by Fr F. Onyango IMC
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Exodus 34:4-6, 8-8
Psalm Daniel 3:52-56
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
John 3:16-18
Theme: God is Love!
Today we celebrate the feast of God himself: the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. We have been taught and we know that we worship one God in three persons and we acknowledge this whenever we begin our prayers, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. When we recite the Creed we also profess our belief in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; we do the same when we pray the glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit and indeed most of our prayers end in the same way: through Jesus Christ your son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you (The Father) in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen! Our second reading today also ends in the same way: the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all! So who is God and how can he be one in three persons?
A young boy once went to the fields to meet an old wise man; when the wise man saw him he asked: ‘What can I do for you, young man?’ The young man said: ‘I want you to explain God for me.’ The wise man smiled and said to him: ‘A god that can be explained is not a god that you should worship.’ The wise man then smiled and walked away! A god that can be explained is not a god that you should worship, because if you can explain Him it means that you’ve reduced God, the Creator of the world to something that can be explained; a creature like us! St Augustine himself says that God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand because if you understood him then he is not God! The key that unlocks God is not an explanation and this is the beauty of the mystery of our faith. A faith that has no mystery is not worth embracing!
In today’s gospel we see who God is: God is love and because of that he gave his only begotten son for the salvation of our souls! Our own personal experience of love, of deep friendship should help us understand God who is love. In loving one another, there is the delight, the beauty of bonding together and of being there for each other. This is something enriching, satisfying and indeed mutually life-giving! So it is with God: three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Their life is a communion of love and it is that same love that outpours to us! Therefore, when we love, we share in the very life of God and so as St Paul reminds us in our second reading: ‘Let us rejoice, mend our ways, agree with one another, live in peace so that the God of love and peace may be with us for God is love!