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The Dynamic of Love at the Heart of the Triune God Trinity Sunday, May 18, 2008

Scripture ReadingsFirst Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9Second 2 Cor 13:11-13Gospel John 3:16-18

Prepared by: Fr. Jonathan Kalisch, O.P.

1. Subject Matter

The Lord, who reveals his name as merciful and gracious to Moses, is the same God of loveand peace who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The mystery of the Trinity reveals to us the love which is in God, the love which is Godhimself, the love with which God loves all men. (Pope John Paul II)

2. Exegetical Notes

John 3:16: The only explanation that we shall ever have of the gift of eternal life made

possible for us in the redemption achieved in Christ is the incredible love of God for theworld. The gratuity of Gods love extends to the extreme of giving his only son (JBC).

John 3:16 gave: Usually the word to give is used by John to describe God as the sourceof what Jesus offers the world. However, only here does John say that God gave his son tothe world, underscoring how the incarnation stems from Gods love for the world as well ashis will.

2 Cor 13:11-13: This is the richest and most instructive final blessing in the Pauline epistles.Paul explicitly wishes for everything necessary for the Corinthians salvation. Thecommunication of the Holy Spirit is that which he effects (JBC).

3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

CCC # 221: But St. John goes even further when he affirms that God is love: God's verybeing is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God hasrevealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son andHoly Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.

CCC # 460: The Word became flesh to make us partakers of the divine nature: For this iswhy the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, byentering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a

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son of God. For the Son of God became man so that we might become God. The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so thathe, made man, might make men gods.

CCC #682: When he comes at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, the gloriousChrist will reveal the secret disposition of hearts and will render to each man according to his

works, and according to his acceptance or refusal of grace.

CCC # 706: Against all human hope, God promises descendants to Abraham, as the fruit offaith and of the power of the Holy Spirit. In Abraham's progeny all the nations of the earth willbe blessed. This progeny will be Christ himself, in whom the outpouring of the Holy Spirit willgather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. God commits himself by hisown solemn oath to giving his beloved Son and the promised Holy Spirit . . . (who is) theguarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.

CCC #720: Finally, with John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit begins the restoration to man of thedivine likeness, prefiguring what he would achieve with and in Christ. John's baptism was forrepentance; baptism in water and the Spirit will be a new birth.

CCC #1274: The Holy Spirit has marked us with the seal of the Lord (Dominicus character)for the day of redemption. Baptism indeed is the seal of eternal life. The faithful Christianwho has kept the seal until the end, remaining faithful to the demands of his Baptism, will beable to depart this life marked with the sign of faith, with his baptismal faith, in expectation ofthe blessed vision of God - the consummation of faith - and in the hope of resurrection.

4. Patristic Commentary

St. Augustine: So far, then, as it lies in the physician, He is come to heal the sick. He thatwill not observe the orders of the physician destroys himself. He is come a Saviour to the

world: why is he called the Saviour of the world, but that He is come to save the world, not tojudge the world? Thou wilt not be saved by Him; thou shall be judged of thyself And why do Isay, shall be judged? See what He says: He that believeth on Him is not judged, but hethat believeth not.

St. Augustine: The confession of evil works is the beginning of good works. Thou doest thetruth, and comest to the light. How is it thou doest the truth? Thou dost not caress, norsoothe, nor flatter thyself; nor say, I am righteous, whilst thou art unrighteous: thus, thoubeginnest to do the truth. Thou comest to the light, that thy works may be made manifest thatthey are wrought in God; for thy sin, the very thing that has given thee displeasure, would nothave displeased thee, if God did not shine into thee, and His truth show it thee. But he thatloves his sins, even after being admonished, hates the light admonishing him, and flees from

it, that his works which he loves may not be proved to be evil. But he that doeth truth accuseshis evil works in himself, spares not himself, forgives not himself, that God may forgive him:for that which he desires God to forgive, he himself acknowledges, and he comes to the light;to which he is thankful for showing him what he should hate in himself.

Chrysostom: What He saith, is of this kind: Marvel not that I am to be lifted up that ye maybe saved, for this seemeth good to the Father, and He hath so loved you as to give His Sonfor slaves, and ungrateful slavesFor by the expression, so loved, and that other, God theworld, He shows the great strength of His love. Large and infinite was the interval betweenthe two. He, the immortal, who is without beginning, the Infinite Majesty, they but dust and

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ashes, full of ten thousand sins, who, ungrateful, have at all times offended Him; and theseHe loved. Again, the words which He added after these are alike significant, when He saith,that He gave His Only-begotten Son, not a servant, not an Angel, not an Archangel. And yetno one would show such anxiety for his own child, as God did for His ungrateful servants.

Leo: For His Nature, which is invisible and shared in common with the Father and the Son,

showed the character of His gift and work by the outward sign that pleased Him, but kept Hisessential property within His own Godhead: because human sight can no more perceive theHoly Ghost than it can the Father or the Son. For in the Divine Trinity nothing is unlike orunequal, and all that can be thought concerning Its substance admits of no diversity either inpower or glory or eternity.

