Trinity Sunday June 7, 2009 Cycle B

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Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, June 7, 2009 (Cycle B)Scripture ReadingsFirst

Dt 4:32-34, 39-40

Second

Rom 8:14-17

Gospel

Mt 28:16-20Prepared by: Fr. Lawrence J. Donohoo, O.P.1.

Subject Matter

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First Reading: Since the deeds of no other god can compare with the Lord’s, they must concedeexistence to him alone, who is Lord of heaven and earth, of humankind, and of human actions.

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Second Reading: In an argument drawing on all Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, St. Paul repeatsJesus’ accent on the Father’s loving disposition and infers our heavenly inheritance from our adoption.

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Gospel: In the conclusion to St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus shares his divine power with his apostles incommanding them, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to evangelize, baptize, andteach.2.

Exegetical Notes

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“

The Unique Vocation of Israel (4:32-40)

. One of the rhetorical high points of the book . .For thesapiential tradition, in evidence here, it is axiomatic to seek guidance in the past and from the createdorder. . . .Using exodus language, the author links the unique vocation of Israel with the uniqueness of Yahweh.” (NJBC)

•

“The Spirit not only gives new life but also establishes for human beings the relationship of an adoptedson and heir. . . .This is the first appearance of the theme of sonship in Rom; by it Paul attempts todescribe the new status of the Christian in relation to God. . . .The Spirit constitutes adoptive sonship,putting Christians in a special relationship to Christ, the unique Son, and to the Father.” (NJBC)

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“This brief ending [to Matthew’s Gospel] is so rich that it would be hard to say more or greater thingsin the same number of words. It has been called an anticipated parousia, a partial fulfillment f Daniel’svision of the Son of Man. Its genre combines elements of an OT enthronement pattern with anapostolic commissioning.” (NJBC)

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“The farewell words of Jesus may be divided into three parts, which refer respectively to past, present,and future.” (NJBC)

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“The disciples are to carry on Jesus’ teaching ministry, thus laying the foundation for Christianeducation, theology, and other intellectual work. The subject matter of their teaching is the greatdiscourses of Matthew’s Gospel. . .The entire task is so daunting that the last verse must offer apromise of future support.” (NJBC)

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3.

References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

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237

The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the “mysteries that are hidden in God,which can never be known unless they are revealed by God.” To be sure, God has left traces of hisTrinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But hisinmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel’s faithbefore the Incarnation of God’s Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

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253

The Trinity is One

. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the“consubstantial Trinity.” The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but eachof them is God whole and entire: “The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is,the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God.” In the words of theFourth Lateran Council (1215), “Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance,essence or nature.”

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731

On the day of Pentecost when the seven weeks of Easter had come to an end, Christ’s Passover isfulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, manifested, given, and communicated as a divine person:of his fullness, Christ, the Lord, pours out the Spirit in abundance. 732 On that day, the Holy Trinity isfully revealed. Since that day, the Kingdom announced by Christ has been open to those who believein him: in the humility of the flesh and in faith, they already share in the communion of the HolyTrinity. By his coming, which never ceases, the Holy Spirit causes the world to enter into the “lastdays,” the time of the Church, the Kingdom already inherited though not yet consummated.

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261

The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christianlife. God alone can make it known to us by revealing himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

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249

From the beginning, the revealed truth of the Holy Trinity has been at the very root of theChurch’s living faith, principally by means of Baptism. It finds its expression in the rule of baptismalfaith, formulated in the preaching, catechesis and prayer of the Church. Such formulations are alreadyfound in the apostolic writings, such as this salutation taken up in the Eucharistic liturgy: “The graceof the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

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234

It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, thelight that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of thetruths of faith.” The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the meansby which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men “and reconciles andunites with himself those who turn away from sin.”

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257

“O blessed light, O Trinity and first Unity!” God is eternal blessedness, undying life, unfadinglight. God is love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God freely wills to communicate the glory of hisblessed life. Such is the “plan of his loving kindness”, conceived by the Father before the foundationof the world, in his beloved Son: “He destined us in love to be his sons” and “to be conformed to theimage of his Son”, through “the spirit of sonship.” This plan is a “grace [which] was given to us inChrist Jesus before the ages began”, stemming immediately from Trinitarian love. It unfolds in thework of creation, the whole history of salvation after the fall, and the missions of the Son and theSpirit, which are continued in the mission of the Church.

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1266

The Most Holy Trinity gives the baptized sanctifying grace, the grace of

justification

:enabling them to believe in God, to hope in him, and to love him through the theological virtues;

giving them the power to live and act under the prompting of the Holy Spirit through the gifts of theHoly Spirit; allowing them to grow in goodness through the moral virtues. Thus the whole organism of the Christian’s supernatural life has its roots in Baptism.

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1024

This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity - this communion of life and love with the Trinity,with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed - is called “heaven.” Heaven is the ultimate endand fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness.4.

Patristic Commentary

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St. Jerome

: “After his Resurrection, Jesus is seen and worshipped in the mountain in Galilee; thoughsome doubt, their doubting confirms our faith.”

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St. Jerom

e: “Power is given in heaven and in earth, that he who before reigned in heaven, should nowreign on earth by the faith of the believers.”

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St. Jerome:

“Observe the order of these injunctions. He bids the Apostles first to teach all nations,then to wash them with the sacrament of faith, and after faith and baptism then to teach them whatthings they ought to observe: ‘Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commandedyou.’”

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St. John Chrysostom:

“And because what he had laid upon them was great, therefore to exalt theirspirits He adds, “And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” As much as to say,Don’t tell me how difficult these things are, seeing I am with you, Who can make all things easy. Heoften made a similar promise to the prophets in the Old Testament, to Jeremiah who pleaded his youth,to Moses, and to Ezekiel, when they would have shunned the office imposed upon them. And not onlyto them does he say that he will be, but with all who shall believe after them. For the apostles were notto continue till the end of the world, but he says this to the faithful as to one body.”

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St. Jerome:

“He then who promises that he will be with his disciples to the end of the world, showsboth that they shall live for ever and that he will never depart from those that believe.”

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St. Augustine:

“O Lord our God, we believe in you, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Truth would nothave said, ‘Go and baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”unless you were a triad. Nor would you have commanded us to be baptized, Lord God, in the name of any who is not Lord God.”5.

Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars

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St. Augustine worked twenty years on his masterpiece,

On the Trinity

, the most sustained, developed,and influential Trinitarian treatise of the patristic period..

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Conscious of the salvific work of all Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, St. John of Matha received aninspiration at his first mass to found the religious order of the Trinitarians for the purpose of redeeming Christian slaves from their Muslim conquerors. However, in order to proceed prudently, hesolicited the counsel of the holy hermit, St. Felix Valois, who insisted on treating him as an equal.Following in the footsteps of his own disciples, St. John later went to Africa on two voyages andsuccessfully liberated hundreds of Christians.6.

Quotations of Pope Benedict XVI

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“‘If you see charity, you see the Trinity,’ wrote Saint Augustine. In the foregoing reflections, we havebeen able to focus our attention on the Pierced one (cf.

Jn

19:37,

Zech

12:10), recognizing the plan of

of 00

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