Trinity Sunday Prov 8:22-31; Rom 5:1-5; Jn 16:12-15 (Year C)
As creatures, we can never penetrate the mystery of the one God revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. At the same time, precisely because we are created in the image and likeness of this triune God, we are instinctively drawn into communion with the God who is Father, who in his Son Jesus Christ has adopted us as his children. This same Father, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, breathes meaning and purpose into our lives. In this Trinity alone we are truly alive.
The Book of Proverbs perfectly anticipated this wonder of our salvation. As sinful creatures, we are overwhelmed by the gulf that stands between ourselves and the holiness of God. We are as nothing in the unfolding of creation, as the psalmist says, “no more than a watch in the night”. “The deep was not, when I was born, there were no springs to gush with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I came to birth.”
Such is the God who is so far beyond us, whose graciousness embraces our inmost being: “I was by his side, a master craftsman, delighting him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere in his world, delighting to be with the sons of men.”
Surely these words capture something that lies deep within the human spirit. We long for a peace, a playful rest shared in perfect love. Such is the salvation that is our communion with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
St Paul perfectly expressed the fulfilment of this longing in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord. The author of Proverbs could only dream of a God who would be at play in our world, delighting to be with the sons of men. In Christ Jesus, the gulf that separated God and man was crossed. Ours is the inexpressible joy of an embrace that delights in our presence. “Everyone moved by the Spirit is a son of God. The Spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves, bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons, and it makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ ”
It is in Christ Jesus, and through the gift of the Spirit, that our true identity is revealed. With Christ we are brought to life as the children of God, and it is through the Spirit that we are drawn to the Father and each other.
In the mystery of the Trinity we glimpse what is yet to come. “But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, and he will tell you of the things to come.”
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