Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (B)

May 27, 2018

Readings:

First Reading; Deuteronomy 4: 32-34, 39-40

Psalm: 33

Second Reading: Romans 8: 14-17

Gospel reading according to Matthew (28: 16-20)

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Homily:

Today, we are celebrating the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, One God in Three Persons, equal to each other or hypostasis (that is the underlying state or substance and is the fundamental reality that supports all else.).  When we mention God in our prayers, we also refer to the Three Persons in One God for we cannot separate them from one to another.  They are undivided unity, coeternal and consubstantial.  The Holy Trinity means One God in Three Persons.  We believe there is only One God but with three persona (identity, personality, role, character) – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  They are perfect community and cannot be separated from each other for they love each other inclusively.   The Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, and the Father and the Son love the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit loves the Father and the Son. Love exists within them and binds them.  Love is the symbol of the Holy Trinity, an inclusive love, whereby everyone is accepted and welcome.  We can compare the Holy Trinity to a household family – God the Father is the father of the family, the Holy Spirit is the mother of the house and Jesus Christ is the child/son.  While the father of the family, to show his love, provides all the necessary things for his family besides he protects his wife and children; the mother, on the one hand, is the light of the house, to show also her love she makes sure everything is set and ready, she also makes the house a home; and on the other hand, the son obeys his father and mother to show his love and makes them happy.  Love also exists within them. 

In the gospel of Matthew, after the resurrection, on the day Jesus was raised from the dead, he met and told Mary Magdalene and the other Mary: “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me” (Mt. 28: 10), they meet him in Galilee where they started everything.  He wanted to see and meet his disciples.  Nevertheless, it took many days that the disciples came out from where they were hiding.  Only after the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Pentecost day and when they received the Spirit of courage, wisdom and understand, they were inspired to come out from their hiding place and meet Jesus in the place he told the two women.   “The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them” (Mt. 28: 16).  Jesus was waiting long enough for the arrival of his disciples to their meeting place, for the disciples were still dilly-dallying and delaying their coming to Jesus, for they were not sure what will happen if they go in their place of origin.  They knew the meeting place was but they were unsure how they will meet Jesus and the reaction of Jesus when they will see them and vice-versa.

However, they still went to Galilee with mixed feelings and emotions without knowing what will happen to them.  In Galilee where they were begun and in Galilee they will start anew.  “When they saw him, they worshipped, but they doubted” (Mt. 28: 17).  They were the ones who showed different reactions – worshipping and doubting.  Some of them, especially the Apostles, worshipped Jesus for to them he appeared and accompanied them for forty days and forty nights, saying many things to them; but, to some disciples especially those who hid themselves in other places outside the Upper Room, like for example Thomas who later joined in the group of Peter and John, yet heard about the resurrection of Jesus, doubted. 

Jesus has to express precisely himself to those who still harboring doubts.  He has to explain what had happened to him and what the plan of God for them and us was.  “Then Jesus approached and said to them, ‘All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me’.” (Mt. 28: 18).  Again, it was Jesus who came and approached first the disciples.  He was always first in reaching us, in showing to us his love and forgiveness.  He never stopped drawing us near him. He still guaranteed us of all his power and authority in heaven and on earth given to him by God the Father and the strength of the Holy Spirit. 

As disciples of Jesus, he wanted them to do the same to other peoples, nations, colors, languages, and cultures, etc., what he did for them.  “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,” (Mt. 28: 19).   He wanted them to experience the love of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit as the disciples experienced.  He also wanted that other peoples to be his own, aside from the Jews or Galileans, but rather even the “Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the district of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and convert to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs,” (Act 2: 9-11) Philippines, Morocco, Sri Lanka and many other countries and nations, by “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28: 19), by invoking the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit – the Holy Trinity, in everything they say or do.  All the sacraments and sacramentals to be performed are in the name of the Holy Trinity, aside from Baptism, such as Confirmation, Reconciliation, Matrimony, Holy Order, Holy Eucharist, and Anointing of the sick; all these sacraments begin and end in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that is in Trinitarian way, after “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt. 28: 20).  When the disciples go they bring with them all what Jesus Christ commanded and taught them about God the Father’s love with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  They will not go wrong for he guaranteed his disciples, as he said in the end of his mission here on earth, ‘And behold, I am with always, until the end of the age’.” (Mt. 28: 20). Jesus commissioned his disciples to bring the good news to all nations in the world until such time everyone is baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit and everyone becomes his disciples and only such time, the Reign-Kingdom of God is truly happening here on earth as in heaven when the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit- One God reigns.  As the psalmist sung, “Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own” (Ps 33)