My Seven-Minute-Homily: Trinity Sunday, year C
Book of Proverbs 8.22-31; Letter of St. Paul to the Romans 5.1-5
And the Gospel of St. John 16.12-15
On Trinity Sunday, we are often tempted to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. In fact we ourselves do not understand it. It is why the New Testament writers never made one attempt to explain the Trinity. They did not even use the word. They simply spoke of God in three different ways. Sometimes they said God the Father, sometimes God the Son and sometimes God the Holy Spirit. And sometimes they used all three expressions together, but always without explanation.
So today instead of explanation the Mystery of the Holy Trinity we spend time to meditate about the works of the Holy Trinity for us and how to live out the Holy Trinity.
Firstly, God by his very nature is outgoing, that he reaches out to people. He is a Father. Any Father is involved with his family. He provides for them and gives to them. He feels what they feel. He shares their joys and sorrows, their triumphs and failures. That is the Trinitarian concept of God.
Secondly, the Trinity says about God is that he has become concrete in history, in and through the life of Jesus, his Son. Jesus was a real person, a human being. On that point, the New Testament is unmistakably clear. Those who knew him best saw him first as a man, an incredible and remarkable man. However his disciples realized something very specific in the person of Jesus. Peter was the first to express it, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Then others began to see and to say the same thing. Thomas called him “My Lord and my God”. John wrote to him: “In the beginning was the Word, the word was in the presence of God, and the Word was God. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of an only Son coming from the Father.”
That was the essence of the message which the early Church went out to share with all the nations. They called it the Gospels, which means the good news. The good news was that God had invaded human history in and through the life of a Galilean Carpenter. They had seen him with their eyes. They had heard him with their ears. They had touched him with their hands. Never again could they think of God as an abstraction, as a conclusion drawn at the end of a philosophical argument. God for them had become concrete and specific in life of a man.
The history of religion had been the story of all human beings who are looking for God, for eternal life, for a perfect happiness. Jesus, God the Son has been sent to the human world so that he could live with us and show us the way how to get there. That is the second thing the Trinity says about God.
Thirdly, God in the person of his Holy Spirit is always with us. God is the Father who art in heaven. God is from everlasting to everlasting. God is Jesus Christ, God the Son. God the Son whose name is Jesus lived in Galilee two thousand years ago. But both of those concepts, as true as they are, leave God a long way off and a long way back. The message is not complete until we speak of God as the Holy Spirit who is both with us and within us. The third and the climatic meaning of the Trinity is that God is forever our contemporary, our constant companion, and helper, and guide and friend wherever life may lead us.
So we cannot explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity because we are not able to understand mystery. However we surely know where God is and what God did for us in terms of the Trinity. God is in heaven, the Almighty Father, Creator of Heaven and earth. God is in human history through the person of Jesus, his Only Son and Our Lord. Finally we can stretch out the arms and say that God is here with us in the world. Then we will put my hand over my heart and say, God is here living inside me, just as he is living inside of you. It is why we call one another brothers and sisters because we are in the same family, the family of God. We have God as our Father and others and our siblings.
We give thanks to God for revealing us the mystery of the Holy Trinity. We don’t understand the mystery of Trinity. We don’t need to understand it but live it out. Holy Trinity is one God but three persons. This is a perfect unity. This is a perfect communion. The Holy Trinity is a subject of faith not comprehension. Don’t look for any other God the God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit that we worship. The Trinity makes you to be born. The Trinity saves you. The Trinity will give you eternal life in heaven with them.
We thank God for the Trinity. The Holy Trinity is one God but three persons. Every day we make the sign of the Cross and we proclaim that we believe in the Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We also proclaim that God the Son came down from heaven to die for us, to teach us to love one another, to make all the nations in one family, the family of God. With this belief, we recognize others as our brothers and sisters. As long as we do so, we are good children of the Lord. As long as we see God in others, we have peace. Don’t listen to a French Philosopher when he said that “L’enfer, c’est les Autres” Hell itself is others! No! Others are our siblings in the family of God. Amen.
Oremus: O God, thank you for being our Father. Thank you for making us as your Family. Thank you for showing us how to live in peace and in happiness. As long as we see others around as our brothers and sisters, we are the children of the Lord and we are in the family of God. Help us to practice the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Amen.
