Holy Trinity – A Communion of Love
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen…
What we just did is a public expression that we believe in the Most Holy Trinity
… That there is only one God, but that one God has revealed himself to us as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; three distinct, co-equal, co-eternal Persons.
What we celebrate today is a not a feast of an event that happened…. Not a feast of a human person but what we celebrate is a feast of the mystery of our faith.
The doctrine or dogma of the Most Holy Trinity is not just one teaching among many. It is the Christian teaching of the very nature of God… the core of our Christian faith, the essence and the central mystery of the Christian faith.. how God shares His love with us. Everything a Christian does flows from this teaching, is centered upon this teaching, and leads back to this teaching on the Trinity, meaning, many aspects of the Catholic faith, of Christian life is grounded in the Trinity.
We do not believe in three gods but in one God who exists eternally as a communion of love. It is a mystery of love beyond complete human understanding.
St. Augustine said to people who claim to have known and understood the mystery of God, "If you can fully understand it, whatever you understand - is not God." And yet though we cannot fully explain the trinity, we constantly experience the trinity. We are created by the father, redeemed by the son and guided by the holy spirit.
The doctrine of the Trinity is a distinctively Christian doctrine of God, something that separates Christians from other religious traditions.
People do not realize how radical this teaching is…that this is completely contradictory in the mindset of the Jews. That is why they killed Jesus – because Jesus claimed to be God. The Jews say: “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is One.” … and yet Jesus dared to say: “The Father and I are One” (John 10:30)… so, they killed Him.
Muslims completely reject the Trinitarian God. That is why even in our times, there are those who persecute Christians. Muslims cannot believe God becoming a man and suffer… as a suffering servant…
Our celebration of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity is an invitation for us to enter into the mystery of God. The doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery - probably the most profound mystery of Christianity…most confusing and the most misunderstood….
That is why it took the Church – theologians, teachers, philosophers - about four centuries – four hundred years – of study and discussion – through the Holy Spirit - to come up and develop the doctrine of the Trinity…
- a dogma requiring belief… a leap of faith… because it is beyond our comprehension. In matters of faith, believe then you will understand; believe, then you will see.
To try to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity with our human mind is like trying to put all the waters in the ocean into a small bucket… impossible.
No where in the New Testament is the doctrine of the Trinity carefully explained. What we find there is not so much men writing theology or explaining the Trinity, but people, like us, talking about something that has happened in their own lives – how their lives had been touched by God. They did not understand it all. The only thing they knew for sure was that God had become for them a living reality.
They had seen God at work. They had witnessed his power. They had experienced his loving presence.
The doctrine of the Trinity describes the unique ways that people experience God's presence in their lives – how they came to know God.
Our question about the Trinity leads us to the basic question of:
“How do we know God?”
- We find the answer by describing and looking and reflecting on our own experience of God, our encounters with the living God.
God, the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is not just a mystery to be solved, not just a doctrine to be learned but the Trinity is a presence, a Being to encounter, a loving Presence to experience. The life of God, the intimacy of God cannot be stated. It can only be experienced.
The first followers of Jesus were Jews. Through their own experiences and through the writings of the prophets, they had learned to see God in everything. They had grown up with the stories of creation, the flood, the call of Abraham, the exodus, the giving of the Ten Commandments, and the possessing of the Promised Land. They have come to know God as the Creator and Sustainer of all things… the Source of all good.
Then one day, their concept of God took on another dimension when they met a man named Jesus. At first, they saw him as only a man, but there was something about him that was so captivating that they became his disciples, his students. They listened to the things he said. There was a note of authority in his voice and in his words, not arrogance, but authority. He taught or preached with Authority.
They watched how Jesus lived, the way he related to other people with compassion, kindness, how he healed people. The more people listened to Jesus teach, and the longer they watched him live, the more they were convinced that Jesus was not just a man.
They watched him die and they saw him live again and knew that Jesus had conquered death and by this time, it was impossible for them to think or talk about God without thinking and talking about Jesus.
The disciples came to know God, they came to experience his personal touch and love through Jesus, the Son of God.
Then Jesus ascended to heaven. At first, this troubled the disciples but little by little they realized that they were not alone.
God was with them; Jesus was still with them. Then they remembered that this was exactly what Jesus had promised. He would never leave them. They could sense His presence when they went to bed at night and when they got up in the morning. He was with them all through the day; but he was more than with them; he was IN them.
The Holy Spirit gave them strength for their work and strength for daily living. More and more, the Holy Spirit enabled them to live as Jesus lived. He gave them courage. He gave them joy. He gave them love. He showed them the will of God and enabled them to do it. Thus they came to know God more, His loving presence, through the Holy Spirit, the Third Person… who is always with them.
And that is what the Trinity meant to the first disciples. It was NOT a doctrine. It was an experience. It was the way they had come to know God; as God the Father, the creator and sustainer of all things; as God the Son Jesus Christ, the redeemer; as God the Holy Spirit, the guide, the consoler.
My brothers and sisters in Christ:
Let us pray that the Trinity will mean the same thing to you and me.
Let us continue to reflect on our personal intimate experiences of God
Let us continue to trust in the goodness and love of God our Father, our Creator
Let us continue to believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our brother, Reconciler, Redeemer, Healer.
Let us continue to have hearts and minds open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, who is our guide, who leads us to the knowledge of the truth – to a deeper understanding of God, better understanding of ourselves and to a more intimate relationship and communion with God who loves us.
In the gospel today, Jesus gives us one of the most beautiful summaries of God's heart… This is basically the essence of the Good News: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.” This is the heart of the trinity. The father loves. The son is given. The spirit continues that love within us.
The late Pope Benedict XVI said: “Three persons who are One God because the Father is Love, the Son is Love, the Spirit is Love.” - meaning, God is Love… a communion of love… a perfect unity… One God.
We were created in the image and likeness of God who is a communion of love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit and so our very nature is to love and give of ourselves in love, to live in love … that is the meaning and purpose of our life, why we exist, to share in God’s divine life and to share and enter into this communion of love … which also means, each one of us is also a mystery.
And so we pray, as we heard in the second reading, in the words of St. Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, pronouncing Trinitarian blessings upon his friends: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all.” Amen.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
