Solemnity of Holy Trinity Year C ~ June 12, 2022
Perfect life of Communion & Love
Today we are celebrating the Solemnity of the most Holy Trinity: The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit which is the perfect example of life of Communion & Love. And the Acts of The Apostle Book is the perfect example of that. The early Christians were united one in heart and mind which led the Christians later to follow the example and faith. On the other hand, this mystery is bit confusing for non-Christians to understand three persons in the Holy Trinity and God is one. Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI reflecting on the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity says “The “name” of the Most Holy Trinity is in a certain way impressed upon everything that exists, because everything that exists, down to the least particle, is a being in relation, and thus God-relation shines forth, ultimately creative Love shines forth. All comes from love, tends toward love, and is moved by love, naturally, according to different grades of consciousness and freedom… The strongest proof that we are made in the image of the Trinity is this: only love makes us happy, because we live in relation, and we live to love and be loved”.
We are the people of Holy Trinity as we live a life of Communion and perfect love. St. Paul rightly says “When I came to you, brothers, and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him”. these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.
Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny. “For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” (1 Corinthians 2:1-16)
If we live fully under the guidance and protection of the Holy Trinity, then we will be able to see the needs of other people because a life of communion and perfect love always leads us to do better everyday of our lives. I found the following story very interesting, and I believe Jesus has paid in full for us through his blood on the Holy Cross.
One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?” “You don’t owe me anything,” she replied. “Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness.” He said, “Then I thank you from my heart.” As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strong also. He had been ready to give up and quit.
Year’s later that young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room. Dressed in his doctor’s gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to the case.
After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally, she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. She began to read the following words: “Paid in full, with one glass of milk”
Saint Athanasius explains the mystery of Holy Trinity in these words: “Light, radiance and grace are in the Trinity and from the Trinity. It will not be out of place to consider the ancient tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church, which was revealed by the Lord, proclaimed by the apostles, and guarded by the fathers. For upon this faith the Church is built, and if anyone were to lapse from it, he would no longer be a Christian either in fact or in name. We acknowledge the Trinity, holy and perfect, to consist of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In this Trinity there is no intrusion of any alien element or of anything from outside, nor is the Trinity a blend of creative and created being. It is a wholly creative and energizing reality, self-consistent and undivided in its active power, for the Father makes all things through the Word and in the Holy Spirit, and in this way the unity of the holy Trinity is preserved. Accordingly, in the Church, one God is preached, one God who is above all things and through all things and in all things. God is above all things as Father, for he is principle and source; he is through all things through the Word; and he is in all things in the Holy Spirit.
Writing to the Corinthians about spiritual matters, Paul traces all reality back to one God, the Father, saying: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in everyone. Even the gifts that the Spirit dispenses to individuals are given by the Father through the Word. For all that belongs to the Father belongs also to the Son, and so the graces given by the Son in the Spirit are true gifts of the Father. Similarly, when the Spirit dwells in us, the Word who bestows the Spirit is in us too, and the Father is present in the Word. This is the meaning of the text: My Father and I will come to him and make our home with him. For where the light is, there also is the radiance; and where the radiance is, there too are its power and its resplendent grace.
This is also Paul’s teaching in his second letter to the Corinthians: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. For grace and the gift of the Trinity are given by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. Just as grace is given from the Father through the Son, so there could be no communication of the gift to us except in the Holy Spirit. But when we share in the Spirit, we possess the love of the Father, the grace of the Son and the fellowship of the Spirit himself. Our lives are rooted in the Holy Trinity from our birth to death.
Holy Father Pope Francis has such wonderful spiritual insight about the mystery of Holy Trinity “We are all called to witness and proclaim the message that “God is love”, that God isn’t far and insensitive to our human affairs. He is close to us, always beside us, walking with us to share our joys and our sorrows, our hopes, and our struggles. He loves us very much and for that reason he became man, he came into the world not to condemn it, but so the world would be saved through Jesus. And this is the love of God in Jesus, this love that is so difficult to understand but that we feel when we draw close to Jesus. And he always forgives us, he always awaits us, he loves us so much. And we feel the love of Jesus and the love of God.
