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The Most Holy Trinity Sunday – Year C – OT
Readings: Pro 8:22-31; Rom 5:1-5; Jn 16:12-15.
1/ First Reading: NAU Proverbs 8:22 “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old. 23 “From everlasting I was established, from the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth. 24 “When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. 25 “Before the mountains were settled, before the hills I was brought forth; 26 While He had not yet made the earth and the fields, nor the first dust of the world. 27 “When He established the heavens, I was there, When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep, 28 when He made firm the skies above, when the springs of the deep became fixed, 29 when He set for the sea its boundary so that the water would not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth; 30 then I was beside Him, as a master workman; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, 31 rejoicing in the world, His earth, and having my delight in the sons of men.”
2/ Second Reading: NAU Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
3/ Gospel: NAU John 16:12 “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify me, for He will take of mine and will disclose it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are mine; therefore I said that He takes of mine and will disclose it to you.”
I. THEME: The mystery of Trinity
The older version of the Vietnamese Catechism might give us a wrong understanding of the Trinity when it taught, “the Father creates us, the Son redeems us and the Holy Spirit sanctifies us.” In reality, all three persons of the Holy Trinity participate in the economy of creation, redemption and sanctification of men. We can separate the Trinity to analyze, but we must synthesize all three of them to understand the mystery of Trinity because we only have the one God.
How can we understand the mystery of Trinity? The Church Father used two ways: the study of theology and of what God has done for human beings. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The Fathers of the Church distinguish between theology (theologia) and economy (oikonomia). “Theology” refers to the mystery of God’s inmost life within the Blessed Trinity and “economy” to all the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life. Through the oikonomia the theologia is revealed to us; but conversely, the theologia illuminates the whole oikonomia. God’s works reveal who He is in himself; the mystery of his inmost being enlightens our understanding of all his works. So it is, analogously, among human persons. A person discloses himself in his actions, and the better we know a person, the better we understand his actions (CCC, 236).
Each reading of today feast helps us to see different aspects of the Holy Trinity. In the first reading, the author of the Book of Proverbs personified God’s wisdom with a purpose for us to understand the origin of wisdom and its relationship with God. God “creates” wisdom from the beginning before He creates any creature; then He, together with the wisdom, create all things. In the second reading, St. Paul shows us the economy of the salvation of humankind is the co-operation of all three persons of the Trinity: the Father designs the plan; the Son executes it, and the Holy Spirit helps people to recognize and to believe in the plan of salvation. In the Gospel, Jesus reveals about the Holy Spirit whom the Father and he shall send to the apostles after he ascends to heaven. The Holy Spirit shall help the apostles to understand all Jesus’ revelation and guide them to the whole truth which they can’t understand at one time because the limitation of their understanding.
II. ANALYSIS:
1/ Reading I: “From everlasting I was established, from the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.”
1.1/ The origin of wisdom and its relationship with God:
(1) Its relationship: The author of Proverbs personifies God’s wisdom as follows: “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old.”
This is only a way to describe God’s wisdom, but this way causes many wrong understandings. First, wisdom must be with God from the beginning because wisdom must exist with God before His creation. Secondly, it is the verb “to create.” If wisdom exists with God from the beginning, how is this verb understood? We can’t understand as being created as all creatures. The Arian heresy based on this sentence to show that the Word, which is Christ, is created, not existed by himself. The author only wants to express that wisdom exists with God from the beginning, before the creation of the universe and human beings, but the limitation of human language escaped him.
(2) The origin of God’s wisdom: The author describes it as follows, “When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills I was brought forth; while He had not yet made the earth and the fields, nor the first dust of the world. When He established the heavens, I was there, when He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep, when He made firm the skies above, when the springs of the deep became fixed, when He set for the sea its boundary so that the water would not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth.” All these expressions only aim at one goal, that is, God’s wisdom exists before all things.
1.2/ The relationship between wisdom and all creatures: The author continues to describe this relationship, “I was beside Him, as a master workman; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in the world, His earth, and having my delight in the sons of men.” The expression “amôn,” rendered as a “master workman,” is used to describe wise creation of God’s wisdom. By His wisdom, everything are created; and without him, nothing is created. Not only the wisdom is the mediator between God and His creation, he also deeply involved with human beings, “rejoicing in the world, His earth, and having my delight in the sons of men.”