5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars

The transforming power of the love of the Trinity is at heart of the sanctity of all. Oneexample is St. Charles de Foucauld. As a boy, he abandoned his faith for a life of easy

living. At the age of 28, he rediscovered it, and wroth As soon as I believed in God, Iunderstood that I could not do otherwise than to live for him alone. At the age of 43 hemoved to the Sahara desert. He wanted to be among those who were, the furthestremoved, the most abandoned. He wanted all who drew close to him to find in him a brother,a universal brother. In a great respect for the culture and faith of those among whom helived, his desire was to shout the Gospel with his life. I would like to be sufficiently goodthat people would say, If such is the servant, what must the Master be like? On the eveningof December 1st 1916, he was killed by a band of marauders who had encircled his house.

6. Quotes Pope Benedict XVI: In the light of the Pascal Mystery is fully revealed the centre of the

universe and of history: God himself, eternal and infinite Love. The word that summarizes allrevelation is this: God is love (I Jn 4: 8, 16); and love is always a mystery, a reality thatsurpasses reason without contradicting it, and more than that, exalts its possibilities. Jesusrevealed to us the mystery of God: he, the Son, made us know the Father who is in Heaven,and gave us the Holy Spirit, the Love of the Father and of the Son. Christian theologysynthesizes the truth of God with this expression: only one substance in three persons. Godis not solitude, but perfect communion. For this reason the human person, the image of God,realizes himself or herself in love, which is a sincere gift of self.

Pope Paul VI: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son for its salvation. Allour religion is a revelation of Gods kindness, mercy and love for us. God is love (1John4:16) that is, love poured forth unsparingly. All is summed up in this supreme truth, whichexplains and illuminates everything. The story of Jesus must be seen in this light. (He)loved me, and gave himself for me.

Pope Benedict XVI: The Spirit does not speak, as it were, from himself, but is a listening toand a making clear of the Son, who in turn does not speak on his authority, but is, as the onesent by the Father, his distinct presence. The Father also gives himself to the Son socompletely that everything that he has belongs to the Son. Each of the three Persons of the

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Trinity points to the other two. In this circle of love flowing and intermingling, there is thehighest degree of unity and constancy to everything that exists

Pope Benedict XVI: What sustains us is the movement of the heart and spirit that leavesitself and is on the way to the otherIt is only if each Christian makes his whole beingavailable to the Word in the passage of time that time can as a whole be made open to

ChristThe Trinity, then, provides us with the means by which both the individual and thecommunity of the Church can disentangle the confusion of time. We shall not solve theproblems that trouble us today by theorizing, but by spiritual means, by entering, in otherwords, into the form of the Trinity.

Pope Benedict XVI: In the one and indivisible God there exists the phenomenon ofdialogue, the reciprocal exchange of word and love. This again signifies that the threePersons who exist in God are the reality of Word and Love in the attachment to each other.

Pope Benedict XVI: Father is purely a concept of relationship. Only in being for the otheris he Father; in his own being, in himself he is simply God. Person is the pure relation ofbeing related, nothing else. Relationship is not something extra added to the person, as it is

with us; it only exists as all as relatedness. Pope John Paul II: This is the same Spirit who was at work in the Incarnation and in the life,

death and resurrection of Jesus, and who is at work in the Church. He is therefore not analternative to Christ, nor does he fill a sort of void which is sometimes suggested as existingbetween Christ and the Logos. Whatever the Spirit brings about in human hearts and in thehistory of peoples, in cultures and religions serves as a preparation for the Gospel and canonly be understood in reference to Christ, the Word who took flesh by the power of the Spiritso that as perfectly human he would save all human beings and sum up all things.Moreover, the universal activity of the Spirit is not to be separated from his particular activitywithin the body of Christ, which is the Church. Indeed, it is always the Spirit who is at work,both when he gives life to the Church and impels her to proclaim Christ, and when he

implants and develops his gifts in all individuals and peoples, guiding the Church to discoverthese gifts, to foster them and to receive them through dialogue. Every form of the Spirit'spresence is to be welcomed with respect and gratitude, but the discernment of this presenceis the responsibility of the Church, to which Christ gave his Spirit in order to guide her into allthe truth (cf. Jn Jn 16,13).

7. Other Considerations

The Trinity reveals God as literally the Love that moves the world. There is no solitude inGod, but perfect gift. We become partakers of the Divine Nature through the reception of thisGift in the sacraments as well as through our own participation in Divine Charity or Friendshipwith God.

Recommended Resources

Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVIed. Peter John Cameron, Ignatius Press, 2006.

Congregation for the Clergy, Biblia Clerus, on line at: http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerus/index_eng.html

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Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer, and Roland Murphy,Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968.

The Navarre Bible: St. John, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998.

The New Interpreters Bible, The Gospel of John vol ix, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990.