Last week I focused on the words “through Him, with Him, and in Him” that we hear at the end of the Eucharistic prayer. Today, in the Eucharistic Prayer, we hear: “Lord, you love the human race, and you always walk with us on the journey of life.” (“Señor, tú amas al género humano y siempre caminas con nosotros en el camino de la vida.”)

The Bible reveals that we indeed are on a journey—a journey of discovery, a journey that has slowly opened for us the knowledge that there are dimensions of reality that go beyond our senses. And this knowledge is two-fold, spiritual and scientific. Both converge and offer insights into dimensions of reality that are invisible to us.

That is the basis of the two great feasts we celebrate as we enter ordinary time: the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity and the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ next week. These two celebrations show our highest level of understanding God, made known through divine revelation: we have come to know God as Trinity, and we have come into communion with God through the Eucharist. That is the great spiritual knowledge we have received through Jesus.

But our scientific knowledge speaks of this as well. The field of science I studied and the one that interests me the most is systems biology: the study of how everything is interconnected and shares complex interactions. It is to look at the big picture and see how all the parts work together to create a unified system. A rainforest is a perfect example of this. Our knowledge of science has helped us discover that we live in a universe that moves and grows in complexity and cooperation.

At a spiritual level, we have come to know that the creative source of this complex universe is God, not as a force, but a personal reality. Further, we have come to know God as Trinity, and that reveals that the inner nature of reality is love. “God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

We didn’t get here over night, the human journey of discovery began long ago. In the early stages, people believed that gods controlled the forces of nature. Today’s first reading from Proverbs shows a profound development in that understanding as God’s revelation unfolds to Israel. In it we hear the wisdom of God being personified and saying:

“The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways,
                        the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago;
            from of old I was poured forth,
                        at the first, before the earth…

 then was I beside him as his craftsman,
                        and I was his delight day by day,
            playing before him all the while,
                        playing on the surface of his earth;
                        and I found delight in the human race.”

We had been offering sacrifices to the gods of rain, of the fields, of the clouds. But only the One true god finds delight in the human race, only God desires a personal relationship with us.

Knowing that God desires to have a relationship with us helps us understand that we have unique value as human persons. The conclusion we have reached is that God is love, the reality of God itself is personal.

From there comes the language we use to speak about God as trinity. God is a communion of persons. The Father and the Son are eternally related, and the Holy Spirit is the shared love between them. This is an interpersonal reality.

Think about your family. Our experience of family is not just that there are multiple individuals in one house, far from it. We consider family those we are in relationship with, not just those we are biologically related to. A family is a system of relationships drawn into communion.

This reflects the ultimate reality of God. Our mission as Church is to proclaim that communion is reality, that we are made to live in communion and to invite others into it.

Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now… but when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.” This is the Spirit we received at Pentecost, the spirit that now invites us into the communion of love. This is the Spirit that that teaches us how to participate in the life of God, Through Him, and with Him, and in Him, so that we can continue our journey alongside creation to be united with God.

St. Paul teaches that having received this knowledge through faith in Jesus Christ has consequences. He says: “we boast of our afflictions… knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.’” 

Living in communion with God produces endurance, character, and hope – the very things we need to continue our journey. And these things are given to face affliction as a community which includes living in solidarity with those who suffer as Jesus did. When in faith we suffer with others, we extend the communion of God’s love. Think about who needs to be brought into this family of God’s love right now… immigrants here in the United States, people grieving over another plane crash, victims of the Iranian/Israeli war. As people of faith, we are to be signs of hope for those who feel hopeless.

That is what we were made for, to love freely and welcome others into our family freely. That is the reason in Jesus, God has entered into relationship with us in a way deeper than anything known in the Old Testament. But along the journey of freedom, humanity strayed from the ideal as we face the condition of sin, a distortion of our capacity for relationship into violence and exploitation. That is what sin does: distorts my capacity to be in relationship.

The only way to correct this is to rekindle the power of communion—by living in solidarity with those who suffer and are marginalized. That is our mission. When we help others bear their burdens, we truly share the life of God, the Trinity of love. We become the communion of persons God created us to be.

That is why it is so important for us to know and understand that God is trinity. It is not just a mystery to accept in faith but not know anything of what it means—it is the highest level of spiritual knowledge humanity has received. The communion of the Trinity is our path to happiness and peace.

The invitation, especially when we are experiencing division in the human family, is to proclaim the truth of our faith by our lives. Let us strive to be who we truly are: a communion of women and men created in the image of God. Let us give thanks that the Lord for this great revelation, our Lord and our God who loves the human race and continues to walk with us on the journey of life.

Fr. Carlos