Here is my homily for the weekend. God bless all!
Trinity Sunday – Cycle C
May 21/22, 2016
Prov 8: 22-31; Rm 5: 1-5; Jn 16: 12-15
I was up early this morning, drinking my coffee and saying my morning prayers, and it occurred to me that we are a very curious people, we human beings. One of the first, if not the first question, children ask is, “Why?” Why this, why that. We humans really want to understand, to know things, how they are and how they work. The older we get, the more we usually end up appreciating something, though, i.e., that life is not a problem that needs to be solved; rather, it is a mystery to be lived and embraced.
Today, we celebrate the ultimate mystery in many ways. For two thousand years, we have been trying to put words to the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, but we will never be able to adequately describe Him: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, three persons, one divine being yet three distinct persons who act in our world and in our lives — that is what “person” means, really, i.e, one who can act and live — all three persons in unity, never in disagreement or conflict, distinct in action yet perfectly one in being, no defect, no imbalance, no diminishment, complete love, not three gods but one God who is all powerful, always present everywhere, all knowing, one God. This is the great revelation of Christianity.
The Gospel today describes the Trinity, three persons acting in unity as one God. It may be difficult to recognize at first but Jesus does describe it. He said, “The Spirit hears what the Son speaks, who only speaks what he has heard from the Father, and the Spirit gives witness to this relationship between Father and Son as God himself.”
Jesus describes this relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit, a relationship in which they speak and listen and are heard as one. A relationship in which they speak to each other the truth in love. Jesus said, “The Spirit of truth will guide you to all truth.” The Trinity is a relationship of love between Father, Son, and Spirit, a relationship that is completely holy and pure, begotten of the truth and from pure love.
Remember the scene in our Lord’s passion when Jesus tells Pilate that he has come to testify to the truth? Like Pilate, we are tempted to ask, “What is truth?” Pilate rejected and condemned the Truth because he condemned and rejected God who was standing right in front of him in the person of Jesus. God alone is truth and the source of all that is true. So the question isn’t so much “What is truth?” but rather, “Who is Truth?”
We know, don’t we, as God’s people and sheep of the flock of Christ that God is Truth. The Father is the source of all truth, and Jesus is the expression and revelation of the truth, and the Holy Spirit gives witness to this and teaches us the truth who he has witnessed in the Father and the Son. The Holy Trinity is the Truth the world needs to know! The Holy Spirit guides us to this Truth, and God asks us to become one with him in his life and his truth!
St. Paul says in the second Reading, “The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” God has been given to us! God has brought us into his life and love. We are caught up in a certain sense in the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
When we are baptized, God gives us his life. The grace of God is poured into us in immeasurable ways. We become new creatures, we are told, radically changed into God’s image and likeness. We become like God in our baptisms, pure and holy, and we lose that purity only when we sin and refuse to ask for forgiveness and mercy.
Every human being was given a chance to share in God’s life and love because Mary said “Yes” to the angel, and Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary, and God assumed our human nature. Jesus did not leave his human nature behind when he ascended into heaven, but rather brought it with him and he now sits at the right hand of the Father. Where Jesus is, we hope to be. Because Jesus took our human nature, all of humanity has a chance to share in the life of the Trinity.
This is the reason for our responsorial psalm today: “You have crowned him with glory and honor even above all of creation, the moon and the stars, the earth and the sea.”
This is why we must go out and teach others about God’s love for them, teach them about Jesus and his Church, teach them about baptism and God’s offer of divine life in that sacrament. All of us must teach others the faith and the mystery of the Trinity. We must love each other because we share in the life of the Trinity. Just as the Father love the Son, and the Son loves the Father, and their love is so perfectly pure that the Spirit is present, so too we are called to love each other with a love that comes from God given to us and to be shared with each other. That is why we must respect the elderly, the disabled, the foreigner, the immigrant, and the unborn, because God’s life is to be shared and honored in each other. That is why St. John would say, “You cannot say you love God if you hate your neighbor.” When we love others, we worship God.
The Holy Trinity is not only “out there” wrapped in mystery in the heavens (although indeed he is all of that and more), but he is right here. The Trinity touches our lives right here and now each and every time we listen, love and respect each other. The great mystery of Father, Son, and Spirit breaks into our world when we worship God, in the sacraments, in prayer, and serve our families and communities, in other words, when we love from the heart.
We indeed share in the mysterious life of the Trinity. We share in God’s life. The great mystery of the Trinity lives in you!
