Today we celebrate one of the greatest mysteries of our faith, the Mystery of the Trinity: One God, Three Persons. It is usually a homily that priests dread to give because just about anything we say could usually fall into heresy, but it is that simple: One God, Three Persons.
Cardinal Ratzinger, who became John Paul II, wrote, “We cannot overlook the fact that we are now touching in a realm of Christian theology; we must be more aware of its limits as we often have been. A realm in which any false forthrightness which is an attempt to gain too precise and knowledge, is bound and in disastrous foolishness. A realm in which only the humble admission of ignorance can be true knowledge and only wondering attendance before the incomprehensible mystery can be the right profession in faith in God. Love is always a mystery more than one can reckon or grasp by any subsequent reckonings.” He’s saying that it is almost sometimes better not to say anything. I probably should sit down right now but I think it’s important that we reflect on the Trinity because it is such an important part of our faith and the heart of our faith.
St. Thomas Aquinas points out three things in this greeting that we talked about from Saint Paul.
He says, “The grace of Christ is by which we are justified.” So, the grace of Christ is our justification.
“The love of God the Father by which we are united to Him.” So, the love of God the Father is that which unites us to Him.
“The fellowship of the Holy Spirit who distributes the divine gifts to us.” So, this fellowship of the Holy Spirit gives us all these gifts to enter into the mystery of the Trinity.
It is important to remember that we have a personal God. I know a lot of people who have left the faith say, “I just didn’t find that personal relationship with God in our faith.” That is our faith. We relate to a personal God: The Person of the Father, the Person of the Son, the Person of the Holy Spirit, three Persons, one God.
Pope Benedict XVI talked about this in his cyclical which is called Deus Caritas Est, which means God is love and he said, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea but the encounter with an event, a person which gives life new horizon and a decisive direction.” So, the Trinity reveals that we have this personal encounter with God. That is something that I hopefully always try to do with you and with anyone that I direct is to have this personal encounter in a relationship in the Trinity.
I’m just going to talk about those three things: the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, the Communion of the Holy Spirit.
First of all, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. What is grace? The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that grace is a favor; the free and undeserved help that God gives to us to respond to his call to become children of God, adopted brothers and sisters, sons and daughters are takers in the divine mystery. Grace is a participation in the life of God. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is Him wanting to give us this gift of participation in the life of the Trinity. Grace is something that is freely given, He pours it out. Remember the sunflower seed homily where I was throwing seeds to you that whole time? That is grace. The whole Mass, God is just throwing his grace out upon us and all we need to do is receive it. God and His love is so prodigal, so prodigious that He pours it into our laps. We experience that whenever we come to Mass. We experience and we receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and can’t get that anywhere else but here when we celebrate the Eucharist.
The second is the love of God the Father. Nowadays we have a distorted view of love sometimes because maybe we have been loved not in a good way by people. The love of God is a love that is all pouring out. So, the word love in the scripture saying is agape and it is a Greek word that means to love so much that you pour yourself out into another. So, God loving you so much that He is just pouring Himself out into you. It means that you have a warm regard for someone. So, God is attracted to you. He has a warm regard for you. It means that you take interest in another. God is interested in you. He loves to know what you are doing in life. He loves when you spend time with Him in prayer. He loves everything about you. Just like a grandparent, you know, that delights in their grandchildren. That is how God is.
I hope you feel that love from me that I’m interested in you, and I care for you. This love is without limitation, it’s a very intimate relationship and this intimacy is so close that it can be expressed in the image of marriage, that marriage becomes a sacrament. We will be celebrating a 50th Anniversary today at the end of Mass, but this love that is there for each other through good times and bad, sickness and in health, all the days of your life.
Finally, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the Communion or Fellowship of the Holy Spirit. What does that mean, Fellowship or Communion of the Holy Spirit?
A few weeks ago, we celebrated First Communion, so we had a few young kids that came forward to receive Jesus for the first time. They received Him Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity into them and became so united with Him.
This fellowship is celebrated here by the gathered assembly that we come together before Mass. You guys are not as bad as the four o’clock crowd but the four o’clock crowd usually comes at 3:00 o’clock and they just come because this is their social hour. At first, I thought, “Wow, this is interesting” but I love it. There is a wonderful fellowship here at this parish. A coming together of people wanting to get to know each other and caring about each other. So, I encourage you to come early and stay late whenever you come to mass here at St. Matthias because there is that fellowship.
From the Greek word, fellowship is an association. Think about the Holy Spirit, and an association communion, close relationship; fellow feeling altruism; proof of brotherly unity; a gift a contribution of participation, a sharing. All of this is the Holy Spirit working right here at Saint Matthias and working anytime mass is celebrated.
A lot of times at weddings, whenever I do weddings, there’s a reception and at the wedding reception people have had something to drink usually, and that’s their time to come up to the priest and to tell them their beliefs (laughter). I usually get it at weddings right and I think like how drunk is this person? Is this conversation worth that I’m not sure. They will often say to me, “I don’t need to go to mass to experience God. I experience God anywhere.” I think well do you experience this Triune God? It’s almost like back when Jesus lived and if there were people that heard about Jesus, and he was doing miracles he was revealing God the Father and they would say. “I don’t need to go see Jesus, I talked to God already.” Jesus is showing us the way to the Father. When we come here to Mass, we’re experiencing. we’re being immersed into this Triune, the love of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This real relationship that we can’t get anywhere else.
Another thing I found is that people are still live streaming, and they know that they probably should be back at Mass so they’ll say to me, “Father I know I should be back to church but it’s just comfortable in my pajamas I like live streaming but it’s just not the same.” I’m like, “Well yeah, it’s just not the same.” We come here because we experience God for real. This Trinity Sunday we celebrate that. That God the Father wants to shower you with His love. He wants to bring you closer to Him.
Jesus wants to give us all the grace we need in our lives and the Holy Spirit brings us forth into this communion, this Body of Christ, this gathered assembly here so that we can be in the love of God and experience Him.
Hopefully, I haven’t spoken any heresy during this homily by expounding on it a little bit but above all I want you to know that God is personal. We believe in that, one God, three persons.
May we all come to know the love, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit.
