Other Sunday and Holy Day Readings
SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY (Cycle A)
Readings:
Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9
Daniel 3:52-55
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
John 3:16-18
All Scripture passages are from the New American Bible unless designated NJB (New Jerusalem Bible), IBHE (Interlinear Bible Hebrew-English), IBGE (Interlinear Bible Greek-English), or LXX (Greek Septuagint Old Testament translation). In addition, CCC designates a citation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The word LORD or GOD rendered in all capital letters is, in the Hebrew text, God's Divine Name, YHWH (Yahweh).
God reveals His divine plan for humanity in the two Testaments, which is why we read and relive the events of salvation history contained in the Old and New Testaments in the Church's Liturgy. The Catechism teaches that the Liturgy reveals the unfolding mystery of God's plan as we read the Old Testament in light of the New and the New Testament in light of the Old (CCC 1094-1095).
The Church has returned to Ordinary Time in the Liturgical Calendar. The second part of Ordinary Time began the day after Pentecost and continues to the Saturday before the First Sunday of Advent.
The Theme of the Readings: Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity:
Three feasts complete the Easter season: the Solemnity of
Pentecost, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, and the Solemnity of Corpus
Christi. These three feasts should remind us how deeply God loves us and how He
has called us from before the foundation of the world to be His children
(Eph 1:4-5). Throughout the Easter Season, we have been celebrating the work of the
Most Holy Trinity. Perhaps this is why the Church chose to celebrate the Solemnity
of the Holy Trinity on the first Lord's Day after Eastertime. Mother Church
wants us to remember what we celebrate every Lord's Day: The risen Savior,
Jesus Christ, who sends the Holy Spirit to be God's presence in us and all of
His Creation.
The readings for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity illustrate how God intends His word and His works from the beginning of Creation to prepare us in two ways for Christ's eternal gift of salvation. The readings show us the revelation of the mystery of the One God in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They also reveal the blessings of divine grace through God the Son. Through Christ's grace, we inherit supernatural life and blessings that God bestows on humanity by the merits of Christ's work of Redemption. The grace of God the Son is a gift that goes beyond the grace of God the Father. In addition to raising us to divine life when we are "born from above" in the Sacrament of Baptism, He also heals our wounds inflicted by sin. It is a gift that keeps on giving as Christ's gift of new life renews in us every time we receive Him, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Eucharist.
The word "Trinity" does not appear in Sacred Scripture. It is a term the Church uses to define the mystery of the Triune nature of the One mighty, Creator God. The revelation of the mystery of the One God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, was not known to the covenant people of the Old Testament. It was, however, hidden in the Holy Spirit-inspired writings of the Old Testament (Lk 24:25-27, 44-47). The ineffable mystery of the Triune nature of God was first revealed to us by Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity.
Jesus began to reveal the mystery of the Triune nature of God to the Apostles in His Last Supper Discourse (Gospel of John chapters 14-17). Then, the revelation became clear after His Resurrection and before His Ascension, when He instructed His disciples to baptize believers using the Trinitarian formula "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you" (Mt 28:18-19). Jesus's statement referred to the oneness of God as well as the unique relationship of the "threeness" of the Most Holy Trinity. The command is to baptize in "the name," singular, of the three Persons of the unity that is the Most Holy Trinity.
Jesus's Trinitarian formula for the Sacrament of Baptism is the same profession of belief in the Trinity that Christians confess whenever making the Sign of the Cross, using the theological Trinitarian formula: "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen!" The sign of the cross made across our bodies is everything a Christian believes in one profound gesture. It especially takes on a statement of belief when, according to the ancient custom, one holds up the first two fingers of the right hand to symbolize the humanity and divinity of Christ and then the last three fingers against the palm to represent the unique three-in-one relationship of the Most Holy Trinity. Then the motion of the hand from forehead to chest and moving from one shoulder to the other symbolizes the belief that God the Son came from Heaven to earth and from suffering to resurrection to accomplish humanity's salvation.
The dogma of the Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith, and that truth, above all others, makes Christianity unique among the world's religions (CCC 232, 234, 237, and 261). At the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, in defense of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the Universal Church proclaimed: "We firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God, eternal, infinite, and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty, and ineffable, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, three persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature entirely simple." In our attempt to grasp the depth of this sublime mystery, we, like St. Paul, should cry out: Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways! (Rom 11:33).
