"The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and
gracious God"
John 3: 16-18
The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060423.cfm
“In the name of the Father +
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”
How often have we proclaimed
our faith in the Trinity by the sign of the cross we make to begin and close a
prayer but given little thought to its implication? Familiar gestures of faith become
routine at times. Yet, the sign of the cross has been a marker for Christians
since the early centuries of Christian history.
In fact, the sign of the
cross most regularly seen among Catholics to begin/close prayer, is rich in
meaning. We aren’t swatting flies or
cooling ourselves on a hot day. We are
proclaiming our faith in the unity of persons of the One we call God. And, most
importantly, how those persons were directly connected to Jesus’ death on the
cross and his resurrection which brought salvation to the human race. Yet, in
speaking about God we cannot deny the element of mystery.
If you’ve ever had the
experience of driving in dense fog you know how stressful that can be. To do so
at night is in particular a time to be on edge.
It may have been fog not especially thick but still giving little
visibility ahead of you. Or, if it is that
type of “pea soup” fog as it is called you may find yourself disoriented moving very slowly and especially attentive
to indicators near your car or truck such as the line along the edges of the
road or certainly any indicator of vehicles ahead of you or coming towards you.
While fog is essentially a cloud on the ground, it remains disorienting.
Our first reading from
Exodus finds Moses up Mt. Sinai to commune with God who comes down to Moses “in
a cloud” which is a way in which God, though hidden like a thick fog, makes
himself present. We see the same event
at both the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan and a cloud that overshadows the
astounded disciples on Mt. Tabor as they behold Jesus’ transfiguration.
From this mysterious divine
presence before Moses we hear God proclaim his name “Lord” as he reveals his
nature: “merciful and gracious . . . slow to anger and rich in kindness and
fidelity.” Here Moses pleads with God on behalf of a people who had quickly
forgotten the Commandments given on Mt. Sinai, that he would give his people a
second chance. God relents and assures
Moses he is Lord who reaches out and desires a renewed covenant with his people
for he is: merciful, gracious, kind and faithful.
This weekend on the Feast of
the Holy Trinity, always falling on the Sunday after Pentecost, we mark that
great uncovering on the nature of the divine.
Like dense fog that suddenly lifts we have a way of seeing that would
not have lifted by any other way other than for this truth to be revealed
through the Scriptures and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Yet it is that
person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who has lifted the veil off the face of
God and uncovered for the world the very nature of his Father and the Holy Spirit.
As Jesus spoke, worked miracles, taught in parables and gathered people around
him, we hear the very voice of the Father opening a dark door so that we may
see, at least as much as we may comprehend, that God is love, as we hear in the
Gospel.
Ultimately, to understand
the Trinity we must encounter relationship.
God desires a relationship with us, we are his beloved sons and
daughters created in his image. And our Gospel reading so beautifully
summarizes this truth.
John writes a very familiar
phrase: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who
believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16). John tells us: God “loved” and God
“sent.” Those two words to love and to
send imply an active God. A God who
reaches out, who extends himself not out of vengeance or punishment but out of
love and mercy towards those he reaches to. He communicates with us as a living
being. His Son is his Word.
Belief in the Holy Trinity
is uniquely Christian for no other world religion defines God in this way; as a
community of persons, yet remains one. Yet, we grapple with the unknowable
character of God.
We have a helpful image not
of just one part but of the whole of God. We believe God is three yet one;
three divine persons yet one in their unity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit - One
eternal God. They do not act apart from one another. As God took on human nature in Jesus so too
was/is the Trinity present.
True, this is heady stuff to
be sure. It is the language of later theological development in the Church and
by the 4th century, the Council of Nicea in the year 325 A.D. the Church, in
direct defense against false understanding about the nature of the Son, Jesus,
formally defined the Trinity in what we proclaim as the Nicene Creed we recite
each Sunday at Mass. It should be very
familiar to us: “I believe in one God the
Father Almighty . . .I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son
of God . . . I believe in the Holy Spirit . . . who proceeds from the Father
and the Son.” It is the core truth of the Christian and what we profess to
believe as Catholic Christians. Believe, yes, but importantly also by what we
live.
All the prayers of the Mass,
the calling down of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts of bread and wine, our
personal prayer, our sacraments such as when we are baptized in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the prayer of absolution as our sin is forgiven
in penance. Wherever Christ is present as in the sacraments, so too is the work
of the One God as they operate in relationship with one another.
Like a hand stretched out to
rescue a drowning man God has extended himself to us in love to rescue us from
our own sin the end result of which is death. As he reveals himself through his
own Son in Jesus Christ: merciful, gracious, kind, forgiving and filled with
eternal love. In that action, ultimately in the cross and resurrection, he has
forever recaptured his creation and destroyed the power of death. God has the last word. The potential for
human society is unlimited if we were to follow the way Christ has shown us.
How blessed are we in our
Catholic life which promotes community of persons united by one faith around a
common word and his altar. May that
unity in community reflect the true nature of this God who loves and reaches
out to us continually. In the Holy
Eucharist we see God revealed to us as he gathers us as one around his altar to
feed and unite us in his mercy, kindness, graciousness and forgiveness.
God
our Father, who by sending
into
the world the Word of truth and the Spirit
of
sanctification made known to the human race
your
wondrous mystery, grant us that in
professing
the true faith,
we
may acknowledge the Trinity of eternal glory
and
adore your Unity, powerful in majesty,
Through
our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who
lives and reigns with you in
the
unity of the Holy Spirit, God,
for
ever and ever.
(Collect of Mass)
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