Re-run / This homily was preached in 2018
Year B / Ordinary Time / Solemnity of the Holy Trinity
Readings: Deuteronomy 4.32-34, 39-40 / Psalm 32. 4-5, 6 and 9, 18-19, 20 and 22 (R/v 12b) / Romans 8.14-17 / Matthew 28.16-20
Sisters and brothers, how do you make sense of a mystery? Have you tried to read up on it? Have you tried to analyse and dissect it? Have you asked around for answers? Did you feel you must problem-solve this mystery?
The Holy Trinity is the mystery of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One God yet three persons. They are united, co-equal and living in perfect communion. What does all this mean? Hence, our questions: What is the Holy Trinity? Can God be one yet Three Persons? Are Father, Son and Spirit doing their own thing if they are one God?
Today’s readings and prayer do not solve the mystery of the Trinity. Instead, they simply invite us to experience and appreciate God as the Holy Trinity – God who wants to share life with us and in whose love we are called to live in.
The focus of today’s celebrations is the living presence of the Trinity in our lives: this Trinity that continually creates, saves and sustains us and all of creation.
One way we can understand and experience this living presence of the Trinity in our lives is to reflect on Andrei Rublev’s icon called “The Trinity”. The icon “The Trinity” depicts the three angels who visited Abraham at the Oak of Mamre (Genesis 18:1–8). Because of its rich symbolism, it has been interpreted as an icon of the Holy Trinity throughout the centuries.
Here then are Father, Son and Holy Spirit sitting around a table. They are feasting, celebrating and communing together. This is a beautiful image of the One God.
But this is an icon, not a painting. We look and admire a painting. We pray with an icon; contemplating it helps us enter into the mystery of God. Rublev’s icon is inviting us to contemplate God as Trinity. See how the Father, Son and Spirit each acknowledge the other with the tilt of his head. See the relationship and life they share: intimate, life-giving, loving.
Yet together their faces are turned outwards to you and me, inviting us into their gracious communion, calling us to complete the circle, to be one with them. To enter into the mystery of the Trinity and to live with them. This is the invitation our gospel reading makes today.
We hear this invitation in Jesus’ command: “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”.
What does it mean to baptise them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? For all of us, the sacrament that we received as a baby at Baptism or as an adult through RCIA comes to mind. There is also an understanding about the strong desire some have to be baptised. However we understand “to be baptised” the Greek word for baptise means “dip” or “immerse”. This reminds us that Baptism is about being immersed into the life of the Trinity who dwells in us and lives with us. So, how many are on your life’s journey? The right answer is four: you, and God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!
This is why I find Rublev’s icon comforting, hopeful, and life-giving. Here is God who is Trinity inviting me to enter and to sit with the Trinity. To share life with them. To receive their love as I want to share my love with them. To be one with them as they want to one with them. Today God is making the same invitation to you.
We are being invited into the goodness of our relationship with God. This is Paul’s message in our second reading. God's life in us is not something abstract but a relationship of children to our “Abba, Father.” This is the work and gift of the Spirit of God through Christ. This is how God lives in our lives as the Trinity. This how God is so close to us.
God is the Father who created us in love and who mercifully forgives us every time to save us.
God is the Son, Jesus who shows us how to live with God and with one another.
God is the Holy Spirit who always accompanies us into freedom from sin so that we can live as God’s children.
Of all the beautiful churches and the many golden tabernacles in the world, the Trinity’s favourite dwelling place is the human heart. This is why God is with us wherever we are or go, and in whatever we do and say.
Like the disciples, Jesus asks us to share this relationship with all. “Go out, and baptise the nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”, Jesus commands.
Who are these nations? All the countries of the world, to be sure. But also those metaphorical "nations" closer to us: those nations that are our own families and friends, our classmates and co-workers, everyone who is part of our lives.
And what are we sent to do? To draw them into the circle of the Holy Trinity’s life and love. In this circle, all savour the fullness of God’s goodness. To be in the circle of relationship with the Trinity is to experience the loving embrace of the Trinity.
We can draw many into the Trinity’s embrace because our baptism empowers us to be God's presence among the “nations.” We are the visible sign of Jesus' promise: “I am with you always.”
Let me suggest three simple ways we can imitate the Holy Trinity’s work in our lives and so embody God’s presence to all. These are:
By being like God, the Father, who is always the first to reach out, to forgive and to embrace us back in love. Let us give life to others with words and actions that bless.
By being like Jesus, the Son, who teaches, heals and reconciles so all can live with God and one another in peace. Let us be persons who bring about reconciliation in our families, our work place, and our world.
By being like the Holy Spirit, who transforms our lives with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5.22-25). Let us be agents of God’s transforming love to care, console, uplift and make all happy.
We can live and act like these ways when we say “yes” to God’s invitation to relationship in the Trinity. Then, we can live in the Trinity, dialogue with the Trinity, and listen to the Trinity.* These are how we can better know the love of God and be empowered by to share this love of God. Here is the Trinity’s presence working in us to transform us into Jesus' disciples to the nations.
This is why that open space at the front of the icon is important. It is the very space God is inviting us, and those we will baptise, to enter and become part of the life and mission of the Trinity which is to create, save and sanctify.
So, let us try to interact more with our God as Trinity this week. Let us live and talk and listen to the Trinity.
Let us say to God, the Father: “Father, this is how I feel like today. What do you think?”.
Let us speak with Jesus, the Son: “How are you, Jesus? How can I use my gifts and talents to make you happy today?”
Let us interact with the Holy Spirit: “Thank you for giving us life, Holy Spirit. Help me to share this life with others”.
Let us interact more with the Holy Trinity this week. As we do, I pray you will come to know that you don’t have to solve the mystery of the Trinity. Rather, immerse yourself in the Trinity and savour the goodness of Father, Son and Spirit in your life. This is what matters most every day.
Then, I hope you will come to appreciate the truth the refrain in today’s responsorial psalm proclaims: “Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own”. You are God’s blessed. You are God’s own. Indeed, you are God's chosen ones because in you God dwells as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How wonderful this is!
*attributed to Fr Jamie Bonet, FMVD
Preached at Church of the Transfiguration
artwork: underwater by jacob sutton
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