Homily- The Solemnity of the Holy Trinity (Year B) -Sunday 26 May 2024 -Rev. Dr. Fr. Patrick Mathias SDB
“In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”
Mass Readings: Dt 4:32-34.39-40 Ps
32 Rom 8:14-17 Mt 28:16-20
Key Verse to Meditate: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
(Mt 28:19).
Dear Brothers and Sisters in the
Lord,
Today, we
celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, the feast of our One True God in Three
Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. This solemnity teaches us that there are
three distinct Persons in one God, sharing the same Divine Nature. The Councils
of Nicaea and Constantinople defined it as a dogma of Christian Faith. The
Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 234 says that “the mystery of the Most
Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life” (see also CCC
#253-256). The doctrine of the Trinity
teaches us that there are three distinct Persons but one God, and that these
three Persons form a unity. Two weeks ago, in the Sunday liturgy, we
commemorated and celebrated the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord. After
celebrating the Solemnity of Pentecost last Sunday, today we celebrate the
Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, the mystery of love. The coming of the Holy
Spirit at Pentecost revealed the third person of the Holy Trinity.
Importance
of the Holy Trinity in Christian Life: The
revelation of the Christian mystery that one God is three persons is
fundamental to the very life of the Church. Every liturgical act and every
prayer is addressed, directly or indirectly, to the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. We begin all prayers in the Church by invoking the name of the
Holy Trinity and end them by glorifying the Trinity. We bless ourselves with
the sign of the cross, and the priests of God also bless the faithful in the
name of the Holy Trinity. In the Church, all sacraments are administered in the
name of the Holy Trinity. For example, we are baptized, confirmed, and anointed
in the name of the Trinity. Our sins are forgiven, our marriages are blessed,
and our bishops, priests, and deacons are ordained in the name of the Holy
Trinity. The Angelus, which is said thrice daily with the ringing of the Church
bells, invites Christians to pray to the Holy Trinity.
God
is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:
God
the Father: God the Father is the creator of
all things, as John tells us in his Gospel: "In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning
with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing
came into being that has come into being" (Jn 1:1-3).
It is Jesus who revealed to us the much about the Father and the Holy Spirit. In the "Our Father" prayer, Jesus taught us to call God "Father" (Mt 6:9). God the Father above all is the revealer, as Jesus affirms (Mt 16:17). In the Gospel of John, Jesus reveals this intimate love of the Father: "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10:30). Jesus often portrayed the loving and merciful face of the Father through parables like that of the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32). Jesus also frequently expressed His special relationship with God the Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him" (Mt 11:27). Even in his hour of agony he addressed God as "Abba! Father! (Mk 14:36).
God
the Son: God
the Son refers to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who took human form
(Philippians 2:6-7) to save us from sin and death: "The Word became flesh
and made His dwelling among us" (John 1:14). Through His death and
resurrection, Jesus brought us salvation. God the Son is the one who gives freedom (Jn 8:36). God the Son teaches people to love
each other as God the Father does (Jn 13:34). When Jesus breathed the Spirit
onto the apostles, He gave them the authority to forgive the sins of the
people. This act of breathing the Spirit onto the apostles not only marked a
new birth for them into the ministry of preaching and reconciling people to God
but also served as preparation for the event of Pentecost (Jn 20:22-23).
God
the Holy Spirit: God the Holy Spirit is the power of
God at work on Earth. He is the one who guides people toward the truth (Jn 16:13). Jesus called the Holy Spirit as the Counsellor or
Paraclete (Jn 14:16. 26; 15:26; 16:7). The Holy Spirit, bestowed by the Father
and the risen Jesus, guides us to the truth. The Holy Spirit represents God’s
love and is the life and love within the Church and humanity. The Holy Spirit
is the Spirit of Christ and the divine Person who enables us to imitate Christ,
bringing Christ to the world and making Him live in us.
Jesus commanded
the disciples to remain in Jerusalem and wait for the outpouring of the Spirit
(Acts 1:13-14). And on the day of Pentecost, they were all filled with the
power of the Holy Spirit: "Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among
them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the
Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them
ability" (Acts 2:3-4). Jesus' life was also filled and guided by the
Spirit of God. He was filled with the Holy Spirit from the beginning of His
life and before His active ministry in Galilee (Lk 4:1; 4:14; 4:18-19).
Today’s Readings - The First Reading: Today’s readings convey the fundamental mystery that the Triune God
reaches out to people in love, seeking the deepest communion with them. In the
first reading from the book of Deuteronomy (chap. 4), Moses reminds the people
that they belong to God. He was trying to remind the Israelites of what God did
for them, especially the act of leading them out of the slavery of Egypt with
many miracles and wonders. God did not do this favor for any other people. And so,
he asked them to remember always that the Lord is God and to keep His
commandments.
The
Second Reading: St. Paul in today’s second reading
tells us that, “all who are being led by the Spirit of God, are sons of God
(Rom 8:14). For him all those who are led by the Spirit are spiritual persons.
So, if we are sons of God, then we have the freedom and the grace to address
God as "Abba! Father!" (Rom 8:15). St. Paul also reminds them of
their status as children of God in Jesus Christ. He further states, “And if we
are children, we are heirs as well: heirs of God and coheirs with Christ” (Rom
8:17). So, the Spirit of God dwelling within us is our security that we are all
the children of God (Rom 8:21). Through baptism we have not received the spirit
of slavery but the gift of the Spirit of God who gives us freedom (Gal 5:1). The
Blessed Trinity has brought us into God's intimacy as his children.
The
Gospel Reading: In the Gospel of today, Jesus not
only promised His disciples that He would be with them for eternity (Mt
28:16-20) but also commanded them to go and baptize all people in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Through baptism, we became
sons and daughters of God. Therefore, since the day we are baptized, we belong
to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If we are sons and daughters, it means
that we belong to God. Thus, the sacrament of Baptism makes us heirs in the family
of the Holy Trinity.
The Great Mystery of Christian Faith: The mystery of
Christian faith is One God in three persons! The liturgical preface of today’s
solemn feast of the Most Holy Trinity affirms this fact: "You are one God,
one Lord, not in the unity of one person, but in the trinity of one
substance." Christianity is counted among the three great monotheistic
religions. But doctrinally, our monotheism carries within itself an absolute
novelty: one God, but three distinct persons who do not get confused, yet share
the same divine nature. This truth is clearly expressed in the "Shema
Israel" prayer (Dt 6:4-5), confirming the monotheistic nature of
Christianity: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD."
The Trinitarian Formula: The liturgical act of the Church, from the most solemn community
celebration to the simplest individual prayer, begins with the Trinitarian
formula: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit." How many times we repeat these words! Every time we use this
formula, we turn to God and immerse ourselves in the mystery of the Holy
Trinity. The normal introductory greeting formula widely used at the beginning
of each Holy Mass comes from the last verse of the second letter of Saint Paul
to the Corinthians: "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of
God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you" (2 Cor
13:14). In other words, the meaning of this verse is: "The Lord be with
you" (Lk 1:28).
The
Story of St. Augustine: One and three
are not just a pleasant mystery; rather, they are the mystery of mysteries,
from which all others derive. The mystery of the Holy Trinity is a profound
mystery of love, revealed yet still veiled in mystery. A well-known anecdote
from the life of St. Augustine of Hippo vividly illustrates the
incomprehensible nature of the Holy Trinity. One day, Augustine strolled along
the beach, pondering the great mystery of the Trinity. He encountered a child
who, having dug a hole in the sand, attempted to pour the vast sea into it with
a shell. When asked what he was doing, the child simply replied that he wanted
to contain the mighty sea within this tiny hole. Augustine, puzzled, remarked
that it was impossible to contain the sea in such a small space. The child,
seemingly angelic, then asked Augustine how he could attempt to comprehend in
his limited mind the infinite mystery of God. The
child was an angel sent by God to teach Augustine a lesson. Later, Augustine wrote: "You see the
Trinity if you see love."
The
Mystery of the Trinity is Love: It is not
possible for our limited intellect to penetrate and scrutinize the mystery of
the Trinity. But St. Augustine comes to our aid in making us understand the
reality of the Trinitarian truth. Augustine used the idea and notion of love to
explain the Trinity. According to him, Trinitarian love has three parts: the
Person that loves, the Person who is loved, and the act of love itself. At the
end of his treatise “De Trinitate” (On the Trinity), St. Augustine
concludes with the affirmation that the Trinity makes itself visible in
charity: whoever sees charity sees the Trinity. This way of looking at the Holy
Trinity gives us the understanding that we too are the image of the Trinity, as
we have been loved by God from all eternity (Jn 3:16). We are created in love to be a community of loving persons, just as
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are united in love.
The Deeper Meaning of the Holy
Trinity: The deeper meaning of the Trinity is
explained in Jn 3:16, where it says that "God loved the world so much that
he gave his only begotten Son." Jesus is the highest and most perfect
expression of charity, of the love of the Father, who makes himself present to
us through the work of the Holy Spirit. Charity is at the center of all the
saving actions of God in history, the only motivation for his action in his Son
Jesus. Every act of true and gratuitous love carries within itself a reflection
of the Trinity and also makes present in the world a ray of the inaccessible
light of the Holy Trinity.
The
Infinite Love of God the Father: Jesus, the only begotten Son, showed us on the cross how much the
Father loves us, and in the resurrection, He showed us the destiny to which God
calls us. In the Holy Spirit, He moves us through history to return to God, our
destiny. It is this precise identity of God, revealed to us by His Son, Jesus
Christ, who came to earth, who is infinite love, and this is what matters most
to know about Him. The Son of God is the concrete image of the love of God the
Father (Jn 3:16-17). By sending His Son and the Holy Spirit, God reveals that
He Himself is an eternal exchange of love.
The True Face of our God: The merciful God who forgives, who
saves and does not condemn is the only true God in whom we believe and in whom
we can believe (Jn 3:16). God revealed himself to the people of Israel as the
only one, when he said ‘Listen, Israel, our God, is the only LORD’ (Dt 6: 4-5;
there is no other God before me (Is 45:22). This truth of God being one, Jesus
proclaimed it during his public ministry: And Jesus answered him, the first of
all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord (Mk
12:29).
Points for Personal Reflection:
The feast of
the Holy Trinity makes us contemplate the mystery of God who unceasingly
creates, redeems and sanctifies, always with love and for love. The mystery of
the Most Holy Trinity is a basic doctrine of faith in Christianity and the
greatest mystery of our faith, which is to be understood with our hearts and
not with our minds. So, in order to understand the One and Triune God, the key
to understanding is not the intellect, but love. We need to love God because he
loved us first (1 Jn 4:19) before all our merits and beyond our misery.
Celebrating the feast of the Holy Trinity, means finding yourself loved by the
Holy Trinity. In fact, Holy Spirit is the strength that animates the soul which
is promised and transmitted by the risen Jesus to the disciples, as the
principle of new life, which must be announced and communicated to every man.
Today’s feast invites us to live in the awareness of the presence
of the Triune God within us: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. May we
turn to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in prayer every day with faith.
Am I governed
by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the
Holy Spirit in my life?
Glory be to the
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is
now, and every shall be, world without end. Amen.
Happy Feast of the Holy Trinity !!!
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