The Most Holy Trinity, Year A (2026)

The Most Holy Trinity, Year A
Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9 
Daniel 3:52, 53, 54, 55 (52b) 
2 Corinthians 13:11-13 
John 3:16-18 
May 31, 2026 

Following Pentecost, we have returned to Ordinary Time.  As we do so, the Church gives us two special solemnities this Sunday and next.  Today we celebrate The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. 

The Trinity should be very familiar to us.  Every time we begin and end our prayers with the Sign of the Cross, we are invoking the Trinity as we say, “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”  Three persons yet one God. 

Regarding the Trinity, we read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life.  It is the mystery of God in himself” (234, emphasis added). 

The mystery of how the three persons of the Trinity are one God is not easy to understand but we can believe it for Jesus himself speaks of how they are one. 

It is a mystery as it involves the very nature of God.  In expression of the mystery, Exodus speaks of God coming down in a cloud when He stood with Moses. 

It is a mystery of grace, love, and fellowship as expressed in Paul’s closing to his second letter to the Corinthians where he writes, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be will all of you.”   

After we make the Sign of the Cross to begin Mass, there are three options given in the Roman Missal for the priest to use to bring Mass.  My favorite one uses these words from Paul.  It is favorite of mine because it expresses so well a key part of why we are gathering in church, for grace, love, and fellowship.  These are part of the very nature of God. 

In four short verses our responsorial today from the Book of Daniel describes God four times with the words “blessed are you.”  God is indeed blessed in his very nature.  So, we give “glory and praise” to God for ever! 

The gospel reading today speaks of God’s love and its unlimited bounds, “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.”  “God is love” (1 John 4:16).  Love is not just something God does.  It is who He is.  It is God’s very nature to love.  From his love, He does not what to condemn us.  Instead, He gives Jesus to save us. 

We see God’s love in Jesus’ willingly giving his life for us on the Cross.  From Jesus, the New Testament is seen as centered on God’s love.   

Somehow people sometimes have the notion that God changed from the Old Testament where they see him as a punishing God to the New Testament where He is seen as a loving God.  God did not change.  He has always been loving and merciful.  At times He allows us to suffer the consequences of our sins but He still loves us and is eager to forgive. 

We see this in Exodus.  While Moses is on the mountain with God, the Israelites fall and make a golden calf and give worship to it as a false idol.  God considers killing them off but He does not.  Instead, because God loves us and is merciful by his very nature, we hear, “The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” 

Our God is loving and merciful. 

If only we could be more like God. Following the golden calf, humanity’s fallen nature is described as “stiff-necked people” in need of pardon for our “wickedness and sins.”   

This was true when the Israelites worshipped the golden calf and it is true today when we sin or seek our own way.  We need to heed Paul’s words to “mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.” 

There is hope for us.  We sin but we have a God who is “a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.”  We are created in his image and, when we seek him with a repentant heart, He will forgive us and restore us from our fallen nature to eternal life as his people. 

In our humanity, we are not perfect.  We have doubts and we sin.  It is hard sometimes to believe.  When we find it hard to understand, we are called to have faith in God who we can always trust because He loves us.  He gives us the Holy Spirit with gifts that include understanding, courage, and fear of the Lord.   

God loves you.  You can believe in him. 

Peace, 

Fr. Jeff