The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

May 31, 2026

Jesus is God’s love made visible.

John 3:16-18

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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

REFLECTIONS ON THE GOSPEL

From Thomas Merton, The Hidden Ground of Love, pp157-158

(nb:The brackets [ ] are editorial adjustments for inclusive language)

The contemplative life is then the search for peace no I an abstract exclusion of all outside reality, not in a barren negative closing of the senses upon the world, but in the openness of love. It begins with the acceptance of my own self in my poverty and my nearness to despair in order to recognize that where God is there can be no despair, and God is in me, even if I despair. That nothing can change God’s love for me, since my very existence is the sign that God loves me and the presence of his love creates and sustains me. Nor is there any need to understand how this can be or to explain it or to solve the problems it seems to raise. For there is in our hearts and in the very ground of our being a natural certainty which co-exists with our very existence: a certainty that so insofar as we exist, we are penetrated through and through with the sense and reality of God even though we may be utterly unable to believe or experience this in philosophic or even religious terms. O my [brother/sister], the contemplative is the person not who has fiery visions of the cherubim carrying God on their imagined chariot, by simply [one] who risks one’s mind in the desert beyond language and beyond ideas where God is encountered in the nakedness of pure trust, that is to say the surrender of our poverty and incompleteness in no longer to clench our minds in a cramp upon themselves as if thinking made us exist. The message of hope the contemplative offers you then, [sister/brother], is not that you need to find your way through the jungle of language and problems that today surround God: but that whether you understand or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, calls you, saves you and offers you an understanding and light which are like nothing you have found in books or heard in sermons. The contemplative has nothing to tell you except to reassure you and say that if you dare to penetrate your own silence and risk the sharing of that solitude with the lonely other who seeks God though you, then you will truly recover the light and the capacity to understand what is beyond words and beyond explanations because it is too close to be explained; it is the ultimate union in the depths of your own heart, of God’s spirit and your own secret inmost self, so that you and He are all truth in One Spirit. I love you, In Christ.

Commentary on Exodus 34:4-6, 8-9; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; John 3:16-18

We have now come to the end of the many weeks which were taken up with the celebration of and reflection on the “Paschal Mystery.” It began with Ash Wednesday, went through Lent, the celebration of Holy Week and Easter, the weeks following Easter and culminating in Pentecost and the handing on of Jesus’ mission to his Church. We return now for the rest of the liturgical year – the ‘Ordinary’ Sundays of the Year – and they will bring us right up to Advent and the beginning of another liturgical cycle. But, traditionally this transition is commemorated each year by our celebration of the Feast of the Holy Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most fundamental in our Christian faith, but it is also a doctrine which many of us have difficulty coming to terms with. We often refer to it as a “mystery” and therefore something which can be affirmed, but is not to be understood and need not be explained. “Just believe it,” is something people may be told. In the New Testament, the word “mystery” (Greek, mysterion) refers primarily to some truth which God has made known to us and which we otherwise would not have discovered. The Trinity, that in God there are three Persons, really is a mystery in this sense. It is also, of course, difficult for us to understand how one being can be three persons just as it is difficult for us to understand how Jesus can be both God and human (the mystery of the Incarnation).

Three possible reactions
We can react to this situation in three ways:
1. by saying it is all rubbish anyway;
2. by not thinking about these things at all;
3. by trying to reduce them to categories which are within our human comprehension.

None of these approaches is very helpful. Rather, we should try to understand as much as we can, and say as much as we can while acknowledging that we can only go a certain distance. However, We can go far enough to satisfy our hunger for truth and to have some understanding of our God. One thing we can say right at the beginning. We are not dealing with outright contradictions or trying to believe the impossible. We are not being asked to believe that 3=1. We are asked to believe that in the one being we call God, there are three Persons, who are, in the words of today’s Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer, …three Persons equal in majesty, undivided in splendour, yet one Lord, one God, ever to be adored.  Rather than getting ourselves tied up in theological knots, we would do far better by reading prayerfully over the beautiful Scripture readings of today’s Mass. Here there are no abstruse theological explanations or speculations. Rather the emphasis is not on what, or how, or why, but in very practical language, on the tangible way the Persons in the Trinity relate to us.

