The Feast of the Trinity

Gospel Reading: Matthew 28: 16-20

16The eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them.

17When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated.

18 Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

19Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

20and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you al­ways; yes, to the end of time.'

Gospel Meditation

This Sunday the liturgy invites us to celebrate the feast of the Trinity. In our church we tend to look at the Trinity as a doctrine. It is something we are meant to hold and believe; we learn about it with our minds and with our reason.

But we add the proviso that we cannot understand it. 'Understanding' is viewed as the important thing; if we can't understand it we are not making much progress with it.

This is not, however, the best way to approach the doctrine of the Trinity. What we need to do is to retrace the journey made by the church. We enter into the spirituality of Jesus through the practice of lectio divina.

Gradually we find that we experience the Trinity as a 'mystery'. This is the liturgical sense of the word. It is something we celebrate because we know it makes us better human beings, as we follow ever more closely in the footsteps of Jesus.

If we base ourselves on the gospel texts we come to the Trinity as something we experience. Our model is Jesus himself: the Trinity for him was what he lived, it explains how he experi­enced himself, how he related with his Father and with the Spirit, with others and with the earth itself.

The church, reflect­ing on his experience, was later - and only gradually - able to formulate the church doctrine of the Trinity. The gospel reading for this Year B is an excellent starting point for this journey.

Jesus saw that authority in the world was something that was 'given' to him. It was a 'gift' he had received from the Father. It was given to him by someone in heaven, his Father who dwells in heaven.

It was not a truth that he was able to dis-cover for himself, nor one that he came to experience from his own decisions. It was always something he had 'received.'

As Son he was able to exercise this gift. He had the authority to do this. He practised the reality of the Trinity with personal power. He exercised this authority for himself and from his own observation. Having received it from outside himself, he put it into practice in the way he related with people.

Jesus therefore did not have to hold on to his authority. He took the decisions for himself, or it was decided for him in the name of the Father. In either case, he practised it by handing over his authority to the care of his disciples. Since the authority was something 'given' to him, he was able to give it over with no personal regrets.

Jesus lived his 'Trinitarian spirituality' especially from the time he felt able to depart from the world. He had always been humble in how he handled his authority; now he could be totally confident in handing on to others everything he had accom­plished. This was why he could say with full freedom that he could hand everything over to the Holy Spirit.

'All authority is given to me/ he told his disciples once he had decided to leave his mission in their hands. They could 'go therefore' wherever they wanted, trusting that wherever they went, he would be alongside them, adding to what they be­lieved in whatever he wanted for them to achieve.

We too, then, must be conscious of our authority as 'given'. It is never possessed by us. We too can exercise it confidently and humbly and then willingly pass it on to others when the time comes.

Evil qualities like jealousy or possessiveness or a fear of letting go are symptoms that the Trinity is not real for us. It means that we take authority as ours and not as 'given'.

The things we can feel free to hand on to others include all forms of authority, especially that of our faith in Jesus. We must therefore take 'baptising in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' in a very wide sense.

It does not merely refer to our church baptism; it includes the entire work of the church, the process of inviting people to experience authority as Jesus did.

We take the time to celebrate the many people who have shared this 'baptism' with us. We pray that they too will have the grace to approach 'all nations' with this wide and tolerant 'Trinitarian Spirit/

Prayer

Lord, we thank you for the various ways in which you reveal your presence to us: there are times when we experience you as Father through teachers, community leaders, members of our family, spiritual guides to whom you have given authority in heaven and on earth, so that we feel empowered spiritually and can assume responsibility in our workplaces and in public life.
At other times we experience you as Son, through the great people you send us as companions.
They do not talk down to us.
When we fail in some great enterprise and have to start again, like the eleven disciples setting out disconsolately to return to Galilee, they come up and speak to us as fellow pilgrims who have themselves been defeated, so that they can tell us now to go out confidently and share our wisdom with all the nations.
At other times again, you are deep within us, like our breath, so discreet that we do not even advert to your presence;
but you are the source of life and energy, always with us, so that even when we feel lost and discouraged we can say, yes, you will be there till the end of that time.
Thank you for our being baptised in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Lord, people in authority often cling to those in their charge.
We tend to do it as parents, teachers, ministers in the church, political leaders.
Help us to be more like Jesus when he met the apostles in Galilee,
free enough to know that our work is not limited to the here and now, that if we have helped others in any way we can tell them to go, because wherever they are we will be with them.
When we understand this, we are truly baptised in the name of the Trinity.

'If there is any lover of God living on this earth who is continually kept from falling, I do not know about it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown, that in falling and in rising we are always preciously kept in the same love.' Julian of Norwich

Lord,we pray for those  who are feeling discouraged at this moment because they have committed some sin that has them feeling ashamed.                                                  
Remind them that you are with them always, yes, even to the end of this time.
Lord, we pray for all of us who are called to exercise leadership in public life, in your church, in our homes and neighbourhoods, on the world stage.
Help us to imitate Jesus; to be conscious, like he was, that all authority in heaven and on earth is given to us for a time, after which we commission those we have worked with to go out into the world.
We are not afraid to move on because we trust that whatever values they have learned from us are like commands we have given them which they will observe and will hand on in their turn, so that we will be with them always, yes, to the end of time.

'Unity is taught by Moses; the prophets proclaim duality; in the
gospels we meet the Trinity.'
St Epiphanus

Lord, you have created our human family in your image and likeness, baptised us in the name of the Blessed Trinity.
As individuals and as cultures you have made us all different so that each of us has been given a unique share in your universal authority in heaven and on earth.
We exercise this authority, not as a personal possession, but as a gift we have received from someone else in the family and then shared with others,
so that even though we are here for a few short years and then move on,
wherever in the world your great command of love is observed we are all present and will continue to be until the end of time.