Sunday Reflection: Weekend of 27 May 2018

The Most Holy Trinity | Year B

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

The Holy Trinity is the foremost mystery of faith, the mystery of the God who is Three in One, one God in three Persons. Love is the essence of the three Persons:

“Love presupposes one who loves, one who is loved, and love itself. In the Trinity, the Father is the one who loves, the font and principle of all things; the Son is the one who is loved; the Holy Spirit is the love with which They love.”

 (Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher to the Papal Household)

God seeks to draw us deeper into the love which is the essence of the Trinity.  We may not understand the mystery but we know love when we experience it, in prayer or in a practical setting. St Augustine wrote: “If you see love, you see the Trinity”. It is likely that we are seeing the Trinity often in our lives, perhaps without recognition.

God’s love – Trinitarian love – overflows to encompass all humanity “until the end of time”. We are the hands and feet of the Trinity, tasked like the disciples with carrying the message of God’s love to all people.

The disciples went to a mountain to meet with Jesus, before going out to carry out his mission. The starting point and the sustaining place for all mission is the deepening of our personal relationship with Jesus, and through him with the Trinity – our own experience of the love of God.