Reflection on the Readings at Mass for the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity – Year A. The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray. (The Solemnity of the Holy Trinity) Year A. READINGS: Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13, and John 20:19-23.
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
On the first Sunday after Pentecost, we faithful ones of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church assemble together to celebrate and reflect upon the mystery of God’s nature of being three persons in one God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This important feast has been part of our tradition since the 14th century.
It would be sufficient for us to believe the Christian mystery of God being one God in three distinct persons, because our salvation is immediately connected to that mystery. For, if the nature of God is not one and if there is not perfect communion between the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, then there is no way for certain to know if what Christ Jesus has promised us would be satisfied by the Father or whether the Holy Spirit is truly working in us on our behalf. For, if the Godhead is not immutable and impassible and truly one in that aspect of their nature, then our hope is in vain in believing in a Godhead who may be at war with each other. In this way, being a Christian would be no better belief system than being a devote of Zeus or Ra, or any of the old pagan gods. Therefore, for our faith to be well placed in the promises of Christ Jesus, there must be a Holy Trinity.
It is also true that our faith is not just well placed in the mere sufficiency of the thing we profess. Rather, our faith has been well satisfied in the visible reality of our belief. That is, we not only believe in the one nature of God, because Scripture and Tradition informs us it is true, but we know that Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one, because God has loved us perfectly and there is no division in divine love, and we know that that nature of God is love, because love cannot keep itself secret from its object of love whom it desires the best for, and neither has God ever been able to keep His love for us a secret.
The image of horses biting their mouthpiece before the start of a race; ‘biting at the bit’ as they say, may not be the perfect analogy to describe the Theophany event in Exodus 19:16-25, but it does feel like God could not wait to make Himself known to His People whom He delivered out of bondage in Egypt. I say this because of the optics of it all; it was quite the production how God first appeared to the Israelites; it was not lowkey at all – there were “were peals of thunder and lightning, and a heavy cloud over the mountain, and a very loud blast of the shofar, so that all the people in the camp trembled,” and this first Theophany was prefaced with the establishment of a cooperative or conditional covenant in Exodus 19:5, with God promising, “Now, if you obey me completely and keep my covenant, you will be my treasured possession among all peoples, though all the earth is mine.” Here, the Hebrew for the word ‘covenant’ is bᵊrîṯ, simply meaning an alliance and friendship. This first Theophany event was followed by the issuance of the Ten Commandments. Then in today’s First Reading from Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9, we hear about another Theophany at the time of the renewal of Tablets on which the Ten Commandments were originally written by the finger of God, but were smashed by Moses shortly thereafter after he witnessed idolatry upon his return with to children of Israel.
If you have ever been given a gift by your parents and somehow ended up feeling miserable for spoiling or ruining or destroying what they gave you, you know how impossible it would have been to ask them for the same thing again. Most of us would never dare cross that line. Yet, if our parents, out of their knowledge, kindness, and mercy knew how much we needed that gift, they might sound like God here; letting us know why they are doing it, “The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity, continuing his love for a thousand generations, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin; yet not declaring the guilty guiltless, but bringing punishment for their parents’ wickedness on children and children’s children to the third and fourth generation!” After being with them day and night for years in the desert, Moses knew the children of Israel very well. He knowledge of them was evident in his confession, “This is needed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and claim us as your own.” To which, in verse 10, God established a promissory or unconditional bᵊrîṯ; another alliance and friendship to perform marvels among them so that those who witness them will know that the Lord is with them.
This is the understanding of God among the Jews; that God is truly with us, and we know that He is with us because He has made promissory and cooperative alliances and friendships with us. Indeed, we hear that same language in Second Reading today from 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 in the Apostle Paul’s blessings, writing, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” This is covenantal language; language of a divine alliance and friendship or fellowship being expressed through the images of a Triune God. Again, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” Indeed, it sounds very similar to Numbers 6:24-26 blessing, which reads, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”
If we hadn’t gotten the message yet, that God truly loves us and that He cannot but help to show us at every moment of our life how much He loves us, and that the timeless means of His love for us is expressed through relationship, friendship, and alliance, then the Gospel Reading from John 3:16-18 reminds us again, saying, “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.” And if one were to ask how this relationship is perceptible to the senses, we might say that that New Covenant is edible. For Christ Jesus entered the world through the Virgin Mary and was placed in a manager, which was a wooden or stone feeding trough – a food box for animals, and that same Christ Jesus later promised us that if we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we would have eternal life. This is why He came into the world; that we might have our daily bread and life eternal.
In this way, the nature and mission of the liturgy and the nature of the Holy Trinity are one; they are both love. For through the liturgy of the Mass, God demonstrates to us that He desires the best for us; that He loves us and He wants to feed us our eternal life through the Holy Eucharist; that in being truly present at the Holy Mass, He comes to have relationship and friendship with us; in sending out of the Mass to be a Eucharistic people in the world, He demonstrates that He comes to be our ally in the world, so that through our acts as apostles of Christ, the world might see His marvelous deeds and come to believe in His Son through the agency of His love at work through us. Indeed, while the celebration of The Most Holy Trinity is special for this day, it is also every day we come into her liturgical order to renew our relationship, friendship, and alliance with the source of our life.
This is just one way how the readings at Mass this Sunday connect to the liturgy and how the liturgy is forming us on how to live our lives in the world. Be in the world who you have received during the liturgy.
