The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
I spent twelve years in the seminary before I was ordained. Through the first eight years, my only goal was to get to the theology classes because I wanted to get into the depths of the knowledge about God. I plunged into theology with the excitement of a two-year-old about to jump into a puddle. But a puddle is only so deep, right? That is how I felt with theology as well. The best of my efforts to understand God led me only thus far. The best of my theology professors often ended the class with the line, “It is a mystery.” If I heard that statement one more time I could scream. Eighteen years after my ordination there are times, I have to content with that same statement, “It is a mystery.”
Even as I begin this homily, let me warn you, I might end by saying, “It is all a mystery.” But that is not where I want to start. I want to begin with what we do know about God.
Let me begin with Moses’ rhetorical questions to the Israelites in today’s first reading. Moses asks, “Was it ever heard of? Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?” Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation? And the answer to these questions that Moses gives is: “God is close to us and speaks to us. God cares for us and saves us.” Moses knows this to be absolutely true about God.
With or without theology, each one of has some knowledge about God. For me, personally, God is pure love. Whenever I see the crucifix, I say – “Wow! This is my God.” But here is the kicker: Even as clearly as a crucifix speaks to me that God is love and as clearly I understand it, the mystery never ceases.
Trying to deal with what we know about God and what is still a mystery, I have three point for us to reflect upon:
a) Moses did not have a bible in his hands or get a lesson in theology when he spoke about God. His knowledge was based on his personal encounter with a God who wanted to set a people free. Because Moses experienced the closeness of God he is able to speak about a God who is close by. In the gospel reading, Mathew refers to this closeness when Jesus says, “I am with you always, until the end of the age" Mt 28:20). Matthew did not have a bible in his hands either. But he experienced Jesus as one who is with him. So I want to ask you, “What is that you know about God?” Don’t tell me what the bible says or what you heard about God from someone else? Form your own experience of God, what is it that you undoubtedly know about God? And now imagine this: that we could all take the time to share our unique experience of God. If each of us did share our own experience of God, the picture that would emerge would be so much more richer than just God as Trinity. Yes, God is Trinity. But God is more than Trinity
b) Here is the absolutely surprising element in today’s feast. Our effort to know God does not just reveal who God is; it also reveals to us who we are. In today’s second reading, Paul says, “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God” (Rom 8:14). The fact that we are children of God is only revealed because we know God as father and mother. I believe that the more we come to experience and know God the more we come to know ourselves. In fact, it is only in our relation to God that we know who we really are. I want each one of us to ask these questions: What do I know about myself? What is it about me that I believe to be true? What is my identity? How is my identity connected to what I know about God? I believe that a meaningful life is a life in which my knowledge about God is gets played out in how a person perceived himself or herself.
c) On the feast of the most Holy Trinity, then, we have two things: what we believe about God and what we believe about ourselves in relation to God. And then, Jesus gives us an undisputed command in today’s gospel reading. “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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Mt 28:19). The word for this is evangelization. Paul tells the real meaning of evangelization: that we reveal God and who we are in relation to God. In this sense, Jesus is the evangelizer par excellence. Jesus reveals God to us as Trinity. We can believe that God is Father because Jesus lived as the Son. We can believe in the Spirit because Jesus gave the Spirit to us. We become evangelizers when our lives become like that of Jesus.
When we celebrate the feast of the Trinity we are saying that that church has experienced God as Father, as Son and as the Holy Spirit. But the church also knows who she is because of what she knows about God. She lives it most intensely when she celebrates the Eucharist. Here on this table, God sends the Holy Spirit so that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. Because of this the church is called the body of Christ. The church must now be the Trinity in the world. So, I end how I started this homily - this is a great mystery!
- Fr. Satish Joseph