Following is the text of the meditation by His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, marking Sunday of the Holy Trinity, dated May 31, 2026:

On this Sunday of the Holy Trinity, we are given a short passage from the third chapter of the Gospel of John. (John 3:16–18) This text does not speak about God in an abstract way; it shows how God acts, how He loves, and how He enters history. 

In this passage, we clearly see that some words belong to God’s world, to His way of being and acting, while others do not. The words that belong to God are all words of communion. The words that do not belong to Him are all words of separation. 

Let us begin with the latter, those that do not speak of God. In the text, we find at least two: “to condemn,” which appears three times, (John 3:17–18) and “to perish”. (John 3:16)

Jesus says that God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, (John 3:17) that whoever believes is not condemned, and whoever does not believe is already condemned. (John 3:18) He also says that whoever believes will not perish (John 3:16) because, as He will say elsewhere in the Gospel of John, the will of the Father is that Jesus should not lose any of those given to Him. (John 6:39)

The Father, therefore, does not want to condemn anyone. In fact, a little later, He will say that not only does He not condemn, but He does not even judge. To judge, in the human sense, means to separate, classify, or exclude. This does not belong to God. In John, “judgment” is not so much an act of God as it is the human response to the light: the light comes, and each person reveals what they carry in their heart. God does not judge; God illumines. 

If God does not judge, even less does He condemn. Condemnation is the act of one who closes off, defines, and removes the future. God does not condemn because God opens: He opens paths, He opens history. Condemnation, rather, is what a person does to themselves when they reject the light. 

God does not judge and does not condemn because He does not want to lose anyone. And He cannot lose anyone because He forgets no one: every creature remains impressed in His memory of love, like a name written deep within His heart. 

These words, therefore, do not belong to God’s language. Which ones do belong to Him? 

In today’s passage, we find three: to love, to give, to save. We hear that “God so loved the world that He gave His Son” (Jn 3:16), and that “He sent the Son into the world… so that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:17)

To love is the first movement of the Trinity: The Father generates the Son in love, the Son receives and gives back, and the Spirit is the love that flows and reaches all. Love is not one quality among others; it is what God is and, therefore, also what God does. God cannot not love; He cannot do otherwise. 

This love is not abstract: love gives and gives itself. Gift is the concrete form of love. God does not hold back, does not spare, does not calculate; He exposes Himself, He gives Himself over. 

And finally, to save: it is God’s great desire, His will, that all people be saved.  

But what does it mean to be saved? It is not a reward after death, nor does it mean being removed from the world; it does not even mean behaving well or being without fault. Rather, it means being brought into the life of the Trinity: living from its love, breathing its Spirit, belonging to the Son as the Son belongs to the Father. To be saved means to share in God’s own life, in His communion of love, because salvation is not a place but a relationship: “As you, Father, are in me and I in you, may they also be in us.” (John 17:21)

This is “eternal life,” given to whoever believes: it is not something that happens after death, but something that takes place within life. Trinitarian communion becomes a home and an inner dwelling, the space in which a person already lives the very life of God, sharing in His love that never ends. 

+Pierbattista