May 26, 2024 Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Welcome Father Bernward Today’s Readings: Dt 4:32-34, 39-40 | Rom 8:14-17 | Mt 28:16-20

On this feast day [we celebrate God: the mystery of the one God.] And this God is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Three persons, but God is one! The Father is God; the Son is God; the Spirit is God. But they are not three gods: it is one God in three Persons. It is a mystery that Jesus Christ revealed to us: the Holy Trinity. Today we pause to celebrate this mystery, because the Persons are not adjectives of God, no. They are real, diverse, different Persons […]

There is the Father to whom I pray with the Our Father; there is the Son, who gave me redemption, justification; there is the Holy Spirit who abides in us and inhabits the Church. And this speaks to our heart because we find it encompassed in that expression of Saint John which summarizes all of Revelation: “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8-16). The Father is love; the Son is love; the Holy Spirit is love. And inasmuch as he is love, God, while being one alone, is not solitude but communion, among the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Because love is essentially a gift of self, and in its original and infinite reality it is the Father who gives himself by generating his Son, who in turn gives himself to the Father, and their mutual love is the Holy Spirit, the bond of their unity. It is not easy to understand, but we can live this mystery, all of us, we can live it a great deal.

This mystery of the Trinity was revealed to us by Jesus himself. He showed us the face of God as merciful Father; he presented Himself, true man, as the Son of God and Word of the Father, the Saviour who gives his life for us; and he spoke of the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son, the Spirit of Truth, the Paraclete Spirit — we spoke last Sunday about this word, ‘Paraclete’ — meaning Consoler and Advocate. And when Jesus appeared to the Apostles after the Resurrection, Jesus invited them to evangelize “all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19).

Today’s celebration, therefore, makes us contemplate this marvelous mystery of love and of light from which we come and toward which our earthly journey is guided.

In the message of the Gospel and in every form of Christian mission, one cannot overlook this unity among us to which Jesus calls, following the unity of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: one cannot overlook this unity. The beauty of the Gospel asks to be lived — unity — and witnessed in the harmony among us, who are so diverse! And this unity, I dare say, is essential to Christians: it is not an attitude, a manner of speaking, no; it is essential, because it is the unity that arises from love, from the mercy of God, from the justification of Jesus Christ and from the presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

Mary Most Holy, in her simplicity and humility, reflects the Beauty of the Triune God, because she fully welcomed Jesus into her life. May she sustain our faith; may she make us worshippers of God and servants of our brothers and sisters.

Source: Excerpt from an Angelus speech by Pope Francis, Trinity Sunday 2021, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2021/documents/papa-francesco_angelus_20210530.html Source of illustration: Elizabeth Wang, T-00461B-CW, ‘Trinity’, copyright © Radiant Light 2006, www.radiantlight.org.uk

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• 2 June - Please not that our next Social Sunday with social gathering and children’s church will not take place at the first Sunday of next month (June 2), but is moved to the following Sunday, June 9, where hopefully most of the community are back from any eventual holiday travels.