WE ARE CHILDREN OF GOD

SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY TRINITY - Romans 8:14-17

This Sunday, we celebrate the mystery of the Holy Trinity. It must be affirmed very clearly that Christians do not believe in three gods. Every Sunday, we say very clearly in the first statement of the creed: I believe in one God.  It sounds so simple. And we would like God to be a reality that can be easily grasped by our mind's power. Being faced with God as a very complex being, we try to exclude Him from reality’s realm.

The first reading, taken from Deuteronomy (Dt 4:32-34, 39-40) advises the people of Israel to remember the history of God’s intervention in their lives. It is in the concrete history of our communities and our nations that we make the experience of God. We can enter God’s mystery when we perceive his presence and action in our lives. And God reveals himself to us. There is a Bemba proverb that speaks about the interaction with others saying: Munda ya mubiyo tamwingilwa (you don’t enter into the inner self of your friend). If that is true in human relationships, then what can we say about our relationship with God?

God, the one God, has revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our God is relationship and communion. According to John, God is love (Jn 4:8). And he invites us to accept his love and learn from him how to love. We were baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in the name of God who is love , instilling love into our hearts. In his letter to the Romans, Paul wrote that we are not before God as slaves but as children. The Holy Spirit gives witness that we are children and “makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’”. Being children, we are “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ”. And we must share in “his sufferings so as to share his glory”.

We are called to live as God’s children, making God’s love present in the world.