Homily For The Solemnity Of The Most Holy Trinity Year C.

 

Proverbs 8:22-31; Psalm 8:4-9; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15.

“THE BLESSED TRINITY: A COMMUNITY OF LOVE”

By: Rev. Fr. Charles Onyeka Ezejide

·       Today, the church celebrates the fullness of God’s glory as portrayed in the Blessed Trinity. The Holy Spirit glorifies the Son of the Eternal Father, and today we, in the Spirit, give glory to God, for the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

·       Last Sunday, we celebrated the feast of Pentecost, which is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into our hearts, and we said on that day the church received the auction to function, and it was the official inauguration of the era of the Holy Spirit in the church.

·       Since God, the Father creates, God the Son, redeems, and God the Holy Spirit sanctifies. At every instance in our history of salvation, one of the persons of the Blessed Trinity plays a prominent role while the other two play a passive role, yet they are all involved. Though they are distinct as persons, neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit ever exists or acts in isolation from the persons of the Godhead.

·       Mathematically and humanly speaking, the teaching of the Blessed Trinity is very difficult to comprehend. To say that there are three persons yet one God defies logic and reasoning, but God’s ways are not our ways, and neither are his thoughts our thoughts. The doctrine of the inner relationship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in such a way that each of them is fully and equally God, yet there are not three Gods but one, cannot be fully comprehended by the human mind. It is a mystery.

·       The Church teaches solemnly that, “In God, there are three Divine Persons, really distinct and equal in all things, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” The Trinity and the Incarnation are the two doctrines that set Christianity apart from other world religions. We can only explain what the doctrine is, but not the mystery itself. As one author puts it: “The first thing we know about God is that we cannot know about God.”

·       Our ordinary devotion to the Holy Trinity is revealed in the Sign of the Cross when we say: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit.” The sign of the cross distinguishes us from other Christian groups.

·       Making the sign of the cross in the Church or before you enter the church shows that we are followers of the Holy Trinity, and we believe in the Trinitarian God. If you do it in public, it is an expression to the world that you believe in the Holy Trinity. There is nothing wrong with footballers who make the sign of the cross before a game because they are professing their faith in the Blessed Trinity as if to say that without the Holy Trinity, they are nothing.

·       When we make the sign of the cross, we profess that we belong to the family of God and that the God we worship is a Father to us.

·       When we make the sign of the cross, we also profess that we belong to the Body of Christ (the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity), the Church. This means that everything we do, whether good or bad, affects other people. Our behaviour may either comfort or hurt others.

·       We also make the sign of the cross on our body because our body is the temple of the Holy Trinity and the Holy Spirit. Your body is sacred because it carries the sign of the Holy Trinity, and the Holy Spirit dwells in you. Therefore, the body should not be abused and taken for granted.

·       Let us make the sign of the cross from the heart. Let us not grow tired of making the sign of the cross because we belong to the Holy Trinity.

·       So, what do you reflect on when you make the sign of the cross? Why do some people make the sign of the cross when they see a church or pass by a church?

·       The more important question for us to ask today is: What does the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity tell us about the kind of God we worship, and what does this say about the kind of people we should be? On this, I have two points to share with you:

(1) God does not exist in solitary individualism but in a community of love and sharing. God is not a loner. This means that a Christian in search of Godliness (Matthew 5:48) must shun every tendency to isolationism.

(2) True love requires three partners. You remember the old saying, “Two is a company, three is a crowd.” The Trinity shows us that three is a community, three is love at its best; three is not a crowd. Taking an example from the human condition, we see that when a man A is in love with a woman B, they seal their love by producing a baby C. Father, mother, and child – love, when perfected, becomes a Trinity.

 

·       We are made in God’s image and likeness. Just as God is God only in a Trinitarian relationship, so we can be fully human only in a relationship of three partners. The self needs to be in a horizontal relationship with others and a vertical relationship with God. In that way, our life becomes Trinitarian like that of God. Then we discover that the so-called “I-and-I” principle of unbridled individualism, which is acceptable in modern society, leaves much to be desired.

·       The doctrine of the Blessed Trinity challenges us to adopt rather an I-and-God-and-neighbour principle. I am a Christian insofar as I live in a relationship of love with God and other people. May the grace of the Holy Trinity help us to banish all traces of self-centeredness in our lives and to live in the love of God and of neighbour, Amen!!!

·       Happy Trinity Sunday!!!