The Feast of the Trinity

Gospel Reading: John 16:12-15

12 Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now.

13 But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speak­ing as from himself but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come.

14 He will glorify me, since all he tells you will be taken from what is mine.

15 Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: All he tells you will be taken from what is mine.'

Gospel Meditation

We meet two kinds of feasts in the liturgy. The most important are the mysteries, incidents in the life of Jesus which we enter into, experiencing them as living again in us - we have just com­pleted the cycle of the Easter mysteries.

Now the church invites us to celebrate three of the second kind of feasts - the Trinity, Corpus Christi, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

In these feasts we celebrate some aspect of our faith. It is a celebration, therefore, not an academic exercise. Meditating on the gospel texts chosen for each feast helps us enter into it.

It is particularly important to do this for the Trinity, because this doctrine is usually experienced as a mathematical sum to be learnt, rather than good news to be celebrated.

The gospel text for the feast this year will seem forbidding at first. But as with many of the teachings of Jesus recorded in St John's gospel, if you read it imaginatively you will find that it will come alive.

Feel free to take the passage as you will, but it is good to let it speak to you about the Trinity. Jesus is the model of what believ­ing in the Trinity does for us.

Prayer

'Consult not your fears but your hopes and dreams. Think not about
your frustrations but about your potential.'
Pope John Paul II

Lord, as parents and teachers we tend to become self-important
- we think we have to tell our charges everything they need to know,
- preserve them from making mistakes,
- prepare them for every eventuality.

Help us to be humble like Jesus, knowing that no matter how much we do for people, there are always things that we still have to say to them, but these things would be too much for them at this point in their lives.

We need not be anxious about that, because when the time comes, the Spirit of truth will come and will lead them to the complete truth.

'Someone who knows his own weakness is greater than someone who
sees the angels.'
Isaac of Nineveh, Syrian monk of the 7th century

Lord, there are many factions in the church, each one thinking they have the complete truth.
Help us to be a church modeled on your Holy Trinity, aware that none of us possesses the complete truth since that belongs to you alone.

We do not speak as from ourselves, but only what we have received from you as your gift.

When we understand that, we can really prepare people for the things to come.

When the archer shoots for no particular prize, he has all his skills; when he shoots to win, he thinks more of winning than of shooting, and the need to win drains him of power.'
Tranxu, Chinese sage

Lord, like Jesus, we need not be anxious for success, Whatever happens in the future will glorify us it will be taken from what is ours, may seem a presumptuous thing to say, but it isn't, say it because we know that everything you have is ours.

'My son, you are with me always, and all I have is yours
The father in the parable of the prodigal son, Luke 15:31

Lord, you treat us like members of your family, and share everything you have with us.
When we think we must earn goodness by our hard work,
- we become jealous of others;
- angry that they do not recognise what they owe us;
- self-righteous that our words have been proved right.

If, like Jesus, we remember that everything you have is ours, we rejoice in the gifts of others.
Lord, forgive us that as followers of Jesus, we think we have a monopoly,
or even a first option, on the truth.

Teach us to welcome truth wherever we find it; remind us that Jesus was not possessive of the truth; he knew that everything you have is his, and so everything the Spirit would tell the world until the end of time would be taken from what was his.

Lord, noble ideals are handed on to us by great people who went before us.

When we strive for those ideals, we glorify them, since all we do is taken from what is theirs.

'Nothing that happened in Eastern Europe in these last years would
have been possible without the presence of this Pope.'
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, March 1992

Lord, we thank you for Pope John Paul II and spiritual people like him.
Guided by the Spirit, they do not speak as from themselves, but say only what they have learnt, and so they tell the world of things to come.