Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (A)

Dear brothers and sisters,

May God give you peace!

Happy Feast Day of Holy Trinity!

Yosi, OFM

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (A)

June 11, 2017

Readings:

First Reading – Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9

Daniel 3

Second Reading – 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Gospel reading according to John 3:16-18

+

In the very beginning, before the world was created and everything in it, God who is full of love for He is love and His love is overflowing; and because of this love He wanted to share this overflowing love; that is why He created all so that all these creatures may experience the love of God.

Firstly, as in the first reading, God showed himself to Moses “having come down in a cloud . . . and proclaimed his name, ‘Lord’.”(Ex 34:5).  God is Lord of all, that’s why everybody must cry out as Moses led, “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity”(Ex 34:6). 

Secondly, in the Gospel of John, the Lord God to show how much He loves us, his creatures, instead of revealing Himself like He did to Moses in the past to us,  when the fullness of time came to reveal his only begotten Son “. . . he gave his only Son,” (John 3:16) to us, despite of our sinfulness and wickedness.  As what Moses described his people before, “This is indeed a stiff-necked people” (Ex. 34:9).  The Son of God, Jesus Christ, became like us except sin and lived among us.  He taught and preached us very clearly about God’s commandments in all its truth, without blemish and self-interest, and about heaven and earth, about life and death, and resurrection, but above all he taught and preached that we must love God, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself . . .”(Mk 12:29-30, June 8, 2017 Gospel reading), as what he said to the scribe who asked him which is the first of all the commandments and that we must believe in him, “. . . so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but may have eternal life”(John 3:16).  This is another reason why God, our loving Father, sent his Son to this world; he wanted to save us from worldly allurements, temptations, and sins.  Through Jesus Christ, God our loving Father has forgiven all our offences.  He wanted to show to us the right path of life. And he wanted to lead us back to God the Father almighty, so that like him, we become truly the image and likeness of him – the perfect love of God.   

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him”(John 3:17).  There is no other savior like our Lord Jesus Christ who laid down his life for us.  Those kings and emperors, princes and other worldly leaders who came before Jesus and after him have had conquered the world to dominate it and made subordinates all the peoples of the world to themselves.  They made people under their authorities and powers as their slaves to obey every command they gave.  But our Lord Jesus Christ, who is Lord of lords and King of kings did not come to be served but to serve, he offered his self as living sacrifice to those whose authority they claimed came from Moses and not from God the almighty.  Jesus did not condemn the world but instead the world condemned and killed him.  Jesus did not condemn us because like his Father he loved us as well.  The only thing we need to do, therefore, is to believe in his holy name with the help of the Holy Spirit.  “Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18).  This is the condition of those who believed in the name of Jesus who are saved, but for those who did not believe in him are condemned.  “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you”(2 Cor. 13:13).