Homily for 12 June 2022 by Fr. Kevin Walsh
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Prv 8:22-3; Psalm 148; Rom 5:1-5; Jn 16:12-15
Jesus has much more to tell us, but he knows we aren’t ready, so he waits for the right time. For us living in a hurried time, God being patient and waiting for us, hopefully moves us to be patient and wait in hope and trust for God.
On Trinity Sunday we celebrate a theological mystery not as an academic or philosophical riddle but as a truth, drawing us deeper into the heart of the triune God, loving us – creator, redeemer and sanctifier – ceaselessly offering us the love that enables us to become full participants in this ongoing dynamic of the Father, the Son and the Spirit giving and receiving love.
Augustine wrote: “You see the Trinity, if you see love.” According to him, the Father is the lover, the Son is the loved one and the Holy Spirit is the personification of the very act of loving. This means that we can understand something of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity more readily with the believing heart than with our feeble mind. Evagrius of Pontus, a Greek monk of the 4th century who came from what is now Turkey in Asia and later lived out his vocation in Egypt, said: “God cannot be grasped by the mind. If God could be grasped, God would not be God.”
The activity of pouring in the first and second readings alerts us to an important aspect of what we are celebrating. God is acting to give us himself. This occurs consistently through all our lives, many times in hidden or unrecognized ways, but the Truth of this generosity on God’s part is an anchor point in our struggle to find meaning in our existence. God doesn’t bring us into existence simply to survive or get by. God’s desire is that we share in the fullness of God’s life.
In a few moments we will ritualize remembering that we have been baptized into the Trinity – water was poured over us as the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” were spoken. That beginning experience in the journey of faith occurred for most of us when we were infants and we have no memory of it. Yet the consequences, the effect of that experience is with us for our whole lives whether we are conscious of and live from that experience or not.
Called into the ongoing offering and receiving of divine love we honor the Trinity today, marveling at the privilege we are being given and mindful of the responsibility it entails. As we approach to be nourished in God’s love may God help us carry that love into at lives of all those around us.
