The Most Holy Trinity

Homily
SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY
11 June 2006

Matthew 28: 16 - 20

[Mat 28:16] The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
[Mat 28:17] When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
[Mat 28:18] Then Jesus approached and said to them, "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
[Mat 28:19] Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,
[Mat 28:20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."

1. Introduction

This weekend we celebrate the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity., the central mystery of our Catholic faith. In it, we profess our faith in one God in three divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We would never have known of this mystery of the inner life of God had not Jesus revealed it to us. So sublime is this mystery, that even after it is revealed, we cannot comprehend its depths. Such a comprehension must await what St Thomas Aquinas calls the "light of glory" which is the source of unending happiness of the blessed in heaven. As St Paul says in First Corinthians:
[1 Cor 13:12] At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.

2. We Are Called to Some Degree of Understanding of This Mystery

Paragraph 261 of the CCC states:

261 The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life. God alone can make it known to us by revealing himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The catechism states that not only is the mystery of the Trinity the central mystery of the faith, it is also the central mystery of Christian life. That is, the "Christian walk" for each of us is permeated with the mystery of the Trinity. What are we to make of this?

If we are honest about it, there is a tendency to confess the mystery of the Trinity, yes, as the central mystery of our faith. We acknowledge the sublimity of this mystery, and regard it as utterly incomprehensible, and then leave it at that. We are much more comfortable relating to the teachings of Jesus we can more easily grasp: the beatitudes, His two commandments, and His parables.

The catechism states that Jesus' revelation of the Trinity is "central to the Christian life". This being so, He has revealed it to us so that we may grow to have at least some understanding of it, even in this life, as St Paul states

"At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror..."

The summary expression of this mystery is presented in CCC 266, which quotes the opening lines of the Athanasian creed:

266 "Now this is the Catholic faith: We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Son's is another, the Holy Spirit's another; but the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal" (Athanasian Creed: DS 75; ND 16).

In reflecting on the mystery of the Trinity, we must not tend think of the divine persons as in some sense "sharing" the Godhead--the divine nature. Each of the three persons IS the one infinite God, wholly and completely, and yet each of the three persons is utterly distinct from the other two.

3. The Eternal Perichoresis of the Most Blessed Trinity

The human intellect has some experience of self-evident truth. For example, a coin has two sides...it must be exactly that way---there is no other way it could possibly be. A three-sided figure must have three angles--...it must be exactly that way---there is no other way it could possibly be.

A holy priest told me some decades ago that when we see God face to face, we will see that the inner life of God, a Trinity of persons in the one Godhead, must be exactly the way it is---there is no other way it possibly could be.

Reflecting on the revelation given to us by Our Lord, we recognize that absolute, uncreated being is a community of love: each person eternally and infinitely giving of self to the other two. Theologians both in the West and in the East have coined terms which attempt to point to this eternal, infinite dynamism. In the West, the term is "circumincession", and in the East, the term is "perichoresis". Each of these terms refers to the revelation that each of the Divine persons is wholly within the other two.

The sublime destiny that each of us is called to is to share in the perichoresis of the Trinity--Our Lord expressed this in His colloquy with His heaven Father during the last supper:

[John 17:20] "I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
[John 17:21] so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.
[John 17:22] And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one,
[John 17:23] I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.

Then how is this mystery, so sublime, to become central in each of our lives as the catechism states? How are we to participate in the perichoresis of the Blessed Trinity?

4. Man: the Image of God and the Icon of the Trinity

We read in Genesis that each of us has been created in the image of God:

[Gen 1:26] Then God said: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...
[Gen 1:27] God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them.

Thus each of us is an image, or icon of God. With Christian revelation, we amplify this by stating that each of us is an icon of the Most Blessed Trinity.

What does this mean? God is a pure spirit, so this imaging is not in our bodies but in our spirits. We have been given intellects to be perfected by truth, and wills to be perfected by love. These are two operations of our spirits which image in a finite way what is present in the creator in an infinite way. But how is the imaging of the Trinity to be made complete?

5. We Must Approach this Mystery with the Simplicity of Little Children

Cooperating with the workings of the Holy Spirit, we must approach this mystery with childlike openness. We read in Luke 10:

[Luke 10:21] At that very moment he rejoiced (in) the holy Spirit and said, "I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.

With the simplicity of a child, we then consider a simple, direct, distilled expression of our faith. Such a distillation is found in the old Baltimore Catechism, in which we find the following question-answer pair:

Q. Why did God make you?
A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the next.

To know, to love, to serve: I suggest that here we discern the imaging of the Trinity in each of us.

We must first know God, for we cannot love what we do not know. We must grow in our knowledge of God through prayer, the sacraments, scripture, and spiritual reading. This is imperative---it is absurd to think of our being able to love God more by knowing Him less.

Then we must love God. We do this by keeping His commandments, so that we can love as Jesus loves by conducting ourselves just as He did.

However, our knowing and loving must have fruition: we must serve God. We can think of love as the giving of self so that life issues forth. As in the Trinity, in which the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the mutual love of the Father and the Son, so must our love be fruitful in the issuing forth of life.

As baptized Christians, this life which we are to minister is nothing less than the Divine Life itself, the ministering of the Holy Spirit. Jesus affirms this in John 7:

[John 7:38] Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: 'Rivers of living water will flow from within him.'"
[John 7:39] He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive.

We serve God by ministering the Holy Spirit to our neighbor in Christian witness and in works of charity. In so doing, the imaging of the Trinity in each of us is fulfilled.

6. Serving God: Vocation and Mission

How are we then to minister the Spirit to our neighbor? Here two words come to mind: vocation and mission. God calls to each of us in a special way, then after we respond to His call, we are sent forth. First, God calls each us: He says "come follow me".

[John 12:26] Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.

Having answered the call, God sends us forth:

[John 20:21] (Jesus) said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

A Christian serves God by serving his neighbor. The specific ways he does this vary depending on the state of life which arises from the particular vocation and mission God has given to him. The tradition of the Church includes among these ways the so-called seven corporeal works of mercy and the seven spiritual works of mercy.

The seven corporeal works of mercy are:

• To feed the hungry;
• To give drink to the thirsty;
• To clothe the naked;
• To shelter the homeless;
• To visit the sick;
• To ransom the captive;
• To bury the dead.

The seven spiritual works of mercy are:

• To instruct the ignorant;
• To counsel the doubtful;
• To admonish sinners;
• To bear wrongs patiently;
• To forgive offenses willingly;
• To comfort the afflicted;
• To pray for the living and the dead

Let each of us be open to the practice of holy works such as these, because in doing so we serve God, as Jesus states in His description of the last judgment in Matthew 25:

[Mat 25:40] And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'

In serving others we serve God, and in serving God we bring to fruition our knowledge and love of God, and fulfill our common vocation to be icons of the Blessed Trinity in the world.

In the Christian East, both Catholic and Orthodox, icons have a prominent place. They are in fact regarded as prayer in the form of art, as "windows of heaven". As icons of the Blessed Trinity, may we indeed be "windows of heaven" to those whom we encounter, serve, and witness in the course of living out our respective vocations.

In so doing, we begin to share even in this life in the perichoresis of the Blessed Trinity, to whom all honor, adoration, glory, power, empire, and dominion belong now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen.