The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
The staff I work with, is a crazy bunch. Friday morning, I was walking about the hall ways of the offices aimlessly, when one of them asked me, “Have you finished your homily?” I wanted to say, “I do not need another mother,” but I didn’t. And then I heard someone say “You better have finished it, Mister!” There was a reason why I was aimlessly wandering the hallways. The Trinity is the most difficult topic to write about. In fact, later I said to the staff, “I am struggling with the homily. This is the most boring feast in the church. This feast is so blah!!!” I was only partly kidding. The significance of this feast lies in the fact that we are all made in the image and likeness of God. If we really want to know who we are, then we have understand our Creator. We understand God as Trinity. How we understand God has direct implications on our self-understanding.
Today, let us take the time not only to understand God and God’s nature, but also to celebrate who God is, because, after all, when we celebrate God we celebrate who we are. Here are three things about God and about us.
1. God is Eternal and so are We. The first reading today is taken from the book of Wisdom. In the Christian Tradition Wisdom is associated with the Holy Spirit. Often Jesus is also referred to as the Wisdom of God. The point of the reading, though, is that Wisdom (whether we think of Wisdom as the Holy Spirit or Jesus or both), was present with God before creation. In other words, God is eternal. The word ‘eternal’ is a common word. Yet it is difficult to understand eternity because part of us is mortal. We touch and experience mortality as people around us pass away. We know that one day we too will pass away. Eternity, on the other hand, is not something we concretely experience every day. The significance of this feast lies in the fact that it puts us in touch with the immortal part of our human nature. This means that our present has implications for the future. Our choices today have a direct implications for eternity. This means that we must live carefully, meaningfully and prayerfully. Our lives in the here and now must reflect our immortality and God’s eternity.
2. God is Relational and so should We. The second important point that today’s feast tells us is that God is relational. The relationality between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is seen in today’s gospel reading. Even as Jesus speaks about the coming of the Holy Spirit, he also says, “Everything the Father has is mine.” The picture we get is one of relational harmony and mutuality between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But the relationship between the three persons is not an inward looking relationship. It is a relationship that bears fruit. Creation is the fruit of the relationship between the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. All the beauty, the splendor, the intricacy, the sheer genius we see in creation is a reflection of the Trinitarian relationship. At the center of creation is the human person. In other words, our origin lies in the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This means that by our very nature we are relational beings. Sometimes, human beings forget that we are relational and are connected to each other. Last week, the weapon that was used to kill Trayvon Martin was put on auction. Immaterial of the merits of the legal aspects of the case, I see nothing good about an action like that. All this did was a create disharmony. Someone actually bought that weapon for $250,000. I am actually in shock.
The significance of today’s feast lies in the fact that it reminds us of our relationality. Human relationship, human family, human community, indeed all of humanity should mirror the image and likeness in which we are created. If we can live in harmony the result is beauty and splendor, peace and love, goodness and creativity. To the extent we live contrary to the image and likeness in which we are created, we will experience evil and despair.
3. God is Love and so are We. Often, when we look at creation and human life, it is hard to see how it reflects the God who created them. Human life is very similar to the Christian story. In spite of the brutal death of Jesus on the cross, it is not hatred or prejudice that defines Christianity. The Christian story first of all is a love story. Similarly, God and God’s creation are primarily defined by love. As today’s second reading says, “The love of God has been poured into our hearts….” In fact, even though we are mortal, not only were we created in love but we have also been redeemed God’s love. Even if part of us is mortal, the bottom line is that all of creation has been redeemed by our triune, unconditionally loving God.
The significance of this feast, then, is that we are true calling is to love. Often, looking at the state of our world, we may find hard to believe that love has anything to do with us. But, there is a lot of love in the world. The human story first and foremost is a love story. We owe this to our triune God who is love.
The feast of the Holy Trinity is really not a boring feast, is it? It is hardly a “blah” feast. This feast is about the God in whose image we are created. Let us celebrate who God is and who we are as we approach the altar.
- Fr. Satish Joseph