The Holy Spirit, gift of the Risen Jesus, conveys divine life to us and thus lets us enter into the dynamism of the Trinity, which is a dynamism of love, of communion, of mutual service, of sharing. A person who loves others for the very joy of love is a reflection of the Trinity. A family in which each person loves and helps one another is a reflection of the Trinity. A parish in which each person loves and shares spiritual and material effects is a reflection of the Trinity”.
Moreover, Holy Trinity guides us towards our eternal pilgrimage or in other words to our promised land, that is heaven where we are going to enjoy the company of the saints. Holy Father Pope Francis continues to share his reflection on the mystery “The Trinity, as I said, is also the ultimate goal toward which our earthly pilgrimage is directed. The journey of Christian life is indeed essentially a “Trinitarian” journey: the Holy Spirit guides us to full knowledge of Christ’s teachings, and also reminds us what Jesus taught us. Jesus, in turn, came into the world to make the Father known to us, to guide us to Him, to reconcile us with Him. Everything in Christian life revolves around the Mystery of the Trinity and is fulfilled according to this infinite mystery. Therefore, we seek to always hold high the “tone” of our life, remembering what goal, what glory we exist for, work for, struggle for, suffer for; and what immense reward we are called to. This mystery embraces our entire life and our entire Christian being. We remember it, for example, each time we make the sign of the Cross: in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And now I invite you, all together, and out loud, to make this sign of the Cross: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!”.
As Three Persons in the Holy Trinity enjoy the life of communion and perfect love, we are also invited to share with them the same spiritual understanding. Holy Trinity takes us out of our selfish motives and helps us to understand that “Rise, you who were lying fast asleep…. Rise and hurry to the Church: here is the Father, here is the Son, here is the Holy Spirit” as St. Ambrose says.
St. Tertullian writes on the mystery of Holy Trinity and invite all of us to meditate to learn that we the people of Holy Trinity are rooted in the life of communion and perfect love which unite us together to witness and glorify. “In the course of time, then, the Father forsooth was born, and the Father suffered, God Himself, the Lord Almighty, whom in their preaching they declare to be Jesus Christ. We, however, as we indeed always have done (and more especially since we have been better instructed by the Paraclete, who leads men indeed into all truth), believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation, or οἰκονομία , as it is called, that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her—being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost.
But keeping this prescriptive rule inviolate, still some opportunity must be given for reviewing (the statements of heretics), with a view to the instruction and protection of divers persons; were it only that it may not seem that each perversion of the truth is condemned without examination, and simply prejudged; especially in the case of this heresy, which supposes itself to possess the pure truth, in thinking that one cannot believe in One Only God in any other way than by saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are the very selfsame Person. As if in this way also one were not All, in that All are of One, by unity (that is) of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. How they are susceptible of number without division, will be shown as our treatise proceeds”.
Once there lived a boy in the small town which was famous for watermelons. Every year farmers would organize a watermelon eating contest at the end of every harvest season. They would invite all the kids from the town to participate. They would keep the best watermelons for children to enjoy and eat as much as they want but with one condition, not to bite the seeds but spit them out into a bowl. This young boy grew and years later went to college. After his graduation he came to visit his own town, but he was shocked to learn that though the contest is still going on but now the kids are given small melons to eat and all the bigger were sold to the market to make more money. The greed for money made farmers to lose the good seed for next year’s plantation. The day farmers forgot the sense of communion with one another, they lost everything to share.
And the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity keep reminding us to be united like them One in Three person and share the perfect love and let no evil intensions take us down.
Let’s ask the Lord to help us to live in unity and promote the love of Holy Trinity among our brothers and sisters so that our world may become symbol of love, peace, and unity. Let us pray together “O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. Amen
Other Sermons In This Series
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year ~ September 18, 2022
September 16, 2022
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A ~ September 24, 2023
September 22, 2023
Be On Guard | November 28, 2021
November 28, 2021