Reading: Deut.  4:32-34,39-40; Ps. 32; Rom 8:14-17; Matt. 28:16-20

Rev.  Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia

UNDERSTANDING HOW GOD HAS REVEALED HIMSELF TO HUMANITY

Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. An event that occurs every first Sunday after the great event of Pentecost, which marks the end of the Easter season and renews the Baptism of the Church in the Holy Spirit. Hence, our attention is turned to the mysteries of heaven, where we gaze with an eye of faith into the mystery of God’s revelation of Himself

Therefore, this is a special feast that allows us to gaze into the communitarian life of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who live in a communion of love and calls us to participate in this love. Thereby reminding us of the marvellous plan of our salvation, that finds its origin in this Trinitarian love of the Father, who sent the Son and the Holy Spirit for the redemption of humanity, as we have been called to share in this family of love. This family of love is God’s nature that he shares with humanity through the Son Jesus, the Word Made Flesh and the Holy Spirit the Paraclete.

This solemnity reveals to us that “God is love not in the oneness of a single Person, but in the Trinity of one substance”, as we have it in the Preface of today’s celebration. Telling us that God is the creator and merciful Father; he is the Only-Begotten Son, the eternal Word of Wisdom incarnate, who died and rose for us; he is also the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, who moves all things in history, toward their final and full recapitulation. That is, three Persons who are ONE GOD, because, the Father is love, the Son is love made Flesh, and the Spirit is love in Action. For there is wholly ONE purest, infinite and eternal LOVE which is God and love which is God himself. This of course is always a mystery, a reality that surpasses human reason without contradiction.

Thus, in this Sunday’s solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, we celebrate the summary of God’s revelation which was brought about through the paschal mysteries of Christ’s Death, Resurrection and Ascension to the right hand of the Father, and the gracious outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This great mystery of the Triune God can not be comprehended by the human mind and language, hence the Church has called us to live it with deep faith and apply it in our daily lives.

Little wonder, our readings today tell us about this Trinitarian nature of God in human history, In the First Reading, we heard about the revelation of God’s active participation in the life of his people, as his servant Moses revealed to the people when he said: ‘Understand this today, therefore, and take it to heart: the Lord is God indeed, in heaven above as on earth beneath, he and no other. Keep his laws and commandments as I give them to you today, so that you and your children may prosper and live long in the land that the Lord your God gives you forever.

Similarly, Jesus after his resurrection instructed his disciples who had been cooperating in the life of the Trinity to go and introduce humanity into the New Life when he said: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time. This is a great act of love which shows us God’s love in action, illustrating that God is not closed or satisfied with his self-sufficiency, but he is that life of love that wants to communicate itself with his fragile creatures in an open and deep relationship.

Hence St Paul talking about this new relationship in our second reading, encouraged and invited us to share and participate actively in the communitarian family of love in the Trinity that is now open for all humanity when he said: everyone moved by the Spirit is a son of God. The spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons, and it makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness that we are children of God. And if we are children we are heirs as well: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, sharing his sufferings so as to share his glory.

Dear friends, today’s solemnity invites us to embrace the new life we have found in the Trinity, that new life that calls us to the reality of love that is contained in the mystery of our faith. The One love of the Father, that is made Flesh in the Person of the Son, and in action in the Person of Holy Spirit, in a purely physical unity of which humanity is called to participate. Hence Jesus has revealed to us that we are essentially “God’s children”, creatures who live in a relationship with the Creator God the Father and are called to share this relationship with one another. Thereby reaching out to God and our fellow mankind, in whose life we discover the image of our common love in the Father.

Thus, in this love comes the model of the human community, originating from the Triune Family to our individual human families down to the society and the world at large, pointing to us that humanity is one, related in the love of God our common Father, through His Son Jesus in the active power of the Holy Spirit. This is the faith we have embraced and are called to share with all humility. Therefore, we are called to grow in this mission, knowing that, the Trinity is at the same time unity in love and mission, the deeper this love dwells in us, the stronger the urge to pour it out and spread it to all, beginning from our family, down to the society and the ends of the Earth.

LET US PRAY: Heavenly Father, as you reveal the mystery of your nature which is love and calls us to share and participate in it, grant that humanity may come to embrace this loving kindness, and so be united as one family sharing one common Father in love and truth, we ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen. God bless you.