Trinity or Living-with-God Sunday
Proverbs 8:22–31; Romans 5:1–5; John 16:12–15
Christians get discouraged about the Most Holy Trinity because it is called a mystery – something no one can understand! The good news is MYSTERY is NOT what we cannot understand, but a RELATIONSHIP with what God has revealed of Himself to human beings! After all, what do we actually know about ourselves or the world itself, yet we live our lives happily? If any thing, breathe God, speak God, hear God and feel God; then, living-with-God Sunday or Trinity Sunday will stop being a mystery to understand (with the brain) but a lifestyle to live out!
Trinity/Living-with-God Sunday is an invitation and training on how to dwell with God always. Our first reading provides us with two key elements of Trinity/Living-with-God Sunday. The first element is to be in the presence and company of God always. The second element is to keep busy working as God works, but working with God and NOT apart from God. Keeping the company of God alerts one to God’s actions, and working alongside God delights God because one becomes transporter of God’s will and desire.
The Creation account of Genesis 1 helps us to understand our first reading from Proverbs: God is a worker and keeps working! Creation is the work of God and the Spirit of God hovers over God’s creative work at Creation and always. Proverbs makes God’s Spirit a vehicle of God’s action in Creation and proves that
God is no loner and never encourages lonesomeness. Our God is communion and encourages communion. The involvement of God’s Spirit at Creation prefigures God’s invitation of others in working as God works – as the meaning of communion – not working alone!
The Spirit of God is not only living beside God as creation comes into existence, the last sentence of our first reading makes human beings co-creators with God because “I (Spirit of God) found delight in the human race” (Proverbs 8:22-31). It is God’s Spirit dwelling in human beings (breath-of-life) that enables them to join in God’s creative work and make God present and active in creation from all eternity.
To possess the Spirit of God or Holy Spirit is the first stage in living-with-God. Pentecost Sunday (last Sunday) makes the Holy Spirit’s indwelling an indispensable proof of God’s presence in believers. The quality and God-likeness of human activities attest to the presence of God in every human actor!
Paul repeats, in our second reading, the same reality of God’s presence in human beings through his Spirit, as Proverbs avers, and the presence of God’s Spirit as the power of love or the delight of God: “because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).
Therefore, God’s presence is given to us as LOVE, and deeds of love (agapē) alone become the transporters and revealers of God’s presence, wherever the Holy Spirit is present.
If the Spirit of God in Proverbs joins God in physical creation, the same Spirit of God in Christians engages in a spiritual creation – the formation of a Christian character: “we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint”. All the good we do come from the Holy Spirit. We need “hope” to keep us focused on God and not to be separated from God in our physical existence, because he is present with us through his Spirit. “Hope” reminds us of our future lives in perfect communion with God in heaven.
Consequently, Trinity/Living-with-God Sunday is the imperative to us to synchronize with God through his Spirit. In God the Son (Jesus Christ), the message of our gospel reading, we see a perfect harmony between humanity (Jesus Christ) and divinity (God). This is the point of communion and unity in the Godhead: “Everything that the Father has is mine; the Spirit will take from what is mine and declare it to you”, says our gospel.
If you want to be like God, seek to possess his Holy Spirit. If you want to know whether you are in communion with God or not, ask whether your thoughts, deeds and speeches promote God’s purposes and will – his commandments. If you want to understand the Most Holy Trinity, work like and with God.
Living-with-God Sunday is the transformation of human beings into preachers of God’s commandments, because their minds, hearts and intelligence are possessed by God’s Holy Spirit. All lips that speak of God and every heart that ponders God is already in the Trinity and living in God. After all, Jesus says “my food is to do the will of my Father”!
Step out of your head (brain) and encounter the Most Holy Trinity in your way of life (morality), that is where mystery turns into reality, becauseGod is love and all who dwell in love dwell in Trinity-God! “If any thing, breathe God, speak God, hear God and feel God; then, living-with-God Sunday or Trinity Sunday will stop being a mystery to understand (with the brain) but a lifestyle to live out!
Assignment for the Week:
Do something for unity and peace this week. It could be saying only positive things about people all week long!