By Fr Antony Christy, SDB –
Solemnity of the Holy Trinity
Proverbs 8: 22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16: 12-15
We celebrate the feast of the Trinity today! The Solemnity reminds us of, not only who our God is, but also who we are!
We ARE a communion!
Just as our God is a communion of three persons – Father, Son and the Spirit, we who are created in that image and likeness, are a communion too. We are neither body living in the spirit, nor a spirit residing in the body… we are a being created in such a communion of our natures that we are one, just as the three persons of the trinity are one. It is high time we undid the contrasts between the body and the soul and the mind! We are communion, we ARE Trinity.
We need to continuously grow out of a dichotomous or a segmented life where there is the public life and the private life, the so-called spiritual life and the ordinary life, the life from the Christian point of view and a parallel life of the standards of the world… this is totally contrary to integrity that is truly ‘christian’…this integrity can otherwise be known as Communion within a person, an undivided state of life.
We BELIEVE in communion, not in contestation.
The three persons of the Trinity live in communion with each other and there is an eternal self giving that takes place among them, by which they stay as ONE. We believe in communion, dialogue, sharing, sacrifice and selfless service. Only that would make us One people of God.
Today the television channels have fallen into a craze – taking a current issue and calling up people from different camps of thought and making them debate, fight and contest with each other. Worse still, they name the show ‘fight’ or ‘debate’ or ‘argument’, parading the truth that they are more interested in contesting than arriving at a common ground that could promote happiness and fulfillment. The dangerous phenomenon is that the same kind of a mindset enters a family and issues are debated over, contested over but very rarely prayed over and discerned towards communion!
We CLING to the Trinity
In the Trinitarian God we have everything we stand in need of. The Father gives us love and mercy in abundance. The Son gives us the light and truth to live by. The Spirit gives us companionship and good counsel. All that we need to live our life to the full is given by the Trinitarian God. The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are in eternal procession, teaches the Church’s theology which means that every one of the three, upholds the other and empties oneself into the others for a unified, generative action.
It may sound a bit too theoretical, but in fact, it is just a life style that would create a paradise on earth wherever we are – if we trust one another and prove trust worthy to each other. That is the message, that we cling to the Trinity not just in asking for favours and fulfilling our needs but in our life style, in our way of relating to the other and making ourselves available to the other, to the community to the entire humanity and even the universe! What a challenging call it is!
As we celebrate this wonderful solemnity, let us take to heart the call and the challenge given to us by the Holy Trinity… to be, to believe and to cling on to the Most Holy Trinity.
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He is currently pursuing his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him.