Gospel & Reflection for Trinity Sunday.
Matthew 28:16-20
The eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.’
Reflection
Friends, one of the great minds and intellectuals of the Church and the world was the medieval Saint, Thomas Aquinas. He was a Dominican Friar and an outstanding theologian, very few being his equal. Over his life, he wrote his theological masterpiece – the Summa Theologica – Summary of Theology. The Summa was a compendium of the Church’s theological teaching at that time; over forty volumes of questions and answers; varied answers to many puzzling questions.
The Summa was never completed though. St. Thomas stopped writing it about two years before his death in 1274. He stopped writing after celebrating Mass one morning in Naples, at which something extraordinary happened to him; an experience so overwhelming that he never wrote or dictated another word. His Dominican brothers encouraged him, implored him, to lift the quill once more and continue his writing and reasoning but he replied to them “I cannot do any more…everything I have written seems to be as straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.”
It is not known what happened to Thomas on that morning. He had once written that “The essence of God remains hidden from us… the most we can know is that He transcends everything that we can conceive of Him.” So, whatever happened on that morning, some essence of God did become clear; something of God was unveiled for him and he saw more than he could write, and understood more than he could ever tell. It proves that the mystery of God is overwhelming, even for the most searching of minds.
So, what can we do to know even a spec of what the mystery of the Trinity, what the mystery of God is about? Well, even though a mystery, this does not mean we can never fully appreciate what the Trinity is and its meaning in our lives. For example, some people say that they don’t believe in God because they can’t see Him. They will not accept what they can’t see, hold or touch. Yet who can say that they have ever physically seen, held, or touched ‘Courage’ or ‘Love’ or ‘Truth’ or ‘Faith’? Just like God, they are invisible too but still we know them, feel them, recognise them and know them to be true.
We sense Courage and recognise it in people especially in difficult moments or times. We experience Love every day of our lives and are grateful for those who love and care for us. We know Truth when we hear it, and we can see it in someone’s eyes, expression, or actions. We are drawn to a holy person, sensing their Faith and often ask them to pray for us.
We see and recognise many things of great importance in so many ways. So too with God. He may be beyond our comprehension and vision, but He is not beyond our senses, our feelings, our lives. In the beauty of the world around us, God makes Himself know. In the love we receive and show, God is there. In our reaching out, our giving and consideration of others and they to us, there is God. When we reach into our heart, mind or soul, and wonder, we are reaching for and pondering the mystery that is God.
Friends, we are finite beings trying to understand the infinite. However, God reveals His greatness in the small everyday events, happenings and experiences of our lives. We should never overlook these things or underestimate them because often this is our direct contact with God; our direct experience of the mystery that is the Trinity.
We will not always have the words and we don’t need to have the words, to describe God but we can always sense Him, feel Him, recognise Him and know Him. He reveals Himself to us all in the most extraordinary and ordinary of ways and when we can catch a sense of God’s presence, it will always amaze us. Just ask St. Thomas Aquinas…
Fr. Richard