First Reading
Trinity Sunday-Cycle B-2009 Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40
Moses said to the people: “Ask now of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created man upon the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of? Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live? Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors, all of which the LORD, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other. You must keep his statutes and commandments that I enjoin on you today, that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may have long life on the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever.”
Second Reading
Romans 8:14-17
Brothers and sisters: For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
Gospel Cycle Cycle B
Matthew 28:16-20
The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they all saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Today’s first reading, from the Book of Deuteronomy, invites us to believe in God. The mystery that we celebrate today is the mystery of three Divine Persons in One God. This profound mystery of the Holy Trinity is best understood—and perhaps only understood—when we begin with this fundamental faith in the One God. Our God is not just any God, but the God revealed to us through the patriarchs and prophets. This God who is revealed to us is a God who loves us and who brought our spiritual ancestors out of Egypt.
The more we know this God revealed to us in the history of the Chosen People, the more we can understand Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. The more we come to speak of this God personally and to know this God personally at work in our lives, the closer we come to some small understanding of the Holy Trinity.
Each of us needs to be able to say, completely personally, that God has brought me out from slavery, that our God is a great God, that our God is a God who loves us and cares for us. We want to be able to call on God as our Father in the same way that Jesus does in our Christian Scriptures. As we listen to Jesus speaking to the Father, we come to realize that He calls God His Father in a way that we cannot do by ourselves.
Only as we come to know the Lord Jesus and then accept Him and then be baptized in Him do we receive from Him this possibility of calling on God as our Father in the same way as He does. God is always the Father of everyone and of all that is, but in Christ we have the most personal relationship possible to the Father. In Christ our relationship to the Father is transformed, deepened and made new.
If we have died with Christ and risen with Him, then we can understand today’s Gospel in which Jesus send forth His followers to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Even if these may not be exactly the words of Jesus Himself, they express the faith of the early Church and show us how the early Christians understood Jesus and the mystery of the Trinity.
May our own understanding and faith grow today as we hear this readings and ponder them. May we continue to study the Scriptures, seeking in them an ever deeper understanding of all of the mysteries of our faith. Let us rejoice in this God who loves us so much and who throughout all history seeks to draw us to Himself. May we know God and rejoice in God.