A God who is very close
The message coming loud and clear through these readings is that our God is not far away, that he is not “up there somewhere”, a kind of scary, long-bearded policeman in the sky. The message coming through is that our God is close by and he cares. In the First Reading (from Exodus) Moses is told that God is the: Lord, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness and faithfulness Oh, we really need to hear that and to become utterly convinced of it, especially when we find times rough and painful. In Greek drama of classical times, one could recognize the character being played by the mask that he/she wore. As well, in Chinese opera, there is something similar where the faces of the players are elaborately painted so that one can know which role is being played – a king, a general, a concubine, a soldier, etc. The mask was called a prosopon. In Latin this word was translated as persona. Even today in programs of plays we may still see the actors listed under the heading Dramatis Personae, the characters or the roles in the drama. So, in a certain sense, there are three personae or roles in our one God. With the difference that in a play, the role is assumed for the duration of the drama, while in God, the roles are permanently identified with God himself. It might be helpful to us to look at these three roles of God as they are presented to us in Scripture.

God the Father*
While traditionally Scripture speaks of God as Father, we know that in God there can be no gender differences. We call God Father in the sense of the Parent who gives life and nurture. God as Father is the originator, the source, the conserver of all life, of all that exists. Says the Acts, In him, we live and move and have our being. God as Father is no puppet operator in the clouds, but an indwelling Lord. God is IN all his creation but is not identified with it. The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said that “the world is charged with the grandeur of God”. Through the Father, our God is to be sought and found in all things, which he has created and keeps in being. From the simplest minerals which are alive with atomic energy, to the most gifted and creative human being, to the outermost galaxy. And so we have the lovely prayer of Moses in today’s First Reading; Let my Lord come with us.

God the Son*
If we can speak of God as Father/Mother, then the “only begotten” must equally be spoken of as Son/Daughter. The Only Begotten as such, can be neither male nor female even though incarnation de facto took place in a male. However, the Creed which we will soon recite says of the Son/Daughter that homo factus est, which should literally be translated “was made human” or “became human”. The word homo- in Latin, like anthropos in Greek, does not specify gender; both men and women are homo. We know the Son, of course, best through Jesus, born of Mary in Bethlehem. In him, there was the mysterious combination of the divine and the human in one Person. Jesus was totally God and totally human – not half and half. This is a truth as far beyond our comprehension as the Trinity itself. Jesus is the revelation, the unveiling in human form of our God. The message of this revelation is purely and simply to let us know that God, that the Father, loves us with an overwhelming love. John tells us in today’s Gospel passage: God [Father] loves the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God [Father] sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. God is not concealed behind the humanity of Jesus, but is seen precisely in that humanity. When is Jesus most clearly revealing of the Father? In his miracles? Certainly. But surely Jesus is most clearly revealing the heart of the Father when he is at his most human. We see the Father God most clearly in Jesus in his compassion for the weak, the needy, the sinner; in forgiving the sinner and his enemies; in healing the physically and mentally sick; in integrating the social outcast back into the community; in his unconditional acceptance of all irrespective of class, religion, or gender. Yes, our Father God really loves the world and that has been shown to us by the Only Begotten in Jesus.

