Reciprocity is an essential element in loving. Love cannot
thrive in isolation. It naturally transcends itself and seeks and reaches out
to a beloved and yearns for reciprocity for its fulfillment. An unreciprocated love grieves in pain and
may eventually perish; if not, it endures the agony of rejection in silence
like a mother weeping in secret because of her ungrateful child. But when love
is reciprocated, it celebrates with joy.
It throbs with life. It turns itself into a powerful creative force. It
becomes life-giving.
God as Trinity of
Love. God is love; and the best way
to appreciate this truth is to see it in terms of a dynamic reciprocity of
loving within God’s self. One of the analogies presented by St. Augustine for
an understanding of the mystery of the Trinity, albeit not his favorite, is the
analogy of interpersonal love. Love
requires a Lover, a beloved, and the reciprocal bond of love that unites them.
The Infinite Lover, whom we call in human language, Father, reaches out to the
object of his self-transcending love, the Beloved whom we call Son. The Son, in
turn, eternally reciprocates the Father’s love, hence, giving rise to the
mutual love that unites them. We understand this bond of love as the Holy
Spirit. Thus, God is a Trinity of love. As such, God’s love is not static. It
is dynamic as it is an eternal movement of reciprocal loving.
God’s dynamic self-transcending love provides the ground for
God’s creative act and God’s self-revelation. Simply put, God created us and
revealed God’s self to us because He is love, because it is love’s greatest joy
and desire to share and care for another. Today’s readings point to these two
acts of the Triune God-- creation and revelation.
Trinity’s Creative
Act and Self-Revelation. The first reading (Prov 8:22-31) alludes to the
eternal presence and role of the Holy Spirit in God’s creative act. Proverb’s personification of wisdom finds her
present with God in the entire process of creation. As the wisdom of God, in
the language of the Old Testament, the Spirit was with God before the creation
of the earth, water, mountains and hills. When the Lord established the
heavens, made firm the skies, fixed the foundations of the earth, and set the
limits of the sea, the Spirit was there “beside” the Lord as his craftsman (v.
30).
The gospel reading (Jn 16: 12-15), on the other hand,
illustrates the Trinitarian act of revelation.
Jesus, the Son, is the Father’s revelation. Everything that the Father
has is possessed by the Son. It is this “truth”
that Jesus has spoken of and nothing more.
The Holy Spirit, the Advocate, as promised by the Lord, serves two
important functions: to enlighten the disciples in the fuller understanding of
Jesus and his revelation; second, to glorify Christ as the sole mediator, the “truth”
of God.
Solemnity of the Most
Blessed Trinity. Today’s solemnity allows
us to appreciate the truth that God is a Trinity of Love. And out of love, God acts as a Trinity first
in creating the world, the universe, and us. And as if it were not enough, He
not only created us, He revealed Himself to us through God’s Word, Jesus Christ,
and through the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
What I see amazes me tremendously. God has gone out of his way creating us and
revealing Himself to us because He is love. His desire is to reach out to us
and share God’s life. God desires to be
in relationship with us his people because it is love’s nature. In the book of
John, God always does the initiative in loving. God has loved us first. He is a
God who offers his love and He is really trying hard. We probably believe that God does not need us
because He is self-sufficient. So, all
too often, we don’t’ take seriously his offer of love. On this Trinity Sunday, we see a trying-hard
God, a God who has done everything in his power to manifest his love to us. We
ought to understand, as God’s image and likeness, that when love is offered, it
longs for reciprocity. When it is
reciprocated, it rejoices; when ignored or rejected, it grieves. God, I
believe, longs for all creation to accept and respond to his offer of love. No wonder that the Lord Jesus always exclaim that
there is much rejoicing in the heavens when a sinner comes back to God’s
embrace.
No wonder, too, from among the hundreds of commandments,
Jesus points quite easily to the most important of all to guide us: First, love
of God and, second, love of neighbor. The Kingdom of God in its fulfillment is undoubtedly
characterized by this dynamic reciprocity of loving, which is, after all, the very
nature of the Triune God.
This Sunday, let us heighten our awareness of God’s offer of
love. Our God, the Triune God, longs
that we love him in return. When we are
not ready, know that He, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, will do everything to
draw us close to Him until we love him freely. He is a God who really tries hard.
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