HOMILY FOR THE SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY, YEAR B. 30.05.2021.

Readings: Deuteronomy 4:32-34.39-40; Psalm 33; Romans 8:14-17 and Mathew 28:16-20.

THREE PERSONS IN ONE GOD. 

 

The Old Testament often presents a monotheistic idea of God. That is, One God who stands as a Father and Creator of heaven and earth. Until the emergence of Christ in the New Testament, was there any knowledge of God the Son who is the redeemer? From the Son, we hear the promise of God the Holy Spirit, who is the sanctifier. Are these three persons one and the same God or different from each other? This has led to so many controversies, of which we will begin with a brief historical view, to a biblical background and culminate with a catechesis on the Trinity.

 

Historically, religious divisions came from conflicting beliefs about God, rather than any conflict between theism and atheism. This division has caused many to look keenly to the nature of God. Among the ‘many’ was Arius who fell into heresy, known as the Arian heresy in the fourth century. While attempting to explain the nature of God, he stated that, “If the Father Begat the Son, then he who was begotten had a beginning in existence, and from this, it follows there was a time when the Son was not.” Put differently, his heresy was that, Christ was not fully God and unequal with God the Father. This led to the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea of 325 AD where the Church proclaimed the dogma of the Holy Trinity, affirming that the doctrine of the Trinity holds that God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, but three Divine persons.

 

Biblically, as we have the conception of God in the Old Testament as a Father and Creator of the universe. This God is presented in the creation story, which gives us a glimpse of Trinity when He said, “Let us make man in our own image and likeness” (Gen 1:26). It is a conversation that is interpreted to be with God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. This God is also conceived as the mighty God that saved the Israelite from slavery, the God who led them through the desert, where he gave them the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments). Continuously, this God sent prophets to save his people. This is evident in the first reading, the voice of God speaking out from the midst of fire, the encounter of Moses with God in the burning bush.

 

As God communicated with Moses in the burning bush, this same God communicate himself to us in the Son, otherwise known as auto-communication of God. Hebrew 1:1 tells us that, “In the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, in our time, He has spoken to us through His Son.” After the ascension of the Son, the Holy Spirit, which is the third person of the Blessed Trinity that was celebrated last week (Pentecost Sunday), was revealed to us as God. This is what the Church calls the theology of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity remains a mystery to us and this mystery is the central of our Christian faith. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths of faith" (CCC 234). It is a mystery of our faith.

 

In this mystery, there are three figures, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There, the figure three symbolizes completeness and perfect symmetry, and re-appears at all the key moments of God the Son. His life itself constantly reflected the Trinity. Three figures make up the nativity scene in Bethlehem, the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Their first visitors were the three wise men. Later, in the desert preparing to begin his public life, the Son was tempted three times by the devil. The end of his life, as the beginning, has again the three motif. During his Passion, Peter denied him thrice. On the road to Calvary, he fell three times. The crucifixion scene has three figures, Christ between two thieves. Before his resurrection, he spent three days in the tomb. All these events reflects the Holy Trinity, which is always revealed to us in different ways.

 

In the Gospel, Christ became the new Moses, that through Him, sinners received redemption. The Church teaches that, "God is Father not only in being Creator, he is eternally Father in relation to his only Son, who is eternally Son only in relation to his Father. ‘No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’” (CCC 240). In this revelation, John 1:15 tells us, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John refer to Christ as the Word who was present in the beginning. John 14:9 echoes, “For how long you have been with me, yet you do not know me. To have seen me is to have seen the father, for I am in the Father and the Father is in me” and in John 10:30 Christ said, “For I and the Father are one.” In today’s gospel, Christ commissioned his disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” With these, the council of Nicea in 325 AD asserts that, "The Son is 'consubstantial' with the Father, that is, of the same substance or essence with the Father. The essence of the Father is interwoven in the Son. The council of Constantinople in 381 AD kept this expression in the formulation of the Nicene Creed that the Son, "Is eternal begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father" (CCC 242).

 

From the Father and the Son proceeds the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was sent by the Father in the name of the Son, which we experience on Pentecost Sunday to Sanctify the Church, which reveals the fullness of the mystery of the Holy Trinity. According to the second reading, this is the Spirit that have been given to us, the spirit of sonship which enables us to cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the spirit that makes us children of God and joint heirs with the Son.

 

Dear friends in Christ, the Holy Trinity communicate to us the life of communion with one another. It communicate a uniform race called humanity. Despite the distinct roles, the three are inseparable; they remain one in essence. If God is love according to 1 John 4:8, then there is a lover who is the Father and the beloved who is the Son and the Holy Spirit is the love that exist between the Father and the Son. Our families are good symbol of the Holy Trinity, distinct in our roles, but there should be a bond that unites us, which is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of love. This spirit will enable us to love one another and see ourselves as children of the same Father; and so we can praise God saying, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen!

 

Happy Solemnity of the Holy Trinity!

Fr. Ken Dogbo, OSJ