Ask now of the days of old: did anything so great ever happen before? Did a people ever hear the voice of God as you did and live? Or did any God venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation? The Church celebrates today the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. It is a feast in which we celebrate the nature of God as has been revealed to us in the Scriptures. The Scriptures reveal to us a God who is interested in the wellbeing of his creation to the extent of willing to go to great lengths to stay in a relationship with it. For after bringing forth creation from nothingness, God did not abandon creation to chart its own cause but instead chose to journey with it and to be present to it always, even to the extent of acting on its behalf. This journeying with, and presence to creation by God (also known as the economy of salvation), has manifested itself in a Trinitarian dimension (as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), and is the essence of today’s feast. God’s salvific acts towards’ creation has been accomplished in God’s revealing the self to us in the divine persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The passage from the book of Deuteronomy which constitutes today’s First reading enables us to further understand the nature of today’s celebration. God’s desire to journey with, and to be present to creation, is a selfless act that is prompted by God’s wish to have creation share in the fullness of life that is found in the Godhead. For creation itself is an outflow of the immense love that is found in the Godhead (cf. I John 4:8 – “God is love”). In the passage, Moses provides the people with some “solid” proofs of God’s love for them. He points to the relationship that exists between the community and God as the premiere proof of God’s love for them. Because of God’s love for this community, God has “broken” the rules that govern the relationship that can exist between God and his creatures (divine and mortals). “Ordinarily,” God dwells in the divine realm (heaven) whereas creatures (the mortals) dwell here on earth. There is an “unbridgeable” gap between where God dwells and where mortals live. However, because of God’s love for this community addressed by Moses, God has done away with the barrier that naturally needs to exist between God and creation. Because of God’s love for this community, God has removed the curse that would result from God coming into “contact” with his creation. Moreover, not only has God come down to dwell with creation, but God has also involved the self in the affairs of mere mortals. God has fought the battles on behalf of this community and taken care of it as the apple of his eye (cf. Deuteronomy 32:10; Psalm 17:8). Moses was, without doubt, referring to the redemptive intervention of God towards the Hebrew people. And he had all the reasons to do that. But for us who are living in the era of the great event of the Incarnation, we see the words of Moses as referring to the “Jesus event.” For it is in the person of Jesus Christ that God’s redeeming love has fully revealed. Jesus Christ, the love of God incarnate, becomes the ultimate proof of God’s love for creation. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the special relationship that exists between God and creation. For in Jesus Christ, God and creation have been united.
In the Second Reading, St. Paul is reminding us of the consequences of God getting involved in our lives. God’s move to assume our nature has had the effect of “deifying” us, so to speak. Jesus Christ having dwelt among us has gifted us with his Spirt who has in turn transformed us into brothers and sisters of Jesus. Because of the Spirit of Christ who is now dwelling inside of us, we can now claim sonship just as Jesus does. The Spirit of God that has been given us has made us claimers of the fullness of life that exists in the Godhead and revealed in Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God made available to us through Jesus Christ has enabled us to call God our Father and by so doing has put us on the path to sharing in the fullness of life of the Trinity.