Homily for Trinity Sunday

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, a celebration that compels us to contemplate the essential dogma of our faith; it reminds us of the foundation of our faith.  We recall the Trinity every time we begin and end Mass.  We invoke the Trinity every time we pray.  We stand present before the Trinity whenever we say: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The Trinitarian formula is: In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  It is NOT the pathetically absurd gender-free version currently  in vogue among some circles that choose to begin prayer in the name of a creator, a redeemer, and a sanctifier. This aberration is linguistically awkward, theologically wrong, and reflects an inaccurate understanding of the nature of personhood.  

A person is not defined by a function.  A person is more than a function or a collection of functions.  Indeed, many people today express offense and outrage (among the more popular indoor sports in the U.S.) if they are described by their function, or, in the world of medicine, by their disease(s).   No person is fully defined by a function or several functions. The dogma of the Holy Trinity is One God in Three Divine Persons, not one object with three distinct functions.  

The Trinitarian formula--In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--is critical to the Church's sacraments, from baptism to the anointing of the dying.  The sign of the cross begins and ends everything the Church does. As it should and as it must.

We read in The Catechism of the Catholic Church, (#234):  “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in Himself.  It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths of faith.”

Every time we make the sign of the cross we recall the mystery of the Trinity, a mystery that remains incomprehensible despite the many books attempting to explain it.  Each book may contain a fragment of insight into the nature of the Trinity.  However, the sum of all the books written does not come close to capturing the full essence of the Trinity.  The dogma of the Trinity depends on faith and can only be understood through the eyes of faith. This raises the question: What is faith?  

A dictionary definition describes faith as  “Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.”  The Letter to the Hebrews describes it as, "the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. . . ."  By faith we understand that "the universe was ordered by the word of God, so that what is visible came into being through the invisible."  Thus, we must remain-- or become--comfortable with faith at its most mysterious and impenetrable, with the truth of that which is beyond understanding. While there is no chance of ever "explaining" the Trinity or "solving" the mystery of the Trinity, no one can declare him or herself a Christian if he or she denies the Trinity.

The word Trinity does not appear in scripture.  The understanding of the Trinity grew in the earliest years of the Church as she began to consider what Jesus said and did. Jesus always speaks of His Father as distinct from Himself but He also notes that  “I and the Father are One.”  The same is true of the Holy Spirit.  When Jesus refers to His oneness with the Father he is referring to substance and NOT to the sharply defined functions of creation, redemption, or enlightenment.  Thus, the ancient creeds in Greek used homoousion (one substance), which Latin translated into consubstantialem.  The English consubstantial, a word we will pronounce in a few moments, comes directly from the Latin. One essence or one substance has nothing to do with three specifically delimited and definable functions. 

The Trinity is a mystery. It is a mystery that, rather than being dissected into component parts or functions, compels us to sing in praise and thanksgiving with the psalmist: 

"Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers,
praiseworthy and exalted above all forever;
And blessed is your holy and glorious name,
praiseworthy and exalted above all for all ages."

And to conclude with the doxology that ends all prayer in the Divine Office: 

"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.

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One of the advantage of quarantine is that it is forcing us to became reacquainted with solitude and silence.  The advantage of solitude is that it makes it possible to notice things that might otherwise go unnoticed, to pick up on the little details of life that remain invisible to most of us most of the time.  The photos below are from a year ago when I was at a monastery to celebrate the Holy Week liturgies.  There was a lot of alone time and a splendid milieu in which to shoot.  

Except for very rare occasions do not go shooting when anyone is tagging along.  If it is another photographer he is going to want to be doing his own thing.  If it is a non-photographer it can be somewhere between frustrating and boring.    Neither one is a fair situation for the other.  

+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD