trinity is the center of our faith. Jesus revealed God’s life to us: he is a communion of three persons. God is love and light.
As we contemplate the Holy Trinity, we find the full truth of ourselves. Today’s first reading from the Book of Proverbs tells us about the eternal generation of the Son and the creation of the universe. At the beginning of everything, we can see the Trinity at work. Before the beginning of time, the Father begot the Son. In the reading, we can hear the Son’s voice saying: “From of old I was poured forth, at the first, before the earth […] before the hills, I was brought forth” (Prov 8:25). The Son was not created. As we say in the Creed: “He was begotten.” The Trinity is the fullness of love. Creation is the overflowing of God’s love: “When the Lord established the heavens I was there” (Prov 8:27). The Book of Genesis says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth […] and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters” (Gen 1:1–2).
The Trinity is the origin and the destiny of the entire universe. When we contemplate God, we discover ourselves as creatures. Each one of us is a gift of the Trinity. We have been created by love for love.
We are creatures. We do not make ourselves but the Creator makes us. Modern man repudiates the order of creation. There is an increasingly dominant mentality that denies the fact of creation, asserting that we can be whatever we want. This mentality puts us in the place of God. It claims that we are no longer creatures, that we are the creator! This is a demonic temptation. The gender theory is the clearest example of it, according to which to be a man or a woman does not depend on the body that we have but on the decision that we make. Although ridiculous, more and more people think this way. We are being constantly brainwashed by the powers that be, the lobbies and the media. A few years ago, who would have thought that the use of restrooms and lockers was going to be discussed, or who would imagine that there are people who maintain that there are more than 50 genders to choose from! To confront this situation, we need to live our faith in a deeper way. We also need to think. The problem is that people think very little. Most people let others think for them. When the Supreme Court approved so-called “gay-marriage,” during Mass I made a special petition in the Prayer of the Faithful. When I was greeting people after the celebration, a young woman, a college student, approached me furiously: “Father, why can’t people who love each other be married?” I merely asked her: “My dear friend, what does love mean to you?” She did not give me an answer. We use words but we do not know their true meaning.
We are creatures. We do not make ourselves. We receive our being from God: soul and body. That is our truth. We need to accept it. If we do not accept it, we are living a lie. We were made by love and we are called to love. What is love? We can find the answer to this question in contemplating the Most Holy Trinity. In the second reading, Saint Paul says: “The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5:5).
When we contemplate the Holy Trinity, we discover that love is giving and receiving. The Father loves the Son and the Son accepts that love, and he gives back the love received. This exchange of love is the person of the Holy Spirit.
If we do not accept that we are creatures, that we are created and loved by God, it is not possible to love truly. In order to love others, we need to accept what we are. If we do not, we shall always use others to compensate for something that is missing in us. This means that we shall treat others as objects and not as persons. The tragic thing is that by doing so, we shall never be satisfied.
There is no love without truth. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says: “The Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth” (Jn 16:12).
May the light of the Most Holy Trinity enlighten our world and us. May the contemplation of the Mystery of God allow us to discover the full truth of ourselves: that we are created and loved by the triune God. As we celebrate the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, let us bless the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! Let us praise and exalt God above all for ever! Amen.