In the Prologue of the Gospel according to John, we see many similarities between him and the author of the Book of Proverbs, such as: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (Ga 1:1-3).
When talking about the relationship between the Word and the Father, John has this to say when Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, `Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works” (Jn 14:8-10).
If we see the Word as God’s wisdom, he is always with God and he himself is God. We can’t separate God’s wisdom from God. Only in the mystery of the Incarnation, the Work took human flesh to reveal for people God’s wisdom.
2/ Reading II: The economy of redemption belongs to the Trinity.
God has His plan of salvation from the beginning, even before the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden. According to this plan, every person of the Trinity has a part to play:
2.1/ The Father is the author of the plan of salvation: Both John and Paul give us a clear view about God’s plan of salvation (Cf. Ga 6:35-40; Rm 3:21-24). The Father is the master of the plan. The goal of this plan is to liberate people from slavery of sins, to reconcile them with God and to bring salvation for them.
2.2/ Jesus, the son, is the one who brings this plan to the fulfillment: The Father sent His son to the world to reveal this plan of salvation to humankind and to bring this plan to success by accepting Passion, Death and glorious Resurrection.
Facing Jesus and his words, people have freedom to choose: to believe or not to believe in him. If they choose to believe in him, they shall be free from sins and become righteous. Once they became righteous, they are reconciled to the Father. Jesus opened the way for us to inherit God’s blessings as we have now; we are also confident in the hope of sharing God’s glory and happiness. If we don’t believe in him, everything is closed and we shall die in our sins.
2.3/ The Holy Spirit helps us to be loyal with our hope for the eternal life: The forgiveness of sins is only one aspect of God’s plan of salvation; the other aspect is the sanctification of humankind by graces of sacraments and the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
Our faith needs to be tested during the time we live in this world. In God’s providence, He shall never let us to fight alone because He knows we can’t oppose the powers of the devil and the world, so He gives us graces and the Holy Spirit to act inside of our soul. Sufferings are necessary to test our faith as gold by fire to know if it is true gold. The faith which was tested shall help the faithful to be patient and persevered in all trials. When the faithful perserveredly hope in the kingdom as such, they show God that they are deservedly inherited the eternal life.
3/ Gospel: Jesus reveals the Holy Spirit’s role for his disciples.
3.1/ The Holy Spirit helps the faithful to fathom God’s mysteries: Before the Passion, Jesus knows his disciples shall be stumbled because of his sufferings, so he revealed and reminded them necessary things to encourage them to firmly believe in him. He also knows that their limited minds can’t fathom all what he wants to say. One of his important revelation is the coming of the Holy Spirit whom he and the Father shall send to them. Jesus said to them about the Holy Spirit’s two important roles:
(1) When the Holy Spirit comes, he shall lead you to the whole truth: The Holy Spirit is the God of truth. He shall enlighten Jesus’ disciples to understand the truth and shall lead them to understand all truth.
(2) He shall not say what he thinks; but all things he has heard, he shall say and announce to his disciples all things shall come. The Holy Spirit shall not add new things, but remind them of what Jesus had said and help them to fathom these sayings.
3.2/ The harmony between the Trinity: Each person has his proper duty but all three only aim the one goal that is to bring salvation for human beings. There isn’t any sole property of each person or contradiction between them. Human beings are the common property of the Trinity. All persons of the Trinity are in harmony what they do.
– Harmony in truth: The truth is one and comes from the Father. The son sees and tells what is from the Father. The Holy Spirits sees and tells what is from the son.
– Harmony in relationship: Whoever has the son, also has the Father and the Holy Spirit. Whoever doesn’t have the son, also doesn’t have the Father and the Holy Spirit.
– Harmony in praises: Whoever praises the Father, also praises the son. Whoever denies the son, also denies the Father and the Holy Spirit.
III. APPLICATION IN LIFE:
– We are the Trinity’s objects of salvation. They work together in harmony to create, to redeem and to sanctify us. We should live according to their love.
– Our family is the expression of the mystery of the Trinity. We should imitate them to love and to be harmonized in all what we do to benefit all members of our family.
– Our intellect are very limited in understanding God’s mysteries, especially the mystery of Trinity. When we don’t understand yet, we shouldn’t feel discourage; but be humble and pray to the Holy Spirit so he might help us to understand them.