THE ICON OF THE TRINITY

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Jn 16:12-15 (Prov 8:22-31 / Ps 8 / Rom5:1-5)

We celebrate today the deepest and greatest mystery of our Christian faith: the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.  This is the mystery of God Himself.  This is the mystery of what and who He really is.  Today is the fiesta of God Himself.

First of all, this is what the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is telling us: There is only one God.  He is not two, three, or one thousand.  He is only one.  He was the God of the Old Testament just as He is the God of the New Testament.  He was God before anything existed.  He is God today.  He is God forever.  He has no beginning and no end.  He does not fade, and neither does He increase nor does He decrease.  Yesterday, today, and forever, He and He only is God.  Omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, there is no other like Him and no one is equal to Him.  God is one.

Second, though He is the one and only God, He is not alone.  He is one, but not solitary.  There are Three Persons in Him: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  His Godhead, however, is not divided into three.  On the contrary, the fullness of divinity resides in each of the Three Persons.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit enjoy individual divine existence; thus, each is indeed a Person, equal in majesty and power.  Each of Them also has His own role in the economy of salvation and in sustaining the whole of creation.  The Father creates, the Son redeems, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies.  However, when each fulfills the role proper to Him, all Three Persons are actively present in loving cooperation.  Thus, the Father creates by His Eternal Word, who is the Son, and breathes His breath, who is the Spirit (Ruah Yahweh), into His creation.  The Son redeems, as He was sent by the Father out of love, and makes it possible for us to share in His divine life through the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, teaches and reminds us everything that Jesus revealed for our salvation.  And dwelling in us, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit sanctify us, giving us a share in Their love and life.

Clearly, God is a community where mutual love, respect, and active collaboration reign.  Despite their individualities in existence, identity, and roles, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit do not fight over the one Godhead; instead, they are one God.  They do not contrive against one another.  They congregate as one God.  They do not congregate against any of Them.  The inexhaustible beauty of this unfathomable mystery is that it is us who benefit from this perfect unity of the Three Divine Persons.  The blessings of God's communitarian character does not remain within Himself, it naturally flows out to us.  God's community does not exist for Himself but for others.

Third, the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity constantly reminds us of our mandate as Church to mirror God in His being a community.  As there are three different Persons in One God, so it is with us.  We are different from one another – in physical features, in knowledge and skills, in roles to fulfill, in states in life, and in ministries – but we are  one Church, Christ's mystical body with Himself as Head.  Thus, if we want to build up the Church, we must build up one another.  If we love Jesus, we should love the Church, and loving the Church means for us loving one another because we are, again, the Church.  When we do so, we reflect the Trinitarian mystery of God to all.

Therefore, we have to seriously strive for unity in our midst.  A people that worships the Triune God but neglects the call to unity mocks the very God it says it worships.  A church that allows disunity among its members, much more sows and nurtures it, is not the Body of Christ but the slave of the devil.

Instead of being the reason for deep-seated conflicts, unhealthy disagreements, and wounds that refuse to heal, the fact that we have differences should be ironically the very reason for our greater unity.  Through generously contributing our unique gifts and giftedness, we can make our Christian community more and more a mirror of the Most Holy Trinity.

As mentioned earlier, God’s being a community is not for Himself, but for others.  The same should be true to our Christian community, whether we are referring to our parish or our dioceses or even the universal Church herself.  We exist not for our selves.  We must live for others.  And by “others”, we mean not only the others who already share our Christian faith, but also those who do not.  “Others” include all humanity and the whole of creation in fact.  Our being Church is for others – friend and foe.  Being Church is being men and women for others.  The graces of our unity, respect, collaboration, and love should never remain exclusively within our community.  They must continually flow in and out of our community.  We are a parish but we should not be parochial.  We are a Church, not a ghetto.  We are Church not only in the world but also for the world. 

On this day of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, we declare three things: first, God is one; second, there are Three Persons in One God; and third, we, the Church, are the icon of the Trinity in the world and for the world.  Today is the fiesta of God Himself and so today is our fiesta, too.  Happy fiesta po!  Let us face and take the challenge of this feast: Mirror the community of the One God in and for our one, but fragmented, world.

FARE WELL

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Jn 14:23-29 (Acts 15:1-2, 22-29 / Ps 67 / Rev 21:10-14, 22-23)

The first reading today ends with the word “farewell”.  If “farewell” were a song, it may also well be the musical score for today’s Gospel.  Like this:

                   Farewell to you, my friends.

                        We’ll see each other again.

                        Don’t cry ‘coz it’s not the end of  

                        everything.

                        I may be miles away,

                        But here in my heart you’ll stay with 

                        me,

                        My friends with me.

