The Loving Father Redeems Lost Children by Adoption through the Son and the Holy Spirit - Trinity Sunday, Cycle B

The Solemnity that concludes Paschaltide is Pentecost. The following Solemnity is Trinity.

The Holy Trinity as dynamic and mysterious interplay of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, who are the three persons of one God. In his “De Trinitate”, St. Augustine of Hippo views the Trinity in light of the triad of the lover, the beloved, and the love. In this, the Father is the lover, and the Son is the beloved, and the Holy Spirit is the love that binds the Father and the Son as one.

The Father loves the Son (John 3:35; 5:20; 10:17), and the Son returns the Father’s love with his by doing His will on him (John 14:31). Based on Augustine’s “De Trinitate” (Book XV), St. Thomas Aquinas calls the Holy Spirit “love” (Summa Theologiae, I-q37). Though the Holy Trinity is not comprehensible by human mind, at least, we can sense that the Trinity is about love. With this in mind, let us reflect the Holy Trinity in terms of the Scripture readings of Trinity Sunday on Cycle B (Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40; Rom 8:14-17; Matthew 28:16-20).

These readings indicate that Trinity has an adoptive character to us, because the Triune God is love (i.e. 1 John 4:8, 16). Out of His love, He reaches out to us to adopt us as His children. This is His way to redeem offspring of Adam and Eve, who were evicted from Eden for their sin (Genesis 3:23-24).

The Father adopts us as His children redemptively by sending the Son and the Holy Spirit. Unless the Father had not sent His only begotten Son (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9), the Holy Spirit would not have been sent to us (i.e. John 14:16, 26; cf. John 16:7). According to John, the Son, the Christ, is the Parakletos (1 John 2:1) and the Holy Spirit is another Parakletos (John 14:16). And “parakletos”, in Greek, literally means a person who is called to be beside someone. Therefore, this word is translated as “advocate” or “comforter”. This indicates that we are adopted by God as His children by the Parakletos, the Son (i.e. Ephesians 1:5) and by another Parakletos, the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:15).

In the First Reading (Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40), Moses reminds us that there is no other God but One God, who is almighty and salvific. So he calls us to remain faithful by observing His commandments. Paul, in the Second Reading (Romans 8:14-17) describes the Holy Spirit as the spirit of adoption, and there is intimacy in this adoption as we can call the Father, “Abba”. Then, in the Gospel Reading (Matthew 28:16-20), Jesus commands us to make disciples of all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit and to catechize them with his teaching.

The Gospel Reading (Matthew 28:16-20) reminds us that we are called to carry on the work of Christ the Son upon receiving the Holy Spirit. In other words, as we become adopted children of God through the Sacrament of Baptism and are sent on our apostolic missions through the Sacrament of Confirmation, which reflects the receiving the powerful Holy Spirit on Pentecost (Acts 2:1-12), we do the Son’s work (i.e. John 14:12), which is the Father’s (i.e. John 5:17-19; 6:38).

Through the Son, we are drawn to the Father (i.e. John 14:6), who created us in His triune image (Genesis 12:26-27). So, the Son calls us to remain in him (John 15:1-8), who is one with the Father (John 10:30), as he is in Him and He in him (John 10:38;14:11,20). It is the Holy Spirit to bring us together as one in the Son (1 Corinthians 12:13) so that we are also one with the Father through him (i.e. John 17:23). This is why Paul calls the Holy Spirit the spirit of adoption (Romans 8:15). As we baptize people of all nations in the name of the Trinity, that is of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teach (Matthew 28:19-20), we are indeed facilitating the work of the Son to have them adopted as God’s children (i.e. Ephesians 1:5) in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of adoption (Romans 8:15).  After all, the love of God is carried to us through the Holy Spirit (i.e. Romans 5:5), and this love certainly comes through the spirit of adoption.

Though we have been lost children as we are offspring of Adam and Eve, the Father has been reaching out to us by sending the Son and the Holy Spirit so that we can be adopted as His children and call the Father, “Abba”. It is because the Holy Trinity the triad of God’s love, reaching out to us to save and redeem.