Trinity Sunday

The Filipinos, by trait, are close to the Blessed Trinity because they usually do the sign of the Cross (pacman, before exhibiting his "pambansang kamao"; basketball players before entering the hardcourt; some filipinos before leaving the house or before long driving). This is a good sign. We need to purify it, though. Let's do the sign of the Cross not just to call for good luck (pasukin ng swerte) but in order to accomplish God's mission.

The Blessed Trinity = the reality of three Persons experienced in God's three different ways of showing his saving love. (Tertullian of the 2^nd century is generally acknowledged the first to use the term "trinity" and to apply it to God. The Trinity was not defined until the great church councils of the 4^th and 5^th centuries).

Today, rather than getting ourselves tied up in theological knots, we would do far better by understanding prayerfully the beautiful Scripture readings of today's Mass. Here there are no complicated theological explanations or speculations. The emphasis is not on what (is the trinity), or why (do we have to have the trinity), but, in very practical language, on the tangible way the persons in the Trinity relate to us.

Today's first reading, Ex.34, represents the fulfillment of God's earlier promise. Present to Moses and symbolized by the cloud (v.5) Yahweh renewed with his people the relationship the Israelites had broken by their infidelity. (Thus, the first reading reminds us about the Father's enduring love).

In the second reading, 2 Cor 13:11-13, Paul called the converts from Judaism as false apostles. Why? Because they proudly and incorrigibly tell that Christian proclamation is merely a renewal of the true Jewish religion. Thus in order to promote Mosaic Law they emphasized Jesus as "wonderworker" while downplaying the passion and cross as revelation of the Father's love. Because of the disunity that their teachings had created Paul exhorted them (Greek and Jewish converts) to unite after the model of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (Thus the 2^nd reading reminds us about God the Father's love through the Son's passion and death).

In the Gospel, Jn 3:16-18, no greater love story has ever been written than that which Jesus told Nicodemus that night when they were talking concerning rebirth unto eternal life through water and the Spirit: "God (the Father) so loved the world that he gave his only Son." Martin Luther called this verse as the "gospel in miniature" because it proclaims in but a few words the incredible dimension of God's love as well as the salvific effect of that love in the course of human history.

Challenge: Do the sign of the Cross to accomplish God's mission (not just to call for good luck).

1. Learn from the Trinity, the greatest school of relationships (Cantalamessa). To help us do this, for example, the Archdiocese has proposed a three-year preparation towards its centennial in 2010 dedicating each year to one Person of the Trinity. And now we are in the 2^nd year of preparation calling 2008 as the Year of the Holy Spirit/Mary.
2. If our life is to mirror the life of the Trinity, Paul advises us to live in unity + making ourselves instruments of doing God's will. "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the HS be with your all." (Unity = achieved thru incarnating this blessing).
3. Let our person be a catechesis of the love of God just as this Cathedral's arts are a catechesis. Let us not be land mines or booby traps that prevent other family members from trusting in the love of God.