Unity in Trinity

Homily for the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity

By Deacon Thomas Stephenson

June 15, 2014

As Father Paul told us last week, Pentecost Sunday marked the end of the Easter season, and the resumption of Ordinary Time. However, we still have a few special celebrations over the next few Sundays – Most Holy Trinity today, Corpus Christi, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, next week, and the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul the following week. The Church gives us these opportunities, particularly in the case of today and next Sunday, to focus on important truths of our faith.

The Trinity is the most essential truth, and the greatest mystery, of our faith. We probably don’t give it much conscious thought, but we invoke the Trinity quite often. After the processional hymn and Father’s opening greeting, what words did he use to begin the Mass? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. How does he close the Mass? By blessing us in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. At the end of some of our prayers during the Mass, we use some variation of saying We ask this through your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ONE GOD, forever. We baptize, as Jesus told us, using the Trinitarian formula. We often use the Sign of the Cross to begin and end our personal prayer. The list goes on and on, showing that we not only believe; we call upon the Trinity all the time.

The Athanasian Creed, which isn’t used in Mass, says: And the Catholic Faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost...So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not Three Gods, but One God.

We use the Nicene Creed most often here at Mass, and in it we profess that we believe in the Father, we believe in the Son, born of the Father and consubstantial with Him, and we believe in the Holy Spirit, Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

God is three distinct persons, but not three different Gods, and not just three different manifestations or facets of God. The Catechism tells us The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons: [Father, Son and Holy Spirit]…The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire. (CCC, 253). God is not divided up between them; each person of the Trinity is completely, 100% God. Do we completely understand this? Of course not – this is beyond our human comprehension. We can use reason, Scripture, and Sacred Tradition to gain insight, but any attempt to fully define this in ways that we can understand will necessarily fall very, very short, and may even lead us into misunderstanding, error, or worse. We profess our belief in the Trinity, but it remains a mystery to us.

Today’s Gospel gives us a glimpse into the relationship between two persons of the Trinity. We hear that God, the Father, sent His son, Jesus, into the world. And He did not just send Jesus, He gave His son, gave Him up so that we who believe in Him may have everlasting life. And when Jesus was here, He told us that the Father would send the Holy Spirit, to teach us and to bear witness to Jesus. The Trinity is not just a theological construct; it is a loving relationship. Think of it – the Father loves the Son, even calls Him His beloved, with whom He is pleased. The Son loves the Father, teaching and doing what the Father sent Him for. The Holy Spirit continues the work of the Son. We see that it is in the very being of God to love, and to share that love.

We are meant to be in relationship, too, with God and with each other. The Catechism also says: “The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity. But even now, we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity: ‘If a man loves me’, says the Lord, ‘he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him’”. (CCC, 260) We participate in the life of the Trinity through our Baptism, and in developing our relationship with the Lord. We are made in the image and likeness of God, and therefore the truth of the Trinity tells us something about ourselves. This includes the fact that our relationship with God also requires relationships with other people, especially other believers. We cannot have as complete a relationship with God as we should, we cannot have a healthy spiritual life, unless we are connected to each other in the Church. We cannot be spiritual in isolation, creating a god in our own image. We need to recognize Him as He has revealed Himself, and receive support from other believers and give them our support. We are one, but linked to many. Clearly we do not possess the kind of unity God does, but His unity echoes within us. As the Church, We are one body, yet we are many believers. Just as God shares His love with us, so we must share His love with others.

The Trinity is a wondrous mystery, one that we should contemplate in our prayer life, and that we celebrate in the Mass, which, among other things, is an expression of the Trinitarian love of God. Here, we are drawn into that love as a foretaste of eternal life. Let us ask God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – to increase in us our desire to share in His infinite and everlasting divine life.