Father Great Rice
Book of Proverbs 8.22-31; Letter of St. Paul to the Romans 5.1-5
And the Gospel of St. John 16.12-15
On Trinity Sunday, we are often tempted to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. In fact we ourselves do not understand it. It is why the New Testament writers never made one attempt to explain the Trinity. They did not even use the word. They simply spoke of God in three different ways. Sometimes they said God the Father, sometimes God the Son and sometimes God the Holy Spirit. And sometimes they used all three expressions together, but always without explanation.
So today instead of explanation the Mystery of the Holy Trinity we spend time to meditate about the works of the Holy Trinity for us and how to live out the Holy Trinity.
Firstly, God by his very nature is outgoing, that he reaches out to people. He is a Father. Any Father is involved with his family. He provides for them and gives to them. He feels what they feel. He shares their joys and sorrows, their triumphs and failures. That is the Trinitarian concept of God.
Secondly, the Trinity says about God is that he has become concrete in history, in and through the life of Jesus, his Son. Jesus was a real person, a human being. On that point, the New Testament is unmistakably clear. Those who knew him best saw him first as a man, an incredible and remarkable man. However his disciples realized something very specific in the person of Jesus. Peter was the first to express it, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Then others began to see and to say the same thing. Thomas called him “My Lord and my God”. John wrote to him: “In the beginning was the Word, the word was in the presence of God, and the Word was God. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of an only Son coming from the Father.”
That was the essence of the message which the early Church went out to share with all the nations. They called it the Gospels, which means the good news. The good news was that God had invaded human history in and through the life of a Galilean Carpenter. They had seen him with their eyes. They had heard him with their ears. They had touched him with their hands. Never again could they think of God as an abstraction, as a conclusion drawn at the end of a philosophical argument. God for them had become concrete and specific in life of a man.
The history of religion had been the story of all human beings who are looking for God, for eternal life, for a perfect happiness. Jesus, God the Son has been sent to the human world so that he could live with us and show us the way how to get there. That is the second thing the Trinity says about God.
Thirdly, God in the person of his Holy Spirit is always with us. God is the Father who art in heaven. God is from everlasting to everlasting. God is Jesus Christ, God the Son. God the Son whose name is Jesus lived in Galilee two thousand years ago. But both of those concepts, as true as they are, leave God a long way off and a long way back. The message is not complete until we speak of God as the Holy Spirit who is both with us and within us. The third and the climatic meaning of the Trinity is that God is forever our contemporary, our constant companion, and helper, and guide and friend wherever life may lead us.
So we cannot explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity because we are not able to understand mystery. However we surely know where God is and what God did for us in terms of the Trinity. God is in heaven, the Almighty Father, Creator of Heaven and earth. God is in human history through the person of Jesus, his Only Son and Our Lord. Finally we can stretch out the arms and say that God is here with us in the world. Then we will put my hand over my heart and say, God is here living inside me, just as he is living inside of you. It is why we call one another brothers and sisters because we are in the same family, the family of God. We have God as our Father and others and our siblings.
We give thanks to God for revealing us the mystery of the Holy Trinity. We don’t understand the mystery of Trinity. We don’t need to understand it but live it out. Holy Trinity is one God but three persons. This is a perfect unity. This is a perfect communion. The Holy Trinity is a subject of faith not comprehension. Don’t look for any other God the God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit that we worship. The Trinity makes you to be born. The Trinity saves you. The Trinity will give you eternal life in heaven with them.
We thank God for the Trinity. The Holy Trinity is one God but three persons. Every day we make the sign of the Cross and we proclaim that we believe in the Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We also proclaim that God the Son came down from heaven to die for us, to teach us to love one another, to make all the nations in one family, the family of God. With this belief, we recognize others as our brothers and sisters. As long as we do so, we are good children of the Lord. As long as we see God in others, we have peace. Don’t listen to a French Philosopher when he said that “L’enfer, c’est les Autres” Hell itself is others! No! Others are our siblings in the family of God. Amen.
Oremus: O God, thank you for being our Father. Thank you for making us as your Family. Thank you for showing us how to live in peace and in happiness. As long as we see others around as our brothers and sisters, we are the children of the Lord and we are in the family of God. Help us to practice the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Amen.
Father Great Rice