From the pastor’s desk
Feast of The Most Holy Trinity– Year C– Be deeply rooted in the Trinitarian life and love.
We celebrate today the great mystery of God. We cannot dare to approach this mystery with human mind. Rudolf Otto speaks of this mystery as the “mysterium, Tremendium et facinans.”
A great mystery that is so beautiful to behold which at the same time is awe-inspiring. It has to do with the Judeo-Christian concept of God. In this concept of God, we approach our God, who is the wholly other, who is transcendent. He is not of our world. He is transcendent, completely not of our nature, but who at the same time, is immanent or closer to us than we are to ourselves. As God of mystery, he is omnipotent, that is all powerful who in his Son Jesus Christ assumed a lowly state.
He is omniscient-that is all-knowing. He knows all our human conditions and enters into our
human experiences. He is all-holy and hates sin and evil. He is omnipresent, that is he is present
everywhere (Psalm 139). He is all-loving. He loves everything he has made and hates none of
them (see Wisdom 11:24-26). He is God of justice who punishes iniquity and at the same time,
shows mercy, love and compassion.
In his compassion, he has sent his Son Our Lord Jesus Christ to save the world by bringing his
message of love and mercy, dying on the Cross to save us. After the divine mission of his son, he
sent the Holy Spirit to make us holy. This is the God we profess our belief in today as the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. Three distinct divine Persons equal in majesty, undivided in splendor, yet one Lord, one God, ever to be adored in His everlasting glory. The Trinitarian dogma is one of the most fundamental differences between Judaism and Christianity. Our Jewish brothers like us profess
monotheistic concept of God. Every day, they profess the :Shema” and say: “Sh’ma Yis’ra’eli
Adonai Elohenu Adonai ehad; which means: “Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is
One. The Christians maintain the doctrine of the three ‘persons’ in the same Godhead. This is a
great lived mystery. We do not try to unravel or explain it. It is revealed in our salvation history.
The Mystery of the Trinity is a reality accepted by faith, experienced and lived out in our lives.
It is the foundation of all Christian life and communities of life. That is why we begin every prayer with the sign of the cross while invoking the Trinitarian formula.
The wise man of the Old Testament using limited human words and expressions, speaks about the
co-existent and co-eternal Divine persons at work in creation (Wisdom 8:22-31). Jesus, as we know
is the eternal word (logos). Wisdom and Power of God, who in the mystery of the incarnation
became man to redeem the world (see John 1:1ff). It is through him that we are justified by faith
and are at peace with God (Romans 5:1-5). As Jesus assures us, the Holy Spirit will continue to
communicate the truth through his function as illuminator. He will continue to make clearer within
the Church the truth of the Father through the life and saving death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
As Jesus has glorified the Father by fulfilling the Divine mission he had entrusted to him, the
Holy Spirit, in turn, glorifies Jesus by opening the minds and hearts of people to his gospel,
infusing in them the power to love all, even their enemies. He replicates the life of Jesus in his
disciples so that they become Christ-like. He renews personal relations and recreates the world,
bringing about societal and universal sanctification. He brings about a new world order that
promotes the glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, where all God’s people will
live happily and in peace with one another.
Rev. Fr. Michael Onyekwere, SDV, PhD
