Welcome to Ordinary Time! Last Sunday’s Pentecost Sunday marked the official end of the Easter Season, but, even though we are now in Ordinary Time, there’s nothing ordinary about this Sunday’s Solemnity: The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.
The Holy Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; one God — is the object of all our worship and our entire lives. It is often the case that we begin Holy Mass with the words from St Paul in our Second Reading this Sunday: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Just think about how we start and end every prayer with the Sign of the Cross. The words we use invoke the Most Holy Trinity every time.
The way that the Readings are set up this Sunday, especially the First Reading, the Psalm, and the Gospel, form a pattern. They form the pattern of God’s slow and steady revelation of Himself to humanity.
In the First Reading taken from the book of Exodus, He reveals Himself to Moses on Mount Sinai saying, “The Lord, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger rich in kindness and faithfulness.”
In the Psalm, which is actually taken from the book of Daniel this week (not the book of Psalms), we are given numerous statements about God to which we shall respond, “To you glory and praise for evermore!” The book of Daniel appears late in the Old Testament and so by that point they knew a lot more about God and Who He is.
In our Gospel, we have the fullness of God’s revelation to humanity: Jesus Christ the Son of God. He is God’s full revelation. He is the Word of God (cf. John 1:1). But even Jesus tells us Himself in this Sunday’s Gospel:
“God loved 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 sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes in him will be condemned; but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already, because he has refused to believe in the name of God’s only Son.”
If you ever wanted the Gospel in a nutshell, this is it!
In the Second Reading, after the fullness of God’s revelation, St Paul describes God as the God of love and of Peace assuring us that He will be with us.
The culmination of God’s plan for the redemption of the world occurs at the climax of every Mass: “This is my Body… This is my Blood.” “Through Christ our Lord” we become partakers of the very life of the Holy Trinity.
Communion — It’s what we were made for.
See you next week on Seeking the Word!
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