Matthew 28, 16-20
Isn’t it quite ironic that the most basic formula of our prayer is one of the most least understood among the doctrines of our faith. Whenever we start our prayer, we always invoke the three Persons of the Trinity. We always start our prayer with the Sign of the Cross. We say “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” We say this while we use our right hand to touch our forehead, our abdomen, our left shoulder, then our right shoulder. We have done these things in an almost automatic function that we don’t really realise how immense this doctrine of the Holy Trinity is all about.
This week we celebrate the feast the gives us a glimpse about our God. The gospel for today is the conclusion of the gospel of St. Matthew where Jesus brought his eleven disciples to the mountain and gave them his final instructions. In the world of Matthew’s gospel, we should understand that he is writing his gospel for a mixed community consisting of Jewish Christians, Jews who have converted and became Christians and Gentile Christians, pagans who have been baptised Christians. And with this in order to convince the Jewish Christians that Jesus is the Messiah, he has portrayed Jesus as the “new Moses”. That is why all throughout the gospel he made some connections to the life of Jesus as parallel events to the life of Moses as well. For example, the massacre of the infants, in the book of Genesis, Pharaoh killed all male infants under two years old for fear that the Hebrew population are increasing steadily and become a threat to his empire. In the gospel of Matthew, King Herod upon hearing that the “King of the Jews” was born in Bethlehem and the wise men tricked him by not coming back to him after paying homage to the new-born Messiah, he decided to have all infants under two years old killed in an effort that he would be able to eliminate the infant Jesus whom he perceived as a threat to his throne. Another event is when Jesus went up the mountain to deliver the Eight Beatitudes. Matthew patterned this when Moses also went up the mountain to give to the Hebrews the Ten Commandments. And now Jesus again went up the mountain to instruct his disciples before he was taken up to heaven.
One of those instructions is for us to baptised “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Throughout the centuries, a lot of theologians have tried to explain or at least make sense of this doctrine. St. Patrick tried to explain it by holding a three-leaf clover to explain the Trinity that there is just one plant but it has three leaves. Or like an electric fan that has three blades that when it is powered and the three blades start spinning, they appear to be one and they are three blades. And yet, even with all those explanations no theologian has successfully explained the Trinity. And do we have to feel bad about a reality that we can’t explain, of course not!
However, even if we can’t explain the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, we can always try to describe it and how it affects our lives. St. Arnold Janssen, the founder of the Divine Word Missionaries, tried to describe the persons of the Trinity in their relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary. He once said that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the “Daughter of God the Father, Mother of God the Son and the Spouse of God the Holy Spirit.” What a beautiful explanation! Applying that to our lives tells us that our relationship with God is not just in one dimension but it is more profound than that. Our relationship with God could be more dynamic than what we think of.
The Blessed Trinity tells us that our God is not just this one Supreme Being but because he is One God in Three Persons, we can say that God is not solitary but lives in a community. And with this we are also invited to live as such. That we live in a community that is full of love like the Blessed Trinity. As the Persons of the Blessed Trinity are different and yet they are united with an unbreakable bond, we are also asked to be the same. We may come from different backgrounds, different nationalities and yet we are called to the same faith.
The relevance and challenge of today’s feast is to live the Trinity. The Trinity is the perfect example of how to live in a community that is bounded by love. The same is true for today. We may all have different personalities and yet we are called to be one as well. We pray that we may respond positively to this challenge and learn to live as one family the same as the Holy Trinity.