Homily for the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, Year A
Brothers and sisters, rejoice.
Mend your ways, encourage one another,
agree with one another, live in peace,
and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Greet one another with a holy kiss.
All the holy ones greet you.The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.-2 Cor. 13:11-13
What is the most concrete, practical, and all-embracing teaching that we Christians accept? It is none other than the mystery we celebrate today on this Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.
This characterization, especially as “concrete” and “practical,” may seem a bit hard to take in if we compare the doctrine of the Trinity with, say, the Incarnation or the Eucharist. This difficulty, however, is only the result of the limitations of our human experience—especially the limitations of our senses and imagination. The apostle acknowledges this when he tells us that “eye has not seen nor has ear heard nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him”: namely, the vision and possession of the Blessed Trinity in that final and everlasting experience we call beatitude or heaven.
When we examine the precise theological language of this core belief, the whole matter may seem abstract, speculative, and hard to understand. This mystery has little to grab our imagination. The Lord Jesus has a story, but who could tell the story of the Word and the Spirit proceeding from the Unoriginate Father before all worlds began?
But facts are facts, and when we profess that the Holy Trinity creates the whole of reality on every level from the highest angel down to the lowest atomic particle we mean something very concrete and practical indeed. You see, absolutely everything and everyone depends continually on the direct creative power and governance of this triune God.
Our catechism has always taught that this God is in all things by his very essence, presence, and power, without which all things would lapse into nothingness: for the only thing between them and nothingness is God the Holy Trinity. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the “one thing necessary” for anything to be or to happen or to do at all.
But how are we to experience this concrete reality of the Holy Trinity? Let us look again at St. Paul’s words in the epistle lesson of today’s Holy Mass:
Brothers and sisters, rejoice.
Mend your ways, encourage one another,
agree with one another, live in peace,
and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Greet one another with a holy kiss.
All the holy ones greet you.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
Joy is the perfection of love; mending our ways is a conversion to love; encouragement and agreement and peace are acts and fruits of love; expressing our affection with a holy kiss of greeting is a work of love. The grace of Christ, the Father’s charity, and the communion of the Holy Spirit are the very life and substance of love. The Savior says “By this all men will know that you are my disciples: by the love you have one for another.”
Our minds can submit in faith to the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, but it is only by love that we grasp the life of the Holy Trinity, and it is only by this love that the mystery of the Godhead can be experienced and revealed in our own concrete, practical life. That is why the commandment that expresses the mystery we profess is “Love one another as I have loved you.” This is the whole purpose of Our Lord’s life and the meaning of the crib, the cross, and the sacred Host.
We could, as the apostle says, have such knowledge as to explain all mysteries, but if we do not have love then we have nothing at all. Only sin and human weakness—our failings in love—turn our faith in the Blessed Trinity into a mere concept or abstraction. In order to show forth the mystery we profess, we must obey the apostle’s command and love each other as we seek daily to turn, to convert, to the love of God.
“The demons,” he also says, “believe and tremble.” Faith alone is not enough. We must have the faith that works by love; we must “do the truth in love,” and then the God of love and peace will be with us. If we persevere in love, then some bright day we will come to see the Holy Trinity face to face and so love as we are loved and know as we are known by him.
So by all means let us profess and recite the creed of our Sunday Mass and let us know well our catechism; but it will only be by love of neighbor that we will possess the mysteries we profess and reveal them to others. Believing what is right is necessary but only helpful to us ultimately if we do what is right.
Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life, but we are only on his way, and only grasp his truth and only live his life by divine charity. So start being peaceable, kind, forgiving, merciful, cheerful, and helpful and then you will be a truly orthodox Catholic, filled with the grace of Christ, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Then you be a practical Catholics, as full of the Holy Trinity as God is in his whole creation!