God the Spirit
Finally, we see God as indwelling Spirit. The Spirit is described first as the subsisting Love that is generated between the Father and the Son. Again, of course, we cannot speak of either “he” or “she,” still less of this Love as “it.” The meaning of the Spirit in practice means that God is indwelling in all creation and revealing himself through it. Wherever there is Truth or Love or Beauty, there is God. Every act of truth and integrity, every act of love and compassion, every act of human empathy, every act of solidarity, forgiveness, acceptance, justice in people is the Spirit of God working in and through us. When such actions appear in us, they are a sign that we are open to the Spirit and that he is working in us and through us. Let us pray today with Paul in the Second Reading: Try to grow perfect; help one another. Be united; live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you…And Paul concludes with the lovely greeting we often use at the beginning of the Eucharist: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,the love of God [Father] and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” And finally, One last afterword. The two great mysteries of our faith are the Trinity and the Incarnation. They are combined in a marvellous simplicity in the Sign of the Cross with its accompanying words. Let us try to say this simple prayer with ever greater meaning and awareness and form the cross on our bodies with care and dignity. St. Ignatius of Loyola had such a love of the Trinity (as the result of some mystical experiences) that every time he began celebrating the Eucharist with the Sign of the Cross he broke down in tears and could hardly go on. Let us, too, rediscover the Sign of the Cross as a means of getting in touch with the God who loves us so much that he sent his Son and fills us with his Spirit.

*There is no sexual differentiation in God, so we can speak with equal validity of the First Person as Father/Mother and of the Second as Son/Daughter. The Spirit, too, is both male and female. This is the language of the Scripture texts reflecting the times in which they were written. It is not the words that are important, but their meaning.

First Impressions by Jude Siciliano, OP

First some background. Today is the feast of “The Most Holy Trinity.” At first glance it may seem like an unusual celebration. We are used to the major feasts of the year celebrating particular events in the life of Christ: e.g. the Nativity, Easter, the Ascension. But today’s feast isn’t originally based on one event in the life of Jesus. Instead, it arose from the Church’s desire to honor the mystery of God revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. From the earliest centuries Christians were already praying and baptizing in the name of the Trinity, as Jesus taught in Matthew 28:19. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” The early creeds of the Church, especially the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, with deeply Trinitarian. Christians believe in one God, yet expressed God as Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. In the fourth century major theological controversies forced the Church to clarify its teaching on the Trinity, addressing such questions as the divinity of Christ, or the Holy Spirit. The great teachers of the time, such as, Athanasius, Basil, Augustine, etc. defended the doctrine: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equal and eternal: three persons in one God. In 325 the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople (381) helped to define the teaching of the Trinity more clearly. At our liturgical celebrations today, we will recite the Nicene Creed. We celebrate today’s feast on the Sunday after Pentecost. This is meaningful: after celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost we pause to contemplate the fullness of God’s inner life revealed to us through salvation history. But remember: the feast of the holy Trinity is not simply doctrine to be explained, but a mystery to live out in our daily lives. God is an eternal communion of love, and we are invited into that communion through Christ in the Holy Spirit. Before we move to the Gospel’s teaching let’s look at traces of the Trinity in the Hebrew Scriptures. In our reading from Exodus, Moses encounters God on Mount Sinai, after the tragedy of the golden calf. The people had broken their covenant, yet God doesn’t come forth punishing them but extending mercy. God passes before Moses and proclaims God’s name and character: “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” This passage shows us the Trinity is not simply a doctrine about God’s inner life; it is a revelation of who God is towards us. The Trinity teaches that God is a communion of love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Exodus is already giving us hints of that divine love. Today we are reminded that God is personal, compassionate, forgiving and faithful. The God of Moses meets is not distant, vengeful or cold, but One who desires covenant and closeness to the chosen people, despite their resistance. We Christians will come to see that this mercy is fully revealed in the Father who sends the Son and in the Holy Spirit who remains with the Church. Note Moses’ response. He bows down in worship and asks God to remain with the people. “If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff necked yet pardon our wickedness and sins and receive us as your own.” The Trinity is not simply a teaching to be explained; it is a mystery into which we are invited. We are drawn into the life of our God through forgiveness, covenant and communion. So, our Exodus reading invites us to enter and celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity by revealing the deepest and most intimate truth about God: God’s nature is merciful love, faithful presence and saving communion with humanity. The gospel today presents again the central message of the Bible: God loves the world. Instead of coming down on us humans for our sins God loves us, frees us from our guilt and offers us eternal life. The opening verse (3:16) is a summary of the whole gospel message, “God so loved the world….” In a few words we come face-to-face with the mystery of who our God is and how God has acted towards us. If you can tell a tree by its fruit, then you can learn about God by what God has done for us: loved us and demonstrated that love by the concrete sign of Jesus’ life. Love is what moves God to get involved with us. And more, Jesus tells us, God wants to give us eternal life now. Today’s gospel passage is from a conversation Jesus is having with Nicodemus. Jesus tells him that we can put faith in Jesus and what he reveals about God’s love for us – or we can self-judge ourselves by rejecting Jesus. If we do put faith in Jesus we have eternal life. We usually think of “eternal life” as something that will begin for us at the moment of death and go on and on without end. But that’s not what eternal life is in John. Jesus says that believers can “have eternal life.” He is speaking in the present tense and is offering the gift of eternal life to us – beginning right now! What might this gift of “eternal life” look like in our lives? First of all, it is union in the very life of God. We have that intimacy with God through our union with Christ and the Holy Spirit in Baptism. This union frees us from fear of judgment. In Jesus we can see the true nature of our God – who already loves us. Now we are living in a new age and have passed from death to life. For John, Jesus is our saving gift in this present moment and through the Spirit, believers can recognize God’s gifts already present to us. Not on our own human efforts, but through our faith, we can have optimism, peace and gratitude to God. We can also accept the challenge faith puts before us – to be instruments of the peace and reconciliation to others that Jesus has already given us. No image can capture the holiness and greatness of our God. What words can describe God? God is more present to us than we are to ourselves. God is at the very core of our being; the source of all we are and can do. The contradiction we must admit today on this feast of the Trinity is this: the closer we get to God, the more alien we feel from our world and its ways. The closer and more comfortable we feel with our world, the more distinctively alien we are from the God the Scriptures reveal to us.

