Discussion Questions

First Reading

Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40

F1. Moses heard the voice of God from a burning bush. How about you? Where do you hear the voice of God? In immigrant children being dropped over the U.S. border wall … starving people … doctors and nurses … people working for eco-justice … Pope Francis … nature … novels … music ... your heart?

F2. Moses couldn’t imagine anything comparable to the love that God had shown his people. What, in God’s plan of salvation, was Moses not aware of? Jesus? The Holy Spirit?

Second Reading

Romans 8: 14-17

S1. Besides revealing God’s relationship to us as endless and continually new, “the Spirit­­ bears witness with our spirit.” How do you think your prayers of thanksgiving, petition and worship are changed when the Spirit takes them and bears witness with them?

S2. “We are … heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” What do we inherit with and in Christ? Which treasures do you want the most? Which do you need the most?

Gospel

Matthew 28:16-20

G1. Why do you think Pope Francis means when he says that celebrating the Holy Trinity is a “revolution in our way of life”?

This is why celebrating the Most Holy Trinity is not so much a theological exercise, but a revolution in our way of life. God, in whom each Person lives for the other in a continual relationship, in continual rapport, not for himself, provokes us to live with others and for others. Open. Today we can ask ourselves if our life reflects the God we believe in: do I, who profess faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, truly believe that I need others in order to live, that I need to give myself to others, that I need to serve others? Do I affirm this in words or do I affirm it with my life?…

In short, the Trinity teaches us that one can never be without the other. We are not islands; we are in the world to live in God’s image: open, in need of others and in need of helping others

Angelus for Trinity Sunday

G2. Does the Holy Spirit draw us into the same dynamism of the Trinity which is love, mutual service and sharing? Could people drawn into this dynamism help re-create the world?

Anne Osdieck

**From Saint Louis University