There is always sadness in parting.  More often, those who will be left behind are sadder than the one who has to leave.  But the prospect of meeting again somehow eases the pain of separation and the promise of keeping one another in one another’s heart help everyone involved in accepting the reality of the departure that confronts them.

However, unlike the song I sung earlier that says that his friends will stay with him in his heart, Jesus tells His disciples in the Gospel today that instead it is Him and the Father who will make their dwelling in their hearts.  That is even better!  But what is best is that Jesus gives His word to us, too.  Through the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus describes in the Gospel today as “The Advocate”, that is “The Helper”, the Father and the Son live in us.

Jesus has gone out of our sight but never out of our hearts.  He remains there.  It is His permanent address now.  Thus, it matters less for us to see Him with our eyes compared to experiencing Him in our hearts.  He remains present, and He is present not only to us but in us as well.  For now, we cannot see Him physically but that does not make Him less present today compared to the days of the Apostles; it only means that He is present today in a different way, and we now see Him by faith and not by sight.  We do not believe in Him by seeing; rather, we see Jesus by believing first.

Next Sunday, we will be celebrating the Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension.  The liturgy today prepares us for that.  Among other things, the liturgy aims to emphasize to us that the Lord’s going away, His ascension into heaven, does not disrupt the continuity in our personal and ecclesial relationship with Jesus.  If, like the Apostles, we left everything behind to follow Jesus, this continuity in our personal relationship with Jesus is of great importance to us.  This continuity in our ecclesial communion with Jesus is of paramount concern for us as church as well, for without Jesus we are a headless body.

The liturgy today, most especially the Gospel, stresses to us that the ascension of Jesus, far from breaking the continuity of our personal and ecclesial relationship with Him, makes the same relationship take on not only a new form but a deeper way of living it out.  That way is the path that can be trod by faith alone.  Without faith, there can be no relationship with Jesus, and with the Father and the Holy Spirit as well.  With Jesus and the Father dwelling in our hearts, “we live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7).

But faith does not give us all the clear answers to our questions.  Sometimes, faith does confuse us and creates tensions within the community of believers.  Provided these confusion and tensions are healthy and sincere, faith still continues to grow and even deepens more.

Because we now must grope in the darkness of earthly life, with faith alone as our light, Jesus gives us the assurance that we are not at all alone.  The darkness that we must go through, individually and as church, should not frighten us because, as Jesus says, He, in fact, remains not only with us but also in us.  This is His farewell gift to us.  Thus, He tells us as He told His Apostles in the Gospel, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”

The Lord’s continuing presence in us is His gift to us but it is also our task.  What then must we do?  Jesus says, “Whoever loves Me will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and make our dwelling with Him.”  Do we love Jesus?  Do we really, really love Jesus?  This is what we must do: love Jesus!  And the most convincing proof of our love for Him is in our keeping His word.  To keep His word means, first, to listen to Jesus in prayer and scripture reading so that we may, second, obey His word.  Do we always listen to Jesus?  Do we truly pray?  Do we still read the Bible, most especially the Gospels?  If we do listen to Jesus, do we therefore obey Him or all we do is listen to Him?  In Hebrew, the word for “to obey” is lesmuah whose root word is shema which means “to listen”, for, indeed, the purpose of listening should be obedience.  Why should you listen when you don’t have any intention to obey?  Listen then obey.  Listen so that you may obey.  Keep Jesus’ word: listen to Him and obey Him.

We know by experience that sometimes listening even to Jesus is difficult for us to do, most especially when the truth we hear from Him hurts us to the core.  How much more difficult it is to obey Jesus and not merely listen to Him!  Thus, Jesus gives us His very own Spirit to help us by teaching us and reminding us all that He told us.  For, indeed, many times when we are hurt we are confused and when we refuse to obey it is because we forget.

In the first reading today, we are given an example of the effect of the Holy Spirit on the otherwise confused community of the early Christians.  In their letter to the church in Antioch, the Apostles right away give credit to the Holy Spirit at work in them as they communicate their resolution on the issue of imposing circumcision on the Gentile converts: “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us….”  The same Holy Spirit is still at work not only through us but also in us.  If only we submit to Him totally and strive to be docile to Him at all times, the Holy Spirit will teach us and remind us, even as He supplies us with courage, generosity, humility, joy, and peace, in each and every important decision we make as individuals and as church.  Then we shall see and know that, indeed, Jesus has not left us at all.  With the Father, He dwells in us.

“Farewell” is not a sad word.  “Farewell” means “do well, fare well”.  It is a wish, even a command, for the good of the other.  It means, “I hope to meet you again still in the best of everything.”  When someone tells you, “Goodbye”, which really means, “God be with you”, say, “Farewell.  May we meet again and when we meet I pray that you are doing well.  I wish you well.  I hope you will fare well in life.”

So, farewell, fare well!  And you will indeed FARE WELL as long as you keep the Lord’s word for love of Him.