Quotable
When it is asked three what, then the great poverty from which our language suffers becomes apparent. But the formula three persons was coined not in order to give a complete explanation by means of it, but in order that we might not be obliged to remain silent. —Gregory of Nazianzus, in “Christology of the Later Fathers,” by Ed Hardy

Justice Bulletin Board by Barbara Molinari Quinby, MPS, Director Office of Human Life, Dignity, and Justice Ministries Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, NC

“We were all given to drink of one spirit”—1 Corinthians 12: 13

Do you find it hard to believe sometimes that we have one spirit in common? On the surface we seem so different. We come with different life experiences and have such a variety of interests and causes that we feel take priority... the spirit seems to get lost in the weaving of lives and attitudes. Yet, if we keep that one spirit as our guide, our lives will be formed in a transformed way. Pentecost is not just another day. If we had a picture of a person of spirit, what would we notice about them? Looking beyond the superficial, would we discover a person touched by the dove of peace, a person on fire with passion and love for others, a person who is just and life-giving like water? Looking further at that person, would we discover the creative wind of service in their actions? Would we not notice them at all? A person of spirit can appear as ordinary as anyone else and at the same time, full of revealing light. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit empowers the believer to spark the flame of this inner person who is so hidden. Announcing we are loved and anointed in an incomparable peace, we are to spread this love and peace to others, including, and especially, those who are not like us. We begin to see as God sees and act as God acts. God’s priorities for a just world become our priorities. The prophet Joel states that God will one day pour out divine spirit “upon all mankind” (Joel 3:1). Joel envisioned a world in which all people would be enlivened and transformed by the divine life breathing within them. This is a world-altering change in your own thinking and being. Pentecost will have arrived. Imagine, just imagine, a people of spirit creating a world of unity amid diversity; a just world filled with love and peace for all. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created. And you shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who, by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy your consolations. Through Christ our Lord, let us drink of the one spirit, the spirit that connects us all. Amen.

Faith Book

Mini-reflections on the Sunday scripture readings designed for persons on the run. “Faith Book” is also brief enough to be posted in the Sunday parish bulletins people take home.

