Trinity Sunday
From Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday we journeyed through the 40 days of Lent. From Easter Sunday until Pentecost we enjoyed the 50 days of the Easter Season and we now come to the part of the Churches Year that is called Ordinary Time. This weekend we celebrate Trinity Sunday which is all about the triune god Father, son and Holy Spirit. We remember that the Father is equal to the Son and the Son is equal to the Spirit three in one and one in three we hear this in the breastplate of St. Patrick. The 4th century St Patrick, with a brilliance that we Irish are justly celebrate found in the three leaf shamrock rising from the one stem an image of the Trinity. The feast of the Trinity goes back to 12th century England and St Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Historians say the great Thomas celebrated a Liturgy in honor of the Trinity in his cathedral. So the observance was born. In the 14th century, the feast came to be observed by the universal Church.
We open each Liturgy especially the Mass by invoking the Trinity. We also close Mass and other liturgies by calling upon those same 3 people Father Son and Spirit to bless us as we go out into the world. Throughout the Christian world many people young and not so young will be received into their faith communities through Baptism in the name of the Trinity. The Christian belief that God is a trinity helps underscore how rich the mystery of God is and how our experience of God is always richer than our concepts and language about God. In intellectual terms, God remains a mystery. For people of faith, God is known not by the mind, but by the heart. That is what spirituality and mysticism are about – exploring our experience of God. In the first reading God is proclaimed as a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger and rich in mercy; a God who walks with his people. St. Paul’s words in the second reading are born out of his belief that, having been made in the image and likeness of God, Christians must always act in the image and likeness of God.
When the Church celebrates the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, it is an attempt to summarize the whole mystery of our God into one day. This is not just a “theological feast” but a feast which should speak to us of this simple fact of faith: the Father loves us, has revealed that love in his Son, and has called us into a relationship sustained by the Spirit. It is our joy that, as baptized members of the Church, we can share in that divine life and love as children of God. God has chosen us, and we are his own people, just as he chose the people of Israel long ago. Each Trinity Sunday, we only scratch the surface of this great mystery of our faith. In gratitude and faith, let us begin and end every prayer with greater faith and reverence as we invoke the Blessed Trinity when we say “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
Fullerton T 