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Second Thoughts for the Day – 27 May – The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Adopted into the Family of God

“In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3) “For all, who are led by the Spirit of God, are children of God.” (Romans 8:14)

…”How would God be revealed to the other families of the earth?   How would the other families of the earth enter the Covenant and become heirs to the promises of God. The language of families here is significant, for it is through the revelation of God as Trinity, the Divine Family, that all other families of the earth would be invited into the Covenant family. For the reality of the Trinity did not emerge for the earliest Christians in the context of complex philosophical discussions but in the experience of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

As Pope Benedict XVI stated in 2006. “the intimacy of God Himself, discovering that He is not infinite solitude but communion of light and love, life given and received in an eternal dialogue between the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit – ‘Lover, Loved and Love,’ revealed the relational nature of God, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and by the incarnation of Jesus Christ.”    (Angelus, St Peter’s Square, 11 June 2006).

And it was by means of the revelation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that the early Christians came to know themselves as children of God, adopted into the family and Covenant of God.   The Spirit, Paul tells us, empowers us to understand, that we too are children of God, for through the Spirit, we are able to cry “Abba, Father!”   This Spirit-infused call to God as Abba, is an explicit recognition of our lineage, we belong in this family, for “it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

But the pathway to entering the family as heirs, children destined to share in the gifts and promises of the Father, in the Kingdom of God, was blazed for us, by the obedience of the Son.   As Paul says in Galatians 3:29, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”   Christ through His suffering and death for us, has made us “joint heirs with Christ,” worthy of adoption into God’s family. We belong to the family of God, because we belong to the Son, who has made us “joint heirs.”   Through the true heir, we are simply joined with our Covenantal and Divine Family.

We are welcomed into God’s family as joint heirs because of the love of the Trinity for us. The Trinity models the nature of the family by allowing us to experience the source of all love.   It is because of the Trinitarian model of love for us and our experience of that love, that Jesus instructs us to go out and make the family bigger.   We belong to the family of God but so do those who have not yet come home.   We have learned something now about the nature of God and the extent of God’s family and the call is the same to all – come home and be loved!…John W Martens “The Word on the Street Year B”

John Martens is Professor of Theology at St Thomas University and Director of the MA in Theology at St Paul’s Seminary School of Divinity, Minnesota.