Texts taken from the missal “On Your Word,” May-June 2025
Most Holy Trinity (solemnity) (C)
proper
FIRST READING
From the Book of Proverbs (Prv 8:22-31)
Thus speaks the Wisdom of God: “The Lord created me as the beginning of his activity, before his works, at the origin. From eternity I was formed, from the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth. When the depths did not yet exist, I was born, when there were still no springs overflowing with water; before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was born, when he had not yet made the earth or the fields or the first clods of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there; when he marked out a circle on the face of the deep, when he made the clouds above dense, when he fixed the springs of the deep, when he set limits for the sea, so that the waters would not pass beyond their boundaries, when he established the foundations of the earth, I was beside him as a craftsman, and I was his delight every day, playing before him at all times, playing upon the surface of the earth, finding my delight among the children of humanity.” – The Word of the Lord.
Commentary on the First Reading
What is this Wisdom that was present before the creation of the world and played upon the earth when it was being formed? In symbolic and poetic language, it can be seen as God’s “long arm,” his Spirit sent into the universe in preparation for the creation of humanity. God is one in three persons and does everything “in company.” Let us then imagine God’s embrace and his act of love when he brings forth from himself something or someone upon whom he can pour himself out. What he does externally, he also accomplishes internally: the Father loves the Son, and between them the Spirit of love circulates; the Father embraces his creation outside himself, makes the Holy Spirit circulate, and his adopted son, Adam, is born. In the beginning, therefore, everything is full of Wisdom and splendor. And when it seems to us that everything today is polluted and tragic, let us instead think back to when everything was created pure and radiant, finding consolation in the fact that, with the coming of Christ, everything was restored through Pentecost, the new Wisdom poured out into the world through the Son’s sacrifice on the cross.
SECOND READING
From the Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Romans (Rom 5:1-5)
Brothers and sisters, justified by faith, we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained, by faith, access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of sharing in the glory of God. And not only that: we boast also in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, perseverance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – The word of God.
Commentary on the second reading
Let us now focus on this truth proclaimed by the apostle Paul: the love of God has been poured into our hearts. Therefore, there is something within us that we do not give ourselves, but receive, and that comes from God himself. We have not only biological life (in Greek: bios), like plants and animals, but through Baptism we are infused with a supernatural, different kind of life (in Greek zoè). We therefore have “two” lives: the one infused directly by God is his own life, eternal, infinite, and holy. This zoè is not an abstract concept, but a person: the Holy Spirit. And what does the Holy Spirit do in us? He lifts us up, enables us to perform supernatural acts, makes us love in a different and total way, urges us to pray, to move beyond ourselves, and to find our fulfillment in the Other, in God. These two lives harmonize perfectly and make us masterpieces: we live like everyone else and do what everyone else does, but at the same time we are in the world as witnesses to a higher life, which will be fully realized only after death, but is already active in our present.
GOSPEL
From the Gospel according to John (Jn 16:12-15)
At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: “I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now. When he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all the truth, for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears and declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” - The Word of the Lord.
Commentary on the Gospel
That everything in the Most Holy Trinity is relationship is something Jesus tells us: the Holy Spirit does not speak on his own, as though he were an autonomous voice that arbitrarily decides what to say or not to say; he is entirely related to the Father and the Son, and this gives us complete certainty. Whoever is in the Holy Spirit is certainly in the truth of God. But how can we be sure that we are always inspired by the Holy Spirit? It is simple: by obeying Jesus and living the Gospel sine glossa - as Saint Francis affirmed and did - that is, fully and without our own interpretations. Everything, therefore, fits together perfectly: the Father gives us the Holy Spirit to enable us to live the divine life, and we are certain that we are living it if we obey the word of Jesus, the true and only interpreter of the Father's will. “No one has ever seen God,” Saint John says in the prologue to his Gospel; “the only-begotten Son […] is the one who has revealed him” (Jn 1:18). In the end, the fact that God is one and three, rather than complicating things, simplifies them. Indeed, if God were not relationship in himself, how could he be in relationship with human beings, he who is infinite? How can a human being speak with an infinite “thing”? But God has given himself to human beings, in Christ, and in Christ we are his.