From today’s first reading: (Exodus 34: 4b-6, 8-9) Early in the morning Moses went up Mount Sinai as the LORD had commanded him, taking along the two stone tablets. Thus the LORD passed before him and cried out, “The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship.

Reflection: Who is this God who is so revelatory to Moses? Who is this God who is about to take the Israelites, a broken and recalcitrant people and make them new again? This is the God who chooses to be with us, despite our own unworthiness. This is the God who comes in a cloud; who may not be seen but certainly is experienced. And what do Moses and the people experience of this God? How shall they “name” God? Judging from today’s story God is patient and compassionate; takes the initiative to reach out to us; is not dissuaded by our sins; is faithful to us, even when we have built our own idols to worship; can take a broken people and make them whole again.

So, we ask ourselves:

• From my present experience: What name would I give God?

• Has the reality of God changed for me in recent years?

• What events in my life influenced that change?

ENCOUNTER CHRIST REFLECTIONS & MEDITATIONS

PREPARATION FOR THE SESSION
Adapted from Sacred Space: The Prayer Book 2025

Presence of God: Jesus, As I come to you today, fill my heart, my whole being, with the wonder of your sacred presence. Help me to become more aware of your presence in my life, and more receptive to that presence. I desire to love you as you love me. May nothing ever separate me from you. (1-2 minutes of silence)

Freedom: Jesus, Grant me the grace to have freedom of spirit. Keep me from being bound by desires and actions that are not good for me or others. Cleanse my heart and soul that I may live joyously in your love. (1-2 minutes of silence)

Consciousness: Where am I with God? With others in my life? What am I grateful for? Is there something I am sorry for, words or actions that have hurt others, and which I now regret? I take a moment to ask forgiveness of God and of those whom I have hurt. God, I give you thanks for your constant love and care for me. Keep me always aware of your presence in my life. (2-3 minutes of silence)

OPENING PRAYER
From St Ignatius of Loyola:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.

COMPANIONS FOR THE JOURNEY

Barbara Brown Taylor, a scripture scholar and preacher, quotes Robert Farrar Capon, who says that when we humans try to describe God it’s like a bunch of oysters trying to describe a ballerina.

