"FIRST IMPRESSIONS"

TRINITY SUNDAY -C- JUNE 15, 2025

By: Jude Siciliano, OP

Dear Preachers:

The feast of the Most Holy Trinity celebrates one of our most ancient beliefs. But we don’t celebrate a dogma or official church teaching today. Nor will we try to "explain" the teaching in our preaching this weekend. Instead, we celebrate and reflect on our relationship with God and what our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier has done for us. The scriptures remind us of our God’s graciousness and we rejoice in the God who has acted so mightily and lovingly on our behalf.

Let’s focus on the second reading today because the selection from Romans speaks of the Trinity in very basic terms. (It is always a challenge for the preacher to preach from Paul and today gives us a good opportunity. So, why not give it a try?) Paul articulates the work of the Trinity. God, our Creator, gives peace to us who have faith, even amid our suffering; pours out love and sustains our hope until one day we share in God’s fullness. This peace comes to us through Christ, who is God’s shalom, and in Christ we have constant assurance of grace. The Spirit, Paul tells us, provides the means by which we experience God’s love for us.

The Romans passage today begins with, "Therefore." Therefore what? Paul is drawing a conclusion from what he has been writing up to this point. He began Romans by stating his theme (1:16-17): the relationship between Judaism and Christianity and the power of the gospel to save believers, "...the Jews first, then the Greek. For in the gospel is revealed the justice of God, which begins and ends with faith." The central issue, Paul says is a faith, that through Jesus Christ, is now available to Jew and Gentile. Paul begins this section of Romans with "therefore" because he is going to elaborate on the consequences of being justified by faith. He is speaking to Christians ("we") and will show how our faith in God’s love and the work God has done for us in Christ will ground us in hope for the future, despite the present sufferings we endure for our beliefs.

What do we have, we who are "justified by faith?" The first consequence is peace. We believe we are in good relationship with God, not because of anything we have done, but because of what God has done for us in Christ. This grace didn’t just come once, but we have "access" to it continually. Paul helps us celebrate this feast by stirring up in us a festive mood. Because of God’s work in justifying us, we can, by the gift of faith, be assured that we are at peace with God. We may not always feel or think we are, but we place our faith in Christ.

We are assured by the Holy Spirit that we enjoy divine favor and access into God’s presence. It is as if we entered a castle and instead of being treated as outsiders, were immediately ushered into the royal presence as honored guests. Paul says we "stand" in grace. Reflect on that for a while: we have access to God continually because of our new status, we are standing in grace. No matter what our past, how unworthy we feel, or whether we deserve it or not, we can confidently stand before God because we have faith in Jesus.

Paul goes on to say that because of our standing in grace before God, we have hope that we will share in God’s glory; that we will be fully restored from all the damage sin has done to us and one day stand before God as we were created--- in God’s image and likeness. Meanwhile, in our daily struggles and as we face temptations against our very Christian identity, it doesn’t always feel like we are "standing in grace." That’s where faith comes in; it reassures us of God’s constant forgiveness and active love and keeps the hope alive that one day God’s work will be culminated, when the "glory of God" is shown in us.

All this may sound "other worldly," or "pie in the sky," except for what Paul says next. He acknowledges the "afflictions" Christians experience in this age. Taken on its own, the second half of the reading can sound like a spiritual fitness exercise: when we have suffering and endured we will develop a "proven character." But remember what Paul has been saying: it is grace and the faith it stirs up, that enable the Christian to endure afflictions and sufferings that threaten our beliefs. During these difficult times, God works overtime on our behalf to help us grow in hope and in the assurance of God’s love.

In the very moment of suffering we can "boast." Why? Because we are such strong and exemplary Christians able to bear up under severe testing? Able to overcome trials of all sorts that test our faith? No. We can "boast" because God stands with us and can turn even our trials into opportunities for our spiritual benefit. Only God can do this; only the free gift of grace in which we stand can make this possible. We may not see what the end will yield, but our hope reassures us, we are and will be in safe hands. The voice of the Holy Spirit in us reminds us amid our sufferings that God’s love will never abandon us, no matter how frail or unworthy of that love we feel. We are justified, made right with God, through faith.

For Paul, faith is the basis of our Christian lives. He reminds us at the beginning of Romans that to believe is to accept God’s power into our lives (1: 16-17; 3:24). As a result of this acceptance we have a whole new life and intimacy with God through Jesus. Based on this faith, we live a new life in obedience to God. Faith begins with God’s free offer of an intimate relathioship with us and we respond by living a life of good works, even under duress and suffering.

We are united with a community that professes, as we do, faith in Jesus Christ. The members of this community, with the support of one another, seek to practice this faith in daily life and in our worship today. Gathered in prayer and praise we celebrate those who have handed on faith to us, our ancestors. We also rely on those who are with us today, whose faith deepens and sustains our own. The community is the sign to us of God’s grace and love and so stirs up our hope and assurance that God’s love will never abandon us. Who among us hasn’t been through trials that have shaken us to our foundation and seemed like they would extinguish our faith? Yet, in the midst of the dark night we have found hope through other members of the community who, by their presence, phone calls, notes and spontaneous and loving outreach, have strengthened our flagging spirits.

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061525.cfm

"Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved."

Citation: Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, §6.