Chapter Talk – Trinity Sunday – June 7, 2020, cycle-A
Holy Trinity Sunday: this is an important solemnity of the Church. The ‘Trinity’ will always remain a ‘mystery’ in the sense that it is difficult to explain or perhaps better to say it is unexplainable! What we can understand comes through faith, a faith that is alive and living. There would be no Trinity Sunday without the Incarnation of God’s beloved Son. This is the main motif for the mystery of the Trinity: through the incarnation of Christ, we come to know the Source of all Life: God, Jesus’ Abba and our Abba. Then, through Jesus’ obedience to God, his suffering, death and Resurrection, we are given the gift of the Spirit. We have not been left orphaned…the Incarnate One lives on through the Holy Spirit.
Along with the pervading ‘mystery’ that this feast embodies, there is this reality that the Holy Trinity communicates: God is Love…These words describe the nature of the Holy Trinity, and ultimately ‘the identity of God’. Jesus, before his death and Resurrection, brought the message of God’s Love in everything he taught and lived…With his Resurrection and Ascension this same love is now communicated through the Holy Spirit. Pope Francis in commenting first on the second reading for today’s Eucharist said: “Beginning from his experience of grace, Paul could exhort Christians with these words: ‘… rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another’ (v.11). The Christian community, even with all its human limitations, can become a reflection of the communion of the Trinity, of its kindness, of its beauty. But this — just as Paul himself testifies — necessarily passes through the experience of God’s mercy, of his forgiveness” (Angelus, June 11, 2017). This is a powerful statement by Pope Francis: the larger Christian community and this small ecclesia of Redwoods Monastery ‘even with its human limitations…can become a reflection of the Trinity’…However, there is a ‘BUT’: for the Christian community to be a reflection of the Trinity, its ways and manner of living must pass through ‘the experience of God’s mercy and forgiveness’. And the more this is lived at Redwoods and in the larger Christian community, the more we will witness ‘kindness and beauty’ in all that we are and do.
The first reading from Exodus for today’s solemnity describes the encounter of God and Moses. In the encounter God proclaims his name to Moses: “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity” (Ex 34:6). Once again, as in the Pauline text, we see the tension in the human relationship with God. Moses begs God to come with them on the journey for it is a “stiff-necked” people (v.9)…and he further begs forgiveness for their “wickedness and sins” (v.9). The background of the Exodus reading is that the Hebrews have broken their covenant with God. Moses stands before God as the intermediary, praying to renew or re-establish the covenant. To me it is striking that we are given this reading for Holy Trinity Sunday. In this context, I think it is helpful to ponder: How does Jesus change the covenantal relationship with God? ‘You are my Son, the Beloved ’ says God at Jesus’ baptism (Mk 1:11). Jesus, through his death and Resurrection, became the fullness of God’s love, mercy and forgiveness, which is at the center of this covenantal relationship. Through Jesus we are established in this covenantal relationship with God, and further, Jesus is the ‘pattern’ we are to follow in terms of how we are live this covenantal relationship.
Sr Kathy DeVico, Abbess