From “First Impressions”, 2023, a service of the Southern Dominican Province: How can God be one and three? How can God be three and one? How can Jesus operate on his own? Who is the Holy Spirit; is it the spirit of God? The spirit of Jesus? How can one come to us, leave and then send another, as Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit after he left? Don’t be discouraged by these questions. Since the beginning the greatest saints and scholars have tried to answer questions like these, and have come up short. We are going to be disappointed if we think the Scripture readings chosen for this feast will help us “explain” the Trinity. The feast  doesn’t pose a problem to be solved;  but a mystery to be celebrated -- the mystery of God’s wonderful ways of interacting with us. Those ways are more numerous than even the Bible can describe, or enumerate. But that hasn’t kept the scriptural authors from trying! We may not be able to explain the Trinity today, but we get  help from the Scriptures so we can be more aware who our God is, how God relates to us and how we are to respond in our daily lives. We earthly creatures build barricades of one kind or another. We put “those people” on one side and ourselves and those like us, on the other. We keep “them” over there and, as evidenced by the local and international news today, we will distance ourselves from them, hate and even kill them. After all, the logic concludes, they deserve to be punished because they are so bad. If it were up to me and I had God’s power, I would wreak vengeance on all the evildoers in the world. “Enough is enough!”  I would come down hard with my divine hammer of justice. Martin Luther had a similar instinct. He said if he were God and knew what God knows about the world, he would just put an end to it all and submit it to hellfire. But he wasn’t God, nor am I. On this feast of the Trinity, we need to relearn who God is and how God operates. We do that by turning a believing ear to the Word of God. Contrary to our way of thinking God  acts differently from us. The Word teaches us that we are made in the image and likeness of God and so, we are called to imitate that God whom the Bible reveals to us. Earlier in the Exodus account Moses had asked God, “Show me your glory, I pray” (33:18). God responded, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim before you the name, ‘the Lord’….But you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live” (3:19-20). God tucks Moses into the cleft of the rock and covers him until God passes by. Moses is allowed to only see God’s back (32:23). Then God speaks and it is necessary for us to hear the description of who our God is, “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” Thus, along with Moses, we hear an oft-repeated biblical description of God. Is it not also how our gospel reading describes God for us today, “God so loved the world….?” God’s love has been constant and faithful, proven by the gift of the Son for us. This is a good time to ask how does our own image of God and our actions, measure up to the revelation of God the Scriptures present to us today and throughout both the Hebrew texts and the New Testament? In 2 Corinthians Paul encourages the community, “to mend your ways.” He instructs them to live together in love and peace. His concern is for the unity of the church community. He knows well the dissension among those Corinthians, the barricades between rich and poor, old timers and newcomers. On their own they could never reflect the peace and unity he wants for the community of believers. But grace can make it possible and so he prays, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” Our church today has the same human tensions Paul observed among the Christians in Corinth. So, as we hear his prayer, we pray it for ourselves. Who is this God Paul preachers and calls upon to bless the divided Corinthians? Paul clearly believes that our triune God loves us, freely graces us in Jesus and, through the Holy Spirit, is the source of our communion with each other. The gospel today presents again the central message of the Bible: God loves the world. Instead of coming down on us humans for our sins, God loves us, frees us from our guilt and offers us eternal life. The opening verse (3:16) is a summary of the whole gospel message, “God so loved the world….” In a few words we come face-to-face with the mystery of who our God is and how God has acted towards us. If you can tell a tree by its fruit, then you can learn about God by what God has done for us: loved us and demonstrated that love by the concrete sign of Jesus’ life. Love is what moves God to get involved with us. And more, Jesus tells us, God wants to give us eternal life now. Today’s gospel passage is from a conversation Jesus is having with Nicodemus. Jesus tells him that we can put faith in Jesus and what he reveals about God’s love for us—or we can self-judge ourselves by rejecting Jesus. If we do put faith in Jesus we have eternal life. We usually think of “eternal life” as something that will begin for us at the moment of death and go on and on without end. But that’s not what eternal life is in John. Jesus says that believers can “have eternal life.” He is speaking in the present tense and is offering the gift of eternal life to us—beginning right now! What might this gift of “eternal life” look like in our lives? First of all, it is union in the very life of God. We  have that intimacy with God through our union with Christ and the Holy Spirit in Baptism. This union frees us from fear of judgment. In Jesus we can see the true nature of our God—who already loves us. Now we are living in a new age and have passed from death to life. For John, Jesus is our saving gift in this present moment and through the Spirit, believers can recognize God’s gifts already present to us. Not on our own human efforts, but through our faith, we can have optimism, peace and gratitude to God. We can also accept the challenge faith puts before us—to be instruments of the peace and reconciliation to others that Jesus has already given us. Jesus did not wish to see anyone condemned. Today’s reading shows that once we acknowledge Jesus as the one who will determine our life’s orientation, then we judge ourselves by his life and teachings. In his own life he shows what faithfulness to God entails. If we reject him we bring on our own self-condemnation (“Whoever does not believe has already been condemned.”) Sent by God, Jesus unites time and eternity. In him our future is made present. No image can capture the holiness and greatness of our God. What words can describe God? God is more present to us than we are to ourselves. God is at the very core of our being; the source of all we are and can do. The contradiction we must admit today on this feast of the Trinity is this: the closer we get to God, the more alien we feel from our world and its ways. The closer and more comfortable we feel with our world, the more distinctively alien we are from the God the Scriptures reveal to us. —by Jude Siciliano, OP

LIVING THE GOOD NEWS
What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion? Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions which follow.

Reflection Questions:
Do I treat the Trinity as an unsolvable theological puzzle or as a model for personal relationships?

When I pray, to which person of the Blessed Trinity do I most often do so?
Why?

