Sunday, 15 June

The building of Basic Ecclesial Communities is one of the major pastoral priorities of the Philippine Church (2002).

Readings: Prv. 8:22-31; Ps. 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9; Rom. 5:1-5; Jn. 16:12-15.

Some Notes on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

1. Last Monday, 9 June, we began Ordinary Time, a time when we are called to live the Gospel in the ordinariness of everyday life. Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Pope John XXII established the feast for the universal Church in 1334. Trinity Sunday directs us toward the goal of our journey — eternal life in the One and Triune God.

2. The word "Trinity" does not appear anywhere in the Bible.

The Councils of Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381 were providential in spreading the doctrine of the Trinity. The two Councils condemned the Arian heresy that denied the divinity of Jesus, effectively denying that God is One and Triune.

3. The doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity, in whose name we are baptized, is the fundamental dogma of our faith. The Feast makes us aware of God's provident and faithful love for us. Indeed, God is Love. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share one divine nature in a "relationship" of mutual and eternal love. The Feast reminds us that our relationships with others must similarly be characterized by love.

4. 1st Reading, Prv. 8:22-31 — Thus says the wisdom of God: "The Lord begot me, the beginning of his works.... From of old I was formed, at the first, before the earth" (vv. 1-2). Wisdom is here personified. She is of divine origin. She exists before all things (vv. 24-29). "Then was I beside him as artisan; I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing over the whole earth, having my delight with human beings" (vv. 30- 31).

5. The early Church Fathers correlated Wisdom with Jesus, the Word of God, as in Jn. 1:1-3 — "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be" (see also Col. 1:15-20). Proverbs 8 has other correlations with Jesus. Jesus is the wisdom of God, especially in his work on the Cross — "Christ the power and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1: 20- 24). Jesus became for us wisdom from God (1 Cor. 1:30). In Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom (Col. 2:3).