Most Holy Trinity Sunday Homily

Most Holy Trinity

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”Amen.

My Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
The doctrine of three persons in one God, equal in divinity yet distinct in personality, is not explicitly spelt out in the Bible. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the persons who are most intimate to our lives. In fact from the moment of baptism, they dwell within us; we are their temple. So the Feast of the Holy Trinity is not after all an exercise in mental gymnastics, but a joyful and thankful affirmation and celebration of the central mystery of Christian faith : our life in the one God in three divine persons : Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Saint Patrick was said to have used the three-leafed shamrock to illustrate the Holy Trinity. He explained in his sermons that the clover represented how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were all separate parts of a single entity. Just as the shamrock was one plant with three leaves, so too was God one God in three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Today's Gospel from St. John reaffirms the three fold action of the Blessed Trinity in our lives. Both, the Father and the Son have sent the Holy Spirit in the world as the Spirit of truth to guide us into the truth. As Jesus did not speak of His own, but spoke of what He heard from the Father, the Holy Spirit also will not speak on His own, but he speaks of what He hears.
The doctrine of the inner relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in such a way that each of them is fully and equally God, yet there are not three Gods but one, cannot be fully comprehended by the human mind. It is a mystery.
The story is told of St Augustine of Hippo, a great philosopher and theologian who wanted so much to understand the doctrine of the Trinity and to be able to explain it logically. One day as he was walking along the sea shore and reflecting on this, he suddenly saw a little child all alone on the shore. The child made a whole in the sand, ran to the sea with a little cup, filled her cup, came and poured it into the hole she had made in the sand. Back and forth she went to the sea, filled her cup and came and poured it into the hole. Augustine went up to her and said, "Little child, what are doing?" and she replied, "I am trying to empty the sea into this hole." "How do you think," Augustine asked her, "that you can empty this immense sea into this tiny hole and with this tiny cup?" To which she replied, " And you, how do you suppose that with this your small head you can comprehend the immensity of God?" With that the child disappeared.
In the story of salvation we usually attribute creation to the Father, redemption to the Son and sanctification to the Holy Spirit. Though they are distinct as persons, neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit ever exists or acts in isolation from the other two persons of the Godhead.
God the Father – Creator; The creative action of God should always be reflected in our parish communities. If our communities are not creative, then they will become static, dull, melancholic and depressive. There is need for renewal and refreshment. Look at the world around where there is such a lot of creativity. We experience the seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter. There is this cycle of seasons to break the monotony. There ought to be creativity in our communities.
Jesus the Redeemer; He redeems. He redeems us daily through our contact with him. Jesus redeemed people from their ignorance through his teaching and preaching; he redeemed people possessed by demons. He redeemed them from their selfishness and slavery to money and passions. We ought to become redeemers. Redemption begins at home more than in society. If our communities are not free from all the infirmities we cannot expect to free our society. Redemption begins first at home. It ought to start every day when the day begins. At the end of the day we must see that some evil from our community is eliminated.
Holy Spirit Sanctifies; The Holy Spirit does not sanctify us without our willingness to be sanctified. He respects our freedom and expects our generous hearts to be open for his operations. Hence we need to be open and generous. The Spirit of the Lord operates whenever we are kind, gentle, peace-loving, patient, compassionate, forgiving, and sincere. You cannot expect others to be kind to you if you have never shown kindness. How can the Spirit of God enter into you when you yourself are not kind? If you have the habit of losing patience at every moment and with everyone you meet, how can you expect to experience patience from others? If you have never been compassionate with your community members can you expect compassion from others? The work of the Holy Spirit begins within you and you need to prepare yourself so that the fruits are seen, visible to others.
We ought to become sanctifiers. This signifies that evil must be cast out and good must be allowed to grow. This is easily said than done. If you do not move towards the other, you cannot expect that the other will move towards you. This is what we call movement of the Holy Spirit.
The importance of this doctrine lies in this: we are made in the image of God, therefore, the more we understand God the more we can understand ourselves.
Like a God, like the worshipers. So the more important question for us to ask today is: What does the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity tell us about the kind of God we worship and what does this say about the kind of people we should be? Let us try two things.
1. God does not exist in isolated individualism but in a community of relationships. In other words, God is not a loner or a recluse. This means that a Christian in search of Godliness (Matthew 5:48) must shun every tendency to isolationism and individualism. The ideal Christian spirituality is not that of flight from the world like that of certain non Christian monastic traditions where the quest for holiness means withdrawal to the Himalayas away from contact with other people and society. You can not save you alone. If you are not concerned about your brothers and sisters then you are not concerned about you.
2 True loves requires three partners. You remember the old saying "Two is company, three is a crowd." The Trinity shows us that three is community, three is love at its best; three is not a crowd. Taking an example from the human condition we see that when a man A is in love he looks for a woman B so that together they can produce a baby C. Father, mother and child — love when it becomes complete becomes a trinity. Over and above that, each one of us becomes fully human only when we are in relationship with God and in relationship with others. You are not fully human if you are only living for yourself. Christian life is a community life. In that way our life becomes Trinitarian like that of God. I am a Christian insofar as I live in a relationship of love with God and other people.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Amen.