THE MOST HOLY TRINITY  - CICLO C – 2016

1. On the first Sunday after the Easter Season the Liturgy of the Church invites us to celebrate the greatness of our God, to adore him, to contemplate him, to allow ourselves to be fascinated with his beauty and goodness
2. Through the readings we will   enter into the mystery of God one and triune. Like Moses we will remove the sandals from our feet because we are on sacred ground.   
3. Let us enter into his presence with our imagination and our feelings and over all with our love.      
    
   FIRST READING   Proverbs 8:22-31 

• Wisdom speaks and says that she existed from the beginning.  
• Wisdom describes for us the works of God. Let our imagination go to the places where Wisdom leads us: 

• oceans, springs of water, rivers.
• mountains and hills  
• earth and fields   

• She says that she was present when God made the sky 
• when he put it, the sky, as a dome  over the ocean.   
• when he put boundaries to the sea     
• If we pay attention to what Wisdom is saying, God is building a home. The home he has prepared  for us to live in.  
• And Wisdoms tells us that she was there beside him as his craft man, and that she played before him, and was delighted to be with the human race .
• What a wonderful word, the Wisdom of God, God himself found and still finds his delight in the human race, in each one of us. 
• The Church sees in this Wisdom the Son of God, through whom all things were made. He became one of us.  In the Eastern Churches they see in this Wisdom an image of the Holy Creator Spirit.  (see psalm  104)
   
  RESPONSORIAL PSALM  Ps  8
  O LORD OUR GOD, HOW WONDERFUL YOUR NAME IN ALL THE EARTH
  When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers  
  the moon and the stars which you set in place
  What is man that you should be mindful of him,
  or the son of man that you should care for him?
   
  You have made him little less than the angels
  and crowned him with glory and honor
  you have given him rule over the works of your hand
  putting all things under his feet
   
  All sheep and oxen
  yes, and the beasts of the field
  the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea
  and whatever swims the paths of the seas.
   

• The psalmist is surprised to see how God takes care of his creatures.  
• And in a very special way of man, to whom he has given power over them. 
• And he asks himself, what is man?  
• We repeat the same question, who are we that the Son of the Father became one like us, and put his tent among us?  Who are we that God comes to dwell in us.  
   
  SECOND READING  Rom 5:1-5

1. Paul speaks of the redemptive work of God for his creation.  
2. We have been justified by faith, and this gives us peace with God by Jesus Christ. 
3. Christ is he who has given us the grace in which we live, and at the same time we rejoice in hope of the   glory of God. 
4. He says that we do not only rejoice in hope, but also in our afflictions.  
5. Knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character hope.  
6. He says that hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  
7. The Holy Spirit is he who fulfils the work that God does in us. 
    
   GOSPEL  Jn 16,12-15

• Jesus says to his disciples that he has many more things to tell them, but they cannot bear them in that moment.  
• The Holy Spirit will help them to understand and to live what Jesus has taught them during his life. The Spirit will guide them to all truth. He will remind them all the words of Jesus.
• He will not speak on his own; he will speak what he hears in the intimacy of the Trinitarian life. 
• He will glorify Jesus, because he will take what is Jesus' and declare it to them.   
• Why does Jesus say that the Spirit will not speak on his own? 
• Jesus had said to his disciples that the Spirit was the promise of the Father; the Father was given the Spirit to them.  But now it seems as if the Spirit was given by Jesus.
• The answer is found in the next verse: everything that the Father has belongs to Jesus.
• The mission of the Spirit among us has been to make possible the creating and redemptive plan of the Father in the Church and in the world. 
• This is our God, the Christian God, God who is a Trinity of persons, a community of persons united by the love generated between the three divine Persons. He is the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sanctifier.  
   

1.  we confess your eternal holy Trinity and undivided Unity   (Prayer after Communion - Mass of the Most Holy Trinity)     
2. Blest be God the Father, and the Only Begotten Son of God, and also the Holy Spirit for he has shown us his merciful love.  (Entrance Antiphon - Mass of the Most Holy Trinity)  
3. Let us see what the beginning of the  book of Revelation says, before John greets the seven churches at the beginning of the heavenly liturgy: 

• Grace to you and peace from him who is, who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the first born of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth.  
• We can simplify this greeting as follows: May the favor and peace of  the Father, of the Holy Spirit and of the Son be with you. 
• At the beginning of our Eucharistic celebrations the priest greets the people saying: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you.
   
                          
   

Once, I was somehow worried thinking how to maintain a house with so many people since, at the same time, nine young ladies came to receive the holy habit, so poor that they did not bring me not even one peseta, and with so miserable clothes that some – most of them – could not change. On the other hand I knew very soon that among them, only two were industrious, all the others were fond of rest and comfort. This fact, more than their poverty, was the cause of my distress, because I like the poor but diligence ones. Besides this, I was worried those days because they presented me a bill of S 250, rentals of the house we had live in until then and of the one we were starting to occupy (this one, even it if had been bought to build a monastery, had to be rented until we had the documents made), and this was due to the carelessness of the person in change, if he had been cunning enough, nothing of this had to be paid : that is why I was so disappointed. I was also disgusted because until that moment they had made me believe that the Archbishop would take charge of the house (meaning to say” in case that we would not earn anything”). I think the devil was using all the means to make us distrust the Divine providence, but, by the grace of God, his attempt was not successful.    Venerable María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography- Second Account  88.

 

In truth, the fire of love acts in a minister of the Lord in much the same way that material fire acts in the engine of a locomotive or a ship: it enables them to move the heaviest cargo with the greatest of ease.  What good would either of these two huge machines be without fire and steam to move them? None at all. What good is a priest who has finished all his studies and holds degrees in theology and canon and civil law if he lacks the fire of love? None at all. He is no good for others because he is like a locomotive without steam. Instead of being a help, as he should, he may only be a hindrance. He is no good even for himself. As St. Paul says, "If I speak with human tongues and angelic as well, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal.". Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian MIssionary Sisters, Autobiography 441  

 

BIBLIOGRAFÍA:

CLARET, Antonio María , Autobiography.

PARIS, María Antonia, Autobiography

RAVASI, Gianfranco, Según Las Escrituras, Año C, 2006

SCHÖKEL, Luis Alonso. Comentario a La Biblia de nuestro Pueblo. 2010.