From Daniel J Harrington, S.J.:
Who is God for you?
How do you explain this to someone?
How does your experience of God correlate with the approach found in the Bible?
Do you often invite God to “come along in your company?”
Why or why not?

Through Him and with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours Almighty Father. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are each unique. Can there be unity in diversity?
Can I praise the uniqueness of those in my life, or do I want them to think, believe and act as I do?
Can I, upon reflection, share in the rhythm of God’s own life?
How?

Adapted from Sacred Space: a service of the Irish Jesuits:
It has been said that if we lost all of the four gospels except John 3:16, that would be enough for us. Pope Francis put it this way: “When everything is Said and done, we are infinitely loved”.
Do I believe this in my heart?

John’s entire gospel is “God is Love”. What does this passage say to you about God’s love for you?

What is the most common Christian interpretation of Jesus’ death on the cross?
Do you think of The Cross as punishment/reparation or as love/self-donation?

Do you believe that “whoever does not believe has been condemned?”
How do you interpret this sentence?

St Augustine said: “Are you looking for something to give God? Give him yourself.” So to love is to give oneself.
To whom or what do I give myself?
Is there something I am withholding?

What do I give God (obedience, prayer, Mass attendance, good works, personal sacrifice)?

Father William Bausch wrote: We are at our best, most human, most moral, most divine, when we are in loving relationships. I think of some of my relationships: Do I give love or merely receive it?
Do I act lovingly towards even the most annoying people in my lie?
Do I believe my loving relationships are a mirror of the loving relationship that is the Trinity?

CLOSING PRAYER
Don’t forget to provide some prayer time at the beginning and at the end of the session (or both), allowing time to offer prayers for anyone you wish to pray for. (The first sentence is from Thomas Merton.)

How far I have to go to find you in whom I have already arrived! God, You are puzzle to me in so many ways. Keep me from distracting myself with endless theological questions, and keep me from giving up on knowing you better. For you know me, with all my faults, and love me utterly. That is all I need to know.

FOR THE WEEK AHEAD

Weekly Memorization:
Taken from the gospel for today’s session: God so loved the world that He gave His ony son.

Meditations:
A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking questions: How do you explain the sentence: “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?” One theory, resurrected every now and then is called Divine Retribution, which posits that God’s anger at sinful humanity could only be appeased by God becoming human and dying to assuage that anger. Otherwise, God, in his righteous sense of true justice, would keep all of us from union with himself because we, as heirs of Adam and Eve and sinful people ourselves, do not deserve salvation. Jesus purchased our salvation with His life. Another possibility is that God “gave his only son” to show us how to live. If so, His death was a fully expected outcome of being human; in addition, his kind of death was not wholly unexpected, given what he was preaching. The death of an innocent Son of God proclaims solidarity with all those in the world who have suffered abuse, who have been wrongly accused, who have died violently in their innocence. Which theory do you prefer?

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking questions: Read the following hymn from Philippians 2:5-8. “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” Do I see in Jesus a reflection of my own humanity? Do I seek to emulate Jesus in not desiring rank and power for myself? Am I, like Jesus, motivated by love to act as I do? What am I willing to endure for the sake of someone in my life whom I love? What am I willing to endure for the sake of God whom I love?

A Meditation in the Franciscan style/Action: The following was taken from Praying with Julian of Norwich, by Gloria Durka. “I saw and understood that the high might of the Trinity is our Father, and the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our mother, and the great love of the Trinity is our Lord; all these things we have in nature and in our substantial creation. Thus in our Father, God almighty, we have our being, and in our Mother of mercy we have our reforming and restoring, in whom our parts are united and all made perfect man, and through the rewards of Grace of the Holy Spirit we are fulfilled. (excerpted from Julian of Norwich, Showings pp. 293, 295) Reflect for a time on the image of God as our Mother with wisdom and mercy, reforming and restoring us. Does this image offer you a new way of experiencing God’s love? How have you shared your wisdom and mercy lately? Bring to mind some of the ways in which you have been a wise counselor and merciful mother to people in the last week or so. Think about some ways in which you have increased in your own love of God. Compare your love for God with what it was when you were a child. Thank God now for this increasing in your life. Pray for awareness of how you can help someone else think of God’s love as being like a mother’s love—someone in your family, a friend who is distressed, or someone else who is in need of love and loving.

