Every Sunday is Trinity Sunday

Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

The first assignment that I received after my ordination was to teach at the seminary where I had first received my education as a Franciscan friar and as a priest. I went right back to the beginning. All the members of the faculty of that seminary were Franciscan priests. Each year as we drew near to the Feast of the Holy Trinity, a good friend and fellow friar and brother priest would say that this particular Sunday was the hardest Sunday on which to preach.

HimThe mystery of the Trinity makes a difficult topic for meditation or preaching. Indeed, the preacher runs the danger of theological abstraction that offers no edification for our life as Christians. There is a danger of claiming considerably too much for human knowledge of the transcendent God. We face the same problem that a little boy faces as he digs a hole on the beach and tries to empty the ocean into that hole. No matter how many times he walks back and forth with a bucket of water, there simply isn’t room in th him him t hole for the entire ocean. The same is true for our human brain. There simply is not enough room in the li him mited capacity of the human brain to come to an understanding of the Trinity – the mystery that proclaims God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So rather than trying to understand the Trinity, perhaps we would benefit from looking at the Scriptures that the Church offers us on this great solemnity. The first reading comes to us from chapter four of the Book of Deuteronomy. Moses is preparing the children of Israel for their entry into the promised land. He asks them to pitch camp on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Before they cross over that river, he wants to be sure that they understand what God has done for them. He realizes that he will not go with them and that this is the last time he will have an opportunity to instruct them in their faith. The reading opens with those memorable words: “Moses said to the people…” The entire Book of Deuteronomy is summed up in those words. I’m sure that you remember your school days. As the final exams were approaching, the teacher would take some time to review the material that had been covered and upon which we would be tested. This is exactly what Moses was doing; he was reviewing the material that had been covered in the past 40 years.

The purpose of any review is to help us remember. That is exactly what Moses wants the people to do. Remember the wonders of old; remember the wonderful deeds that God has performed for you. Has there ever been another people that can claim a God as great as our God. Throughout the entire Bible, God has been engaging in the act of self-revelation. God wants to forge a relationship with this people. The mystery of who God is develops over centuries. Ever so gradually, God tells us what is expected of us if we wish to be called the children of God. That mystery culminates in the person of Jesus Christ. We are told that Jesus is “God with us.” The time that Jesus spends on this earth is finite, just as our lives are finite. Everything that God has created eventually comes to an end. Consequently, to be truly human, God has to embrace death just as we all have to embrace it. However, like everything else that God has done for us, even the death of Jesus is an act that is done for us, the beloved children of God.

Before Jesus comes to the end of his human life, he tells his disciples that he will send the Holy Spirit to us because he realizes that we will need an advocate to help us once he is gone. Jesus has reconciled us to him him him the Father through his death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit is given to us for the forgiveness of sins, to continue the act of reconciling us with God. The Latin word “advocare,” from which the English word advocate is derived, means to call to. Jesus calls the spirit to us to dwell within us, to teach and to encourage and to sanctify us as we fumble our way through this life and try to make our way to God.

In the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul tells us that through our relationship with Jesus, if we die and rise with him, we will be called children of God. St. Paul uses the image of adoption to impress upon us that God chooses us just as adoptive parents choose a child with whom they will share their life. When our parents brought us to the baptismal font, we received the gift of that life through the grace of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel text for today reminds us that as God’s children, we are called to make disciples of all people, to continue to announce the nearness of the Kingdom of God, the message that we hear from the lips of Jesus.

In reality, every Sunday is Trinity Sunday. Every Sunday is devoted to worshiping our Triune God. Every Sunday we recall all the wonders that God has done for us. Every Sunday we recall that Jesus, the Son of God, died for us. Every Sunday we call upon the Holy Spirit to continue to help us on our way over the Jordan River into the promised land. Each and every time that we make the Sign of the Cross, we remember that our God is a Trinity of love and that we are the objects of that love.