The Most Holy Trinity - Year C

Jeff Bagnall • 3 June 2025

The first reading is from the book of Proverbs ( 8:22-31 ), which is classed as wisdom literature. The section we have for today is a poem spoken by wisdom herself, Sophia in the Greek. The whole passage is chiefly about the presence of wisdom while God was creating. Among the nations surrounding the chosen people there were other collections of what may be called wisdom writing. Here she is an aspect of God before, during and even after the process of creation. In Christian circles this developed and Wisdom came to be identified eventually as one of the three that comprise God – the doctrine of the Trinity; but this took time and is still a mystery. Despite all this theology and doctrine we see in it, the reading is a quite delightful poem.

The second reading is from Paul’s letter to the Romans ( 5:1-5 ), the most structured of all his writings. He had had difficulties of various kinds in his life as a Christian, and here he tries to express what he has learnt from this. It is a suitable reading for Trinity Sunday because he explains something of the relationship of God to us Christians. It is through the presence of God in Christ with us in our humanity that we who are enabled to believe, realise our right relationship with God (which is what the word ‘justification’ means in Paul). He wants to ‘boast’ of this, but maybe being proud would be a more appropriate way of saying it. When a believer has hardship one is strengthened and builds up a great hope – if for nothing else, for a share in the glory of God; and this strength is the very Spirit of God within us bringing us a deep peace through it all. Thus our life is involved in the very threeness of God, through Christ and the Spirit.

The third reading is from John’s gospel ( 16:12-15 ) which is clear from its style. The words attributed to Jesus express both the unity of Father, Son and Spirit, and also the promise that the understanding of the significance of this threeness will develop through time. It can develop for us as individuals in different ways or areas of our lives; for some it might be in an intellectual way with the use of words and thoughts, but for others in a devotional way as they grow loving Jesus or experiencing His Spirit, and for some it might work out in their practical living like Jesus, living for others and with the energy of God’s Spirit. For the Church as a whole it developed the Creed with its faith in the Trinity, but this doctrine, will always be a mystery, although what is important is not so much any grasp of the meaning, as living out the practical implications of being spirited.

Jeff Bagnall was a lecturer for many years at Craiglockhart College teaching RE to many future Catholic Primary teachers.

31st in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

22 October 2025
The first reading is from the book Wisdom ( 11:22-12:3 ). This book was written less than a century before the birth of Jesus. It came from someone in the Jewish community in Alexandria in Egypt. Jews at the time were not just in the promised land and were quite aware of the ways of thinking in the wider community about life, gods and associated mysteries. The book of Wisdom is in Greek and its ideas are a development of earlier Jewish ideas, absorbing more contemporary notions from this wider community in which they lived. And so wisdom is very important; it is used by them to refer God Himself and their idea of life now extended to even life after death which was not previously held by Jews. Our reading exemplifies the literary quality of the thoughts poetically expressed in a theology of the relationship of God with the failings of humanity and the development of creation. The second reading is from 2 Thess 1:11-2:2 . The two letters to the Thessalonians are the first surviving documents about Jesus that we have – the oldest writings in the New Testament – prior to the gospels that tell of the life of Jesus. Paul was a learned Rabbi in the Jewish community living away from the Jewish enclave in the Roman empire. The story in Acts of him being quite against Jews becoming followers of Jesus is quite reliable. However, this learned man later became a Christian and worked mostly in Roman communities making converts of Jews but especially of Gentiles. He had established a community in Thessalonica but the Jewish synagogue there was not receptive of his message that God was happy with Gentiles, so a mainly Gentile community of followers of Jesus was established away from the synagogue. However after he moved on from his short stay there, he wants and needs to writes to them from prison. It seems from the text we have that he may have given them a wrong idea of God’s being present to them even now and this being the time of the fulfilment of God’s plan for creation. Some of them had given up their regular work and way of life and were just waiting for the End-time to come. And someone may have encouraged them with this view. So Paul has to tell them to get back to regular life – as good followers of Jesus – the final End has not yet come. We are reminded by this that Christianity is constantly developing an understanding of life and creation, and we should be warned not to be so certain of what are basically mysteries – a danger the church has always suffered from.

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2025 - Year C

17 October 2025
The first reading is from a wisdom book ( Sirach 35:12-18 passim ). The prologue to it was written by someone in Egypt after 132 BC, who was translating into Greek a Hebrew book of his grandfather (whose name was Jesus). The book presented the thrust of the teachings of the Bible about the Law and the wise way to live. Manuscripts of parts of the Hebrew book itself have been found but it is not part of the Hebrew Old Testament. Despite the book’s enthusiasm for the Law, in our passage it speaks of a God who treats all people fairly; it quite poetically depicts God as particularly drawn to the poor, orphans and widows, like a Judge who responds quickly to prayers after judging what is asked for and what is right. The same thoughts are expressed repeatedly in the Psalm that follows this reading. In the second reading we have some words from the second letter to Timothy which seem to genuinely come from Paul himself. He is clearly at the end of his tether and near the end of his life. He speaks of the sacrifice of his life as a libation – a drink poured out as an offering to a deity. He uses his favourite metaphors for life – a race, a competition. Some of his friends seem to have abandoned him at the difficult times of his trial or when he was in prison. He is willing to forgive, and trusts that God will reward him with entry into the heavenly kingdom. It seems from the use of “we” in Luke’s book The Acts of the Apostles that Luke was often a close and loyal friend to Paul.
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