The First Reading Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9 ~ The Attributes of God
4b Early in the morning, Moses went up Mount Sinai as the
LORD [Yahweh] had commanded him, taking along the two stone tablets. 5 Having
come down in a cloud, the LORD [Yahweh] stood with him there and proclaimed his
name, "LORD [Yahweh]." 6 Thus the LORD [Yahweh] passed before him and cried
out, "The LORD, the LORD [Yahweh, Yahweh], God [El = god singular], merciful
and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity of tenderness
[rachum] and compassion [hanan], slow to anger [erech appayim], rich in
faithful love [rav hesed = faithful covenant love] and constancy [truth = emet]."...
8 Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship. 9 Then he said, "If I find
favor with you, O LORD [Yahweh], do come along in our company. This is indeed a
stiff-necked people, yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your
own." [...] = Interlinear Bible: Hebrew-English, page 235; JPS
Commentary: Exodus, page 216; Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew-English
Lexicon, page 42).
This passage recounts Moses's third ascent of Mount Sinai, occurring after the rebellion of the Golden Calf when Moses broke the first stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in anger (Ex chapter 32). There are differences in this ascent to rendezvous with Yahweh as opposed to the first partial ascent in Exodus 19:23-24 and the second ascent of Mount Sinai that lasted 40 days in Exodus 24:12-18:
Yahweh descended to the summit of Mount Sinai in the Glory Cloud (verse 5a), and, standing before Moses, He pronounced His Divine Name (verse 5b); it was a private revelation of His Divine Essence for Moses.
In Exodus 34:6, 8-9, God revealed His Divine attributes. Verse 6 (and verse 7, which is not in our reading) constitutes God's response to Moses's petition to know God's ways (Ex 33:13) and to behold God's glory (Ex 33:18). There was no awesome visual display because this was not a revelation for a multitude but instead a divine disclosure for an individual. God revealed Himself to Moses in a quiet oral proclamation of His attributes: His divine qualities of mercy and justice that He extends in His relationship with humankind. God began by calling out His Divine Name in a threefold expression of His divinity in a foreshadowing of the revelation of the Triune nature of the One God:
| Exodus 34:6 |
| 1. Yahweh |
| 2. Yahweh |
| 3. El (god singular) |
In the New Testament, God revealed the mystery of the Triune nature of the One God through God the Son. We know God the Father's Divine Name from the Old Testament, and the New Testament reveals the Divine Name of God the Son. There are two Divine names (Yahweh and Yahshua/Jesus) and the One who is unnamed, the Paraclete, meaning "Advocate," revealed to us by Jesus in His last discourse at the Last Supper: He who is God the Holy Spirit.
Yahweh revealed to Moses the essence of His divine character in this passage. For a human to "know" Him is to be welcomed into a higher level of intimacy in one's conception of God through a covenant relationship. The enumerated attributes, which we would number as ten in the completed passage (verses 6-7), are both merciful (34:6-7a) and punitive (34:7b). However, in his response to the revelation, Moses ignored the disciplinary statement and only focused on God's mercy and forgiveness.
Jewish tradition identifies verses 6-7a and 9b as the "Thirteen Attributes of Mercy," Shelosh 'Esreh Middot (JPS Commentary: Exodus, page 216). Except for the Sabbath liturgy, there is a reciting of the list of thirteen divine attributes in the Synagogue liturgy on the fasting and feast days. The Jewish congregation also heard them on other holy days when opening the Ark of the Torah (Aron Kodesh) and unrolling the Torah scroll to the appropriate Scripture reading (JPS Commentary: Exodus, page 216). In Synagogue worship, the Jews also recited the Selihot/Selichot prayers. They are the penitential prayers recited on those occasions, during the week before the High Holy Days and between the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur).
It is a mistake to regard the attributes of God as the human qualities inherent in God. They are instead His "ways" (Ex 33:13) of governing the destiny of humanity. Moses's response to this private revelation was to bow down in worship and make three petitions. He petitions God:
When we acknowledge the One True God as we bow down in worship, we also need, like Moses, the confidence in the Most Holy Trinity's mercy to offer up our petitions for the New Covenant people in Jesus's Kingdom of the Church. We should pray that:
Responsorial Psalm is Daniel 3:52-55 ~ Glorifying God
The response is: "Glory and praise forever!"
52 Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers,
praiseworthy and exalted above all forever; and blessed is your holy and
glorious name, praiseworthy and exalted above all for all ages.
Response:
53 Blessed are you in the Temple of your holy glory,
praiseworthy and glorious above all forever.
Response:
54 Blessed are you on the throne of your kingdom,
praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.
Response:
55 Blessed are you who look into the depths from your
throne upon the cherubim, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.
