Dear friends,
Today we celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. This past weekend, we celebrated the feast of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the birth of the Church. This solemnity reminded us of God’s expectation for us, mainly that we are called to go to bear witness and to make disciples. He gave us the Holy Spirit for that to happen. In other words, the great commissioning we celebrated at the Ascension took shape on Pentecost with the gift of the Holy Spirit. On the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, we are given the true understanding of the kind of life expected from us once we are filled with the Holy Spirit.
In the Nicene Creed, we resume this Sunday, we profess the following: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.” This life is the one Jesus gave us to be preserved from every stain of sin and division. Because the Holy Spirit is the cement that strengthens our unity as family of God. The Lord said that the Holy Spirit will give us from what is His. This life of unity and oneness between the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity is defined as LOVE. And of that love Christ said, there is no greater than giving one’s own life for the sake of others. To celebrate the Most Holy Trinity is to celebrate the presence of the divine life in us.
Today our challenge to live the love that takes roots in the Holy Trinity constitutes a call to revisit our embrace of Jesus Christ. The question we are meant to ask is, “How far do I want to go in stretching out my hands to embrace those out there seeking to know God and to love Him?” The feast of the Most Holy Trinity, the celebration of the unbreakable love between the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is where the Lord is waiting for us to demonstrate that we belong to Him. Through Paschal mystery, Jesus teaches us the true meaning of today’s solemnity: Jesus reveals us the Holy Trinity not as a doctrine but as a practice. In his deeds and words, and the action of the Holy Spirit in the world, we see nothing else but God’s love for all and each one of us. We, as disciples, constitute the channels of the visibility of the communion and unbreakable love between the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity.
Let us pray that we may always strive to strengthen the love of God that flows from and is communicated to us in the Mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ we celebrate at this table of the Altar. Let us be open to the grace of the Holy Spirit that transforms us to vessels carrying the treasures through which we have been redeemed. All this starts with letting the Holy Spirit transform the lenses through which we look at one another. To discover only Jesus in each other will be the first step to embrace. Then we will remember that the Lord made us shepherd of one another, calling each other by our names. The “Name Tag Sunday” we celebrate today is one the ways we engage on that journey of building up our community of faith.
And let us continue to pray for one another and for our parish family.
Fr. Emery