TRINITY OF LOVE - TRINITY SUNDAY (6/4/2023)

TRINITY SUNDAY
June 4, 2023

Exodus 34:4-6, 8-9
Daniel 3
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
John 3:16-18

TRINITY OF LOVE

"God is love," we read in 1 John 4:8 and 16. And God is Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Today we celebrate our loving and Trinitarian God, and give thanks for his gracious love and care for us.

EXODUS

Moses had broken the first stone tablets of the Ten Commandments upon the people he found sinning at the foot of Mount Sinai. God then provided Moses with another set.

The Lord passed before Moses on the mountain, prompting this praise of God's love from Moses: "The Lord, the Lord God, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity."

Although Moses falls prostrate in reverence and awe to worship the Lord, his emphasis is on God's love and mercy. We are told that God's mercy is over all his works (cf. Psalm 145:9). And Sirach 2:18 says, "Greater than his majesty is the mercy he shows."

2 CORINTHIANS

Our second reading is taken from the very last few verses in St. Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians. He encourages them to repentance and to live in mutual harmony. Paul ends his letter with a Trinitarian greeting, which is one of the options that the celebrant can use to greet people at the beginning of Mass.

GOSPEL

Today's gospel is well-known and much quoted. I heard one priest refer to John 3:16 as "the whole gospel in miniature." We can never hear it enough: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life."

This passage teaches us about God's infinite love and generosity in not sparing his only Son for the salvation of the human race. Jesus came not to condemn but to save. But that salvation is conditioned upon the individual's belief in Jesus - "in the name of the only Son of God."

OFFERING ALL TO THE TRINITY

The mystery of the Blessed Trinity is a bedrock of our Faith. We begin our prayer with the Sign of the Cross, in the name of the Trinity. Our prayers are usually addressed to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.
At the end of the Eucharistic Prayer at Mass, the doxology is: "Through him (Christ), and with him, and in him, O God almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, for ever and ever."
To which we reply: AMEN!