Response:
When the Babylonians conquered Judah in 605 BC, they captured Jewish youth of noble birth and took them as captives to Babylon. The plan was to educate them for service to the Babylonian king. Among those taken captive from the Kingdom of Judah were four young men: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Dan 1:1-6). Each of them received Babylonian names: Daniel was called Belteshazzar, Hananiah was called Shadrach, Mishael was called Meshach, and Azariah was called Abednego (Dan 1:7). Daniel became an advisor to King Nebuchadnezzar, and the others became administrators for the province of Babylon. Despite their captivity and exposure to pagan traditions and beliefs, all the young men remained loyal to Yahweh, the One True God.
King Nebuchadnezzar had a golden statue set up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. He ordered the members of his government to attend the dedication of the statue and to bow down in worship before it. Whoever refused to bow down to the statue was threatened with being thrown into a white-hot furnace. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were at the dedication but refused to bow down to the idol. The guards threw them into the furnace, but miraculously the fire did not consume them. Instead, they walked about in the flames, praising God and blessing His holy name (Dan 3:1-24). Our reading is from the song they sang while standing in the fire, as they praised and gave glory to God amid their ordeal in which God preserved them from harm. Theirs is an example we should follow when we find ourselves thrown into the furnace of personal suffering. In faith and trust, we must praise God during our difficulties and have confidence in His power to save us from disaster.
The Second Reading 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 ~ God's Grace,
Love, and Peace
11 Finally, brothers, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one
another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace
will be with you. 12 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the holy ones
greet you. 13 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
These verses are St. Paul's concluding words from his second letter to the Christian faith community at Corinth, Greece. He called for the people to strive for unity and peace and live in the love of God. In the final verse, St. Paul blessed the congregation in one of the most explicit Trinitarian passages in the New Testament. It differs from the Trinitarian formula Jesus gave in Matthew 28:19 and from St. Peter's and St. John's formula in 1 Peter and the Book of Revelation:
Notice that Paul's order in 2 Corinthians 13:13 is the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. In 1 Peter 1:2, St. Peter uses a Trinitarian formula to explain how God calls Christians to believe:
Peter's Trinitarian order is the same as in Revelation 1:4-5:
But these are different from the order Jesus gave in Matthew 28:19, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
The Church Fathers identified the Trinitarian order in
Revelation and 1 Peter as a liturgical order in naming the Most Holy Trinity as
opposed to the theological order in Matthew 28:19. The theological order is
also the order of divine revelation to humanity. First, God the Father called
people to a covenant relationship with Him. Next, in the Incarnation and
mission of Jesus Christ, God the Son revealed Himself to humanity. Finally,
after God the Son's Ascension, the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God
the Holy Spirit, was fully revealed at the Jewish Feast of Pentecost. St. Peter's
Trinitarian order may be significant in the context of Peter's universal letter
read in the liturgical assemblies of the Church. And, significantly, the
visions of St. John in the Book of Revelation take place in Heaven's Liturgical
Assembly.
In the Liturgy of the Mass, we follow St. Peter's and the Book
of Revelation's liturgical order in addressing first the Father, then the Holy
Spirit, and finally God the Son:
In St. Paul's order, he was probably expressing his concept that the blessing of "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ" is the greatest expression of "the love of God" for the Corinthian Christians. In divine love, the first two Persons of the Trinity sent the Holy Spirit. Humanity's fellowship with the Holy Trinity is only made possible through the mission of God the Holy Spirit, in the lives of the Corinthian Christians and our lives.
The Gospel of John 3:16-18 ~ Believe in the Son
16 God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so
that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him will not be
condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he
has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 3:16 is one of the best-known verses in the Bible. It is the witness of the Gospels summed up in one sentence. God the Father did not send God the Son into the world to judge the world. Jesus's Hebrew name, Yahshua, means "Yahweh is salvation" (Yeshua or Yehoshua in Aramaic). He was sent into the world to offer humanity God's gift of eternal salvation (verse 17). Saving humanity through repentance and the forgiveness of sins and giving the gift of eternal salvation was the focus of Jesus's mission. However, divine judgment will come. It will depend on whether or not a person believes Jesus is the Son of God and receives Him as Lord and Savior in the Sacrament of Baptism in the name of the Triune God (verse 18; also see Mt 28:19-20 and Mk 16:16).
18 Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but
whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not
believed in the name of the only Son of God.