A Meditation on the Franciscan Style/ Action: Read 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13. Imagine God saying these things to you. “Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace…” How do you see yourself concretely living out these exhortations? Where do you need some extra help from the Spirit? Pick one circumstance in your life which needs to change, or one relationship which could use improvement and talk to God about ways in which you need to change. Then do it.

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship: Think of someone you love. How often does she come to mind? Do you have a pet name for him, or do you have several? Does thinking about her make you smile? What do you do that you know makes him happy? How do you picture God (Do you pick one person of the Blessed Trinity, or do you pick all three symbolized by two men (one old, one young) and a bird?) How often during the day do you think of God? What do you call God? (Anne Lamott says she has a friend who calls God ‘Howard”, as in, “our Father Howard in heaven.) If you don’t have a pet name for God, try to think of one—it tells you something about your relationship to God. What do you think would make God happy? Do you do it? St. Peter, when asked by Jesus if he loved him, responded in the affirmative, but used the Greek word philia instead of the Greek word agape—a more self-rewarding kind of love, which prompted Jesus to tell him that love for Jesus meant feeding Jesus’ sheep—caring for others. How often does your love for God (or for only one of the Trinity) motivate you to care for others?

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship: (From Sacred Space, a service of the Irish Jesuits) It has been said that if all the Gospels ahd been lost early on except “for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”, that would be enough for us. Once we know that God loves the world to bits, we have hope. God is hard at work to save us—from evil and faiure and ruin and darkness. God’s plan is to bring all of us imto eternal life. Pope Francis puts it daringly: “When everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.” (The Joy of the Gospel). Let this be my mantra for today and every day. Relationships are transformed when I catch on to the fact that the other person in infinetely loved. I speak to God ( in whatever personal I imagine) in thanksgiving for being loved so much.

POETIC REFLECTIONS

Thomas Merton, monk and poet, enters a mystical realm as he contemplates the Trinity:

For the sound of my beloved,
The voice of the sound of my Three-Beloved
(One of my Three of my One Beloved)
Comes down out of the heavenly depths
And hits my heart like thunder;
And lo! I am alive and dead
With heart held fast in the Three-Personed love.
And lo! God! My God!
Look! Look! I travel inThy Strength
I swing in the grasp of Thy Love, Thy great Love’s
One strength,
I run Thy swift ways, Thy straightest rails
Until my life becomes Thy Life and sails or rides
Like an express!

—from Collected Poems

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How does this poem help us see different “persona” of God as reflected in the Trinity?

From Narrow Places by Ed Ingebretsen, S.J.

From narrow places
the strength of our voice
rises:
our every breath
is prayer,
the great poem of need,
a constant scattering
of praise.
Early
we reach to God
in the claim of our hearts,
while he,
our father,
mothers us
in his

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Read the following poem Do you see in this an affirmation of God’s love for us?

Gather the People by Ed Ingebretzen, S.J.
What return can we make
for all the Lord has done in our lives?
We bring bread, wine, our clay dishes
and our clay feet
to this altar
and we pray that we may here
make a beginning--
that somehow in our days
we can begin to see the promises
the Lord has made us.
The promises do not always
glow with obvious light, or
overwhelm us by their obvious truth.
No matter what anyone says,
it is difficult to understand an invisible God
and belief is not always
the easy way out.
So we gather the people
and we tell the story again
and we break the bread
and in the memory of the one
who saves us,
we eat and drink
and we pray and we believe.
We gather, we pray, we eat.
These things are for human beings.
God has no need of them.
Yet he himself gathered the people,
prayed, broke bread
and gave it to his friends.
And so the invisible God became
visible
and lives with us.
—from Psalms from the Still Country