Reflections

Trinity Sunday (B)/ Baptize in the name of F, S & HS
	Deut 4:32-40/PS 33:4-22/Rom 8:14-17/Mat 28:16-20
	Introduction
	When St. Augustine was thinking about the mystery of the Holy Trinity, he walked along the beach. He saw a boy running back and in forth from sea to shore. He asked him, “*What are you doing my child?” Father, “I’m transferring the whole ocean to the hole that I made,” the boy answered.St. Augustine smiled and said, “My child you can not put the whole ocean to that small hole.” But the child looked at him and said, “But you father, why do you keep on searching for the answer to the mystery of the Trinity, and keep on trying to put the vastness of its mystery into your limited mind?”* St. Augustine stopped for a while and pondered what the boy said, and when he looked back he saw no one else, except himself and the wideness of the ocean before him.
	Background
	Even though the theology of the Trinity was not yet fully developed during the time of Jesus, there were already a lot of signs in the Bible that the early Christian communities were using “Trinitarian Formula” in their liturgy, especially in their baptismal rite. Matthew himself, in today’s Gospel, believed that it was Christ himself who commissioned his apostles to: “Go to the whole world and baptize them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Mt 28:19) It was the same faith that our Church Fathers handed to us since the 4th Century as stated in the Nicene Creed that we recite every Sunday. “We believe in God the Father.... and Jesus Christ … true God from true God… and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father in the Son, and together they are worshiped and glorified… “This creed is also well expressed is in the Bible. God the Father created Heaven and Earth and all the things therein. Jesus is the Word became man, and the Holy Spirit continues to sanctify us. The Trinity might have distinction in “Persons” and activity and mission. But whenever one Person acts the two other Persons are not only present but also act together with that Person.
	Reflections:
	I think the child was right. God is so mysterious because his essence and existence are infinitely unfathomable. Even how hard we try, our limited mind can not contain mystery of his infinite nature. If he can be fully known by our finite or limited mind, then he could not be that infinite God. But for those who are still trying to seek for an explanation. I will honestly say to them: “I simply don’t know.” I believe because it is a Dogma of Faith (infallible truths that can not be wrong). This is also the center and the most essential part of our Faith. We accept it and we believe it, even if we do not fully understand, because… *this is how God chose to reveal himself.* There had been many attempts to explain this mystery, like that of the *Nominalists, who say that this mystery is only a matter of names. My mother is Rosario and my father is Alfredo and I am George, but we all have only one family name, Vargas. For those who are mathematical wizards, they would say, 1 times 1 times1 equals 1 (that easy). Just don’t use addition. And why would you add? God did not ask us to add, He asked us to multiply (Genesis 1:28 – “go out and multiply!”) For Metaphysicists and philosophers, they define the word “person” as individually self existent being of the rational state,* and in Trinity they share the same 1 Divine nature (essence or substance). Whew! It becomes more mysterious than the mystery itself. The *Existentialists* tried to explain it in the realm of love. The Father loves the son so much, and the Son returns the same unconditional love to his Father through his obedience even on the cross. And the Love that exists between Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit.
	Conclusion
	If we are using only our minds, the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity is really so mysterious and can never be fully understood but if we are going to use our hearts and understand it in the context of love, it will never be that hard to understand.