To believe in His "name" is to believe everything that
Jesus revealed about His true nature, human and divine. It is to believe He is
the Son of God, that He died for our sins, and that He arose from the dead to
raise those who believe in Him to eternal life. In rejecting Christ, one
rejects salvation and eternal life. Their rejection of Christ is what Peter
preached in Acts 4:11-12 to the members of the Jewish Law Court (Sanhedrin) when
he said: This is the stone which you, the builders, rejected but which has
become the cornerstone. Only in him is there salvation; for of all the names
in the world given to men, this is the only one by which
we can be saved" (emphasis added).
But what about the poor soul who never experienced the Gospel and, therefore, never had the choice of accepting or rejecting Christ? According to St. Paul, those men and women who never heard the Gospel of salvation will be judged by their consciences and the innate, natural law that God has placed in the heart of every human being (Rom 2:12-16). The difficulty is that sin can erode one's conscience to the point where it will no longer be able to discern the degree of wickedness committed and accept excuses that mitigate or excuse transgressions. It is the reason why spreading the Gospel across the earth is so important to bring salvation to humanity (also see Luke 12:47-48 and CCC # 846-48).
Divine grace saves us through the sacrifice of God the Son. Grace, in its most intimate definition regarding Christ, is nothing less than Divine Sonship. CCC# 1997: "Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism, the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of His Body. As an 'adopted son,' he can henceforth call God 'Father,' in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church."
This gift of grace that God gives us is His life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our souls to heal us of sin and sanctify us. This infusion of divine life is the sanctifying/deifying grace we receive in Baptism. It is a gift of His life that God makes to us, and in turn, we become a new creation, "born from above," as Jesus told Nicodemus (Jn 3:3, 5). In 2 Corinthians 5:17-18, St. Paul wrote: So for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old order is gone, and a new being is there to see. It is all God's work; he reconciled us to himself through Christ, and he gave us the ministry of reconciliation. I mean, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not holding anyone's faults against them, but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (also see CCC # 1999).
God created all human beings and fashioned them after His image. However, although made in His image, we are still creatures, created beings. Christ is the eternal Son begotten of the Father. He is the image of the Father, while human beings are only created in the image of the Father. In the New Creation, Christ gives us, through His life, rebirth into permanent sonship. In 1 John 3:1, St. John wrote: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are!
Through the Sacrament of Baptism, we are no longer simply children in the family of Adam as creatures in God's Creation. Instead, in the Sacrament of Baptism, we are re-created as new beings, "born from above," who belong to God. The blood of Christ Jesus unites us to the Father in our rebirth "from above" (Jn 3:3) as His children. Our rebirth into the family of God is the most distinctive feature of Christianity and the most distinctive feature of Catholicism. It is what Pope Pius XI expressed when he said: "Ours is a religion of Divine Sonship. We are made partakers of the divine nature," affirming what St. Peter wrote about the Christian's share in "divine nature" in 2 Peter 1:3-4, By his divine power, he has lavished on us all the things we need for life and for true devotion, through the knowledge of him who has called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these, the greatest and priceless promises have been lavished on us, that through them, you should share the divine nature and escape the corruption rife in the world through disordered passion.
Catechism References for this lesson (* indicates
Scripture quoted or paraphrased in the citation):
Exodus 34:5-6 (CCC 210);
34:6 (CCC 214, 231, 2577*);
34:7 (CCC 211);
34:9 (CCC 210*)
2 Corinthians 13:13 (CCC 249, 253-55, 734, 1109, 2627*)
John 3:16 (CCC 219, 444, 454*, 458, 706*); 3:17 (CCC 679*); 3:18 (CCC 444, 454*, 679*)
2 Peter 1:3-4 (CCC 1996*); 1:4 (CCC 460, 1129*, 1265, 1692, 1721, 1812*)
The Mystery of the Trinity (CCC 202*, 232*, 233-237, 238*, 239*, 240*, 241*, 242, 243*, 244*, 245-248, 249*, 250-256, 257*, 258, 259*, 260*, 684*, 732)
The Trinity in the Church and her Liturgy (CCC 249*, 813, 950, 1077*, 1078-1083, 1083*, 1084*, 1085*, 1086, 1087*, 1088*, 1089-1093, 1094*, 1095-1098, 1099*, 1100-1104, 1105*, 1106, 1107*, 1108*, 1109*, 2845*)
The Trinity and prayer (CCC 2655*, 2664-2665, 2666*, 2667*, 2668*, 2669, 2670*, 2671*, 2672)
The family as an image of the Trinity (CCC 2205)
Michal E Hunt, Copyright © 2014; revised 2023 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.