THE  MOST  Holy  Trinity (Cycle C) "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit." ENTRANCE ANTIPHON Blessed be God the Father and His only begotten Son and the Holy Spirit: for He has shown that He loves us. PENITENTIAL RITE Today we are celebrating the feast of the most Holy Trinity. The three divine persons share equally everything in common while being united together as one. Christ helped us to learn about the love of the Trinity for us by bringing us into God’s family through sharing with us God’s own very life. For our lack of love for the Three Persons of the Trinity let us be sorry. (Pause). I confess... Glory to God in the highest,/and peace to his people on earth./Lord God, heavenly King,/almighty God and Father,/we worship you,/ we give you thanks,/we praise you for your glory./Lord Jesus Christ,/only Son of the Father,/Lord God, Lamb of God,/you take away the sin of the world:/have mercy on us;/you are seated at the right hand of the Father,/receive our prayer./For you alone are the Holy One,/ you alone are the Lord,/you alone are the Most High,/Jesus Christ,/with the Holy Spirit,/ in the glory of God the Father./Amen. OPENING PRAYER Let us pray. Father, you sent your Word to bring us truth and your Spirit to make us holy. Through them we come to know the mystery of your life. Help us to worship you, one God in three Persons, by proclaiming and living our faith in you. Grant this through... FIRST READING (This reading speaks about the wisdom and power which God displayed in creating the world.) A reading from the book of Proverbs (8:22-31) The Wisdom of God cries aloud: the Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth; before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men. This is the Word of the Lord PSALM (8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9) Response: How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth! When I see the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars which you arranged, what is man that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him? R./ Yet you have made him little less than a god; with glory and honour you crowned him, gave him power over the works of your hand, put all things under his feet. R./ All of them, sheep and cattle, yes, even the savage beasts, birds of the air, and fish that make their way through the waters. R./ SECOND READING (St Paul reminds the Romans of three basic points which Christians must bear in mind at all times.) A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Romans (5:1-5) Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. This is the Word of the Lord ACCLAMATION (Apoc 1:8) Alleluia, alleluia! Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, the God who is, and who was, and who is to come. Alleluia! GOSPEL (When the Spirit of God comes he will guide you into all the truth.) A reading from the Holy Gospel according to St John (16:12-15) Jesus said to his disciples: "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you." This is the Gospel of the Lord I believe in God,/the Father Almighty,/Creator of heaven and earth./ I believe in Jesus Christ,/his only Son, our Lord./He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit/ and born of the Virgin Mary./He suffered under Pontius Pilate,/was crucified, died, and was buried./He descended to the dead./On the third day he rose again./He ascended into Heaven,/and is seated at the right hand of the Father./He will come again to judge the living and the dead./I believe in the Holy Spirit,/the Holy Catholic Church,/the communion of saints,/the forgiveness of sins,/the resurrection of the body,/and the life everlasting./ Amen. PRAYER OF THE FAITHFUL Cel: Dear brothers and sisters, united by faith, hope and charity and led by the Spirit let us pray to God our Father through his Son Jesus. Response: Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. 1. For our holy Father the Pope, bishops, priests, religious and catechists that they may be ever constant in helping the people under their care to discover God’s love for them, let us pray… R./ 2. For all baptized Christians that they may repent of their sins, rediscover the joy of being God’s children and allow themselves to be led by the Holy Spirit, let us pray… R./ 3. For those who have gone astray that they may turn their back on the glamour of evil by resisting the lure of temptation in their life, let us pray… R./ 4. For all of us gathered here that realizing how consoling it is to have God as our Father, Jesus as our Brother, and the Holy Spirit as our Guide, Defender and Consoler, we may turn to God and be saved, let us pray… R./ (Pray for personal/local needs.) Cel: Almighty God, you gave us your Son through the Holy Spirit. May the same Spirit through your Son lead us back to you. We make this prayer… PRAYER OVER THE GIFTS Lord our God, make these gifts holy, and through them make us a perfect offering to you. We ask this... PREFACE (P 43) Communion antiphon You are the sons of God, so God has given you the Spirit of His Son to form your hearts and make you cry out: Abba, Father. Prayer after communion Lord God, we worship you, a Trinity of Persons, one eternal God. May our faith and the sacrament we receive bring us health of mind and body. We ask this... LITURGY  AND  LIFE The story is told about a priest sitting in an airport waiting for his flight. A fellow passenger struck up a conversation with him, "Father, I believe only what I can understand. So I can’t buy your Trinity. Maybe you can explain it to me." The priest reluctantly put down his newspaper. "Do you see the sun up there? It is eighty million miles away from us right now. The rays coming through the window," said the priest, "are coming from the sun. The delightful heat we are enjoying on our bodies comes from a combination of the sun and its rays. Do you understand that?" The man answered, "Sure, padre". "The Trinity’, the priest went on, "is like that. God the Father is that blazing sun, the Son is the rays he sends down to us. Then both combine to send us the Holy Spirit, who in this context is the heat. If you can understand the working of the sun, its rays, its heat, why do you have difficulty with the Holy Trinity." The man muttered something and was off. Today is the feast of the Holy Trinity, a mystery which was hidden from ages and from generations but was made manifest by Christ. Jesus spoke of God as his father, "My father and I are one." He often called himself as ‘Son of God’. He spoke of the third divine person as the ‘Spirit of truth’ (Jn 16:13). Like all mysteries Trinity is also a mind-boggling puzzle. We need not be surprised at this for we have a loving God who created everything, whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. We can make this celebration meaningful by trying to be like the Trinity. For this we have to get closer to God and live a life of intimacy with God. It is easy for us for he dwells in every one of us. St Paul says, "The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom 5:5). God is closer to us than we can imagine. As fish inhabit the sea, birds the air, we live in the atmosphere of the triune God. We need not search for him beyond the stars. God as Trinity is like three candles but one light. Anyone who comes near the light cannot but be lit up. When we start living like the triune God we will notice a change in our life for the better. We will shed our isolated existence and start caring for others. That is, we will be on the right path. Let us remember that God the Father is the Lover, God the Son is the Loved and God the Holy Spirit is the Love. Forget the Trinity and obviously we do so at our peril. The triune God is in our spirits to be cultivated, called upon, prayed to and messaged. There is much spiritual richness to be wrested from the devotion to the holy Trinity. Shall we not renew and revise our devotion to it? June 2007 READINGS  OF  THE  WEEK (Psalter Week 1) 4/Mon (G) Tb 1:3; 2:1-8; Ps 111:1-2,3-4,5-6; Mk 12:1-12 5/Tue (R) S. Boniface, bp m – mem Tb 2:9-14; Ps 111:1-2,7-8,9; Mk 12:13-17 6/Wed (G/W) Or S. Norbert, bp Tb 3:1-10,16-17a; Ps 24:2-3,4-5b, 5c&7c&6-7,8-9; Mk 12:18-27 7/Thu (G) Tb 6:10-11; 7:1,9-14; 8:4-9; Ps 127:1-2,3,4-5a&c; Mk 12:28b-34 8/Fri (G) Tb 11:5-17; Ps 145:1-2,6c-7,8-9,8c&9c-10; Mk 12:35-37 9/Sat (G/W) Or S. Ephrem, dc dr Or BVM on Saturday Tb 12:1,5-15,20; Ps Tb 13:2,6,7,8; Mk 12:38-44