Today, the first weekend after the end of the Easter season, we celebrate the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. I must say that as a priest, I always feel inadequate preaching about the Trinity, an eternal mystery of the faith. Even the great theologian St Thomas Aquinas said that it was much easier to say what God was not than to say what he is. In speaking about the meaning and inner relationship of the three persons of God, the words of our human understanding of things are inadequate to express that reality. Father Anthony de Mello says that human beings talking about the Holy Trinity is like trying to explain the color green to a person who has has been blind since birth. However, there are still many things we can say about the three persons of God.
All of us baptized Catholics were initiated into the Church with the mandate that Jesus gives at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, baptized in the name of the Trinity. We recognize what the Catechism teaches us: that God is three persons in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each of these persons is God, but there is only one God. Although the reality of God is beyond our human understanding, we can still say this: (1) God the Father is the Father of Jesus Christ the Beloved Son, but he is also our Father and the creator of the universe. He is omnipresent in all his creation. So, all of us human beings live in the Father and creation exists in him. (2) Jesus, the son, is Emmanuel, God with us. He is our Savior and Redeemer. As we are his disciples, he is always with us. (3) The Holy Spirit is there to accompany us, lead us, guide us, and inspire us. The Spirit speaks in the recesses of our hearts. But there is only one God. He lives in us. And we live in him.
I want to look at some important life lessons we can learn from the Holy Trinity. First, the Trinity teaches us to respect ourselves and each other. Our conviction is that the Triune God is present with us always; thus, we are called to esteem ourselves as God’s holy dwelling place, to behave well in his presence, and to lead pure and holy lives, reflecting God’s justice and charity. This Triune presence with us encourages us to respect and honor each other as temples of the Holy Spirit. In our modern world, it is so easy to get angry, to lash out at others, and to lose our patience; this attitude of respect for others can be a challenge to implement in the ordinary moments of life.
Second, God is the source of our strength and courage. The awareness of his presence with us gives us the strength to face the manifold problems of life with Christian courage. This conviction prompted the early Christian martyrs who were put to death to shout the heroic prayer of faith from the Psalms: "The Lord of might is with us, our God is within us, the God of Jacob is our helper.” (Psalm 46). It takes a lot of courage and conviction to live out our faith. The Trinity is there to help us have that courage.
Third, we are called to become more like the Triune God in all our relationships, as we are created in God’s image and likeness. Just as God is only God in the context of the Trinity, so we can be fully human only as one member of a triune relationship: ourselves, God, and our neighbor. We can think of this in the way we make the sign of the cross: being in a vertical relationship with God and a horizontal relationship with others - those relationship are integral to each other. In that way, our life becomes Trinitarian like the life of the Triune God. This is so different from our modern society, where we value individualism above everything else. Like God the Father, we are called to be productive, creative persons who help to build up the fabric of life and to build love in our families, our Church, our community, and our nation. Like God the Son, we are called to be peacemakers, to restore what has been broken and shattered. Like God the Holy Spirit, we are called to live out the truth of our faith, to teach truth and to dispel ignorance. The spirituality of the Trinity calls us to solidarity with God and with our neighbor.
Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier from the 16th century has the wonderful short prayer that he prayed often to the Trinity: “Most Holy Trinity, who live in me, I praise you, I worship you, I adore you, and I love you. Let the Son lead us to the Father through the Spirit, to live with the Triune God forever and ever. Amen.” Blessing to all of you as we celebrate the Trinity this weekend.
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