Sunday, June 3, 2012

Trinity Sunday 2012 (B)

Praise the Holy Trinity, undivided unity, Holy God, mighty God, God immortal we adore!

Link to Today's Readings, Psalmody and Gospel

Mysterium fidei
We accept that our faith is incomprehensible by the simple human mind and not just mysterious, but mystery itself.  Nothing can approach the mystery of the Holy Trinity, One God in three persons of God.

Rublev's famous Russian Orthodox "Icon",
The Trinity

Last year in the seminary we were asked to write a homily on the Trinity.  It would be used for our final grade in Homiletics (a course on preaching) and as well for our Dogmatic Theology course on the Trinity.

I used as my image the Buckingham fountain in Chicago.  The fountain has three distinct levels that seem to be always full of water yet are constantly being replenished.  That is a good representation of the Trinity.  However the fountain fails because it is self contained, it never releases that water; our Triune God gives us himself completely.  This can be especially understood by Grace.  Grace is His love and the outpouring of that love to us, undeserved as we are.


In today's scripture, we hear Moses preparing the people for their reality: salvation as God's chosen people.  He reminds them how special they are (our Psalm reminds us of this) and that they must keep His statutes and commandments, that by doing so their children (descendants) will prosper.

Saint Paul of Tarsus, the Apostle, a Pharasaic Jew himself, teaches the Gentiles (you and I, unless we descend from the Jewish people) that we are God's adopted sons and daughters.  This means that we are equal in dignity to the children of God, by virtue of our Baptism.  Paul informs us that we are led by the Spirit to be heirs to what God has promised through his only Son, Jesus Christ.  Through our suffering comes redemption when we join it to His.  Then we can and will be glorified with Him.

Our Gospel is the commission of the disciples in Matthew.  We are the disciples now.  We are commissioned by our faith to baptize all the nations, all who we encounter, by living a Christian life of virtue and charity.  This is how we are sanctified and how we can transform the world.

We do so by mirroring the Trinity: selfless not selfish, interdependent not independent, communal not singular.  For when we give, we receive,  When we sacrifice what is ours then we can receive from another.

Today the world proclaims the I.  Self-determination through self definition.  Ugh!
Christ died for our sins, only He can lift us up with Himself (as he promised) to eternal life.
This is our faith.
This is the creed that we profess.
This is to what we are invited to....
This world is falling away, let us, then, accept the hand of God who calls us out of darkness into light.


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