Trinity Sunday – Year C


The Feast of the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) falls on the Sunday after Pentecost. The feast focuses on the unity of God  after the main feasts of the Christian calendar.

rublev_trinityIn our Hebrew-speaking communities, we call this feast: the feast of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, God is one". The term "Trinity" is a complex theological term and is not always understood even among Christians. In our communities, the name of this feast is long and complex but this reflects the development of the belief in one God who is revealed to us in three: as Father, creator of heaven and earth, as risen Son and as Holy Spirit. However, the length of the name of the feast also reflects the long love story of God with the human person.


There is no doubt that it is impossible to understand the feast without going back over the long chapters of the history of salvation - God's story with humans from the beginning of creation to the end of the world - a story told in the Bible (the Scriptures of Israel and the New Testament). From a liturgical point of view, the feast is placed one week after Pentecost and serves as a summary of the entire period the Christian faithful have lived since Holy Week (passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ) until the giving of the Holy Spirit (on Pentecost). Therefore, in order to enter into the spirit of the feast, we must remember both the history of salvation and the great feasts and their meaning.


The readings this year again allow us to savor this long history. The first reading from Proverbs (8:22-31) describes a personified Wisdom who is with God in the beginning and through whom all is created. The author of the text sees this figure as being a mediator between God and the human person. The Psalm (8) also reflects on creation and the relationship between the God who created all and the human person who is elevated as the crown of creation. The second reading (Roman 5:1-5) focuses on the mediating role of Jesus Christ.


The reading from the Gospel (John 16:12-15) recounts what Jesus said at the Last Supper: "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you". The Spirit that we received at Pentecost will indeed guide us more and more in the way of truth.

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