Homily for Trinity Sunday

Homily for Trinity Sunday

June 16, 2019

Prov 8: 22-31
Rom 5: 1-5
John 16:12-15
Nativity, Washington, D.C.
Catholic Student Center, College Park, Md.

“Thus says the wisdom of God:  ‘I was beside [the Lord] as his craftsman, and I was his delight day by day, … and I found delight in the human race” (Prov 8: 30-31).

Divine Wisdom icon by unknown artists.

 VGIAKhMZ, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9628726

The Holy Trinity is a most fundamental truth of our Christian faith, a truth that sets us apart from others who believe in the true God, creator of the universe, father of the human race, eternal destiny of the just—believers who include Jews, Muslims, Unitarians, and Mormons among others.

We believe that God is both one and 3:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; we profess our belief every time we recite the Creed at Mass or the start of the Rosary, every time we make the Sign of the Cross, every time we pray the Glory Be.

A long Christian tradition holds that the Son of God is Divine Wisdom personified.  The greatest church in Christendom for a thousand years was Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom, in Constantinople, dedicated to Christ, “the wisdom of God,” a term that goes back to St. Paul (1 Cor 1:24).  This tradition is foreshadowed in the Book of Proverbs, which speaks of Wisdom as the Lord’s companion and partner in the work of creating the universe.  Indeed, as Christians we believe it’s not the Father alone who creates but all 3 Persons.

The former church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. In the 16th century it was converted into a mosque, and in the 20th century to a museum. By Arild Vågen - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24932378

Reading the Proverbs passage thus, we find the Son co-creating with the Father:  Wisdom is “beside him [the Lord] as his craftsman,” helping shape the depths and fountains, the mountains and hills, the earth and the fields (8:24-26).

God didn’t create the universe as his own toy.  He made it with humanity in mind, hinted at when Wisdom—the Son—says, “I found delight in the human race.”  As disciples of Jesus Christ, we see deeper into that statement because the divine Son so delighted in human beings that he became one of us at the appointed time in our sinful history.  He became incarnate, flesh and blood, of the Virgin Mary, to redeem us from sin and make our companionship with him truly delightful:  “we have peace with God thru our Lord Jesus Christ thru whom we have gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand,” St. Paul writes today (Rom 5:1-2).  He continues by stating that “we boast in hope of the glory of God” (5:2).  St. Irenaeus of Lyons, a 2d-century Father of the Church, teaches that “the glory of God is man fully alive.”  We’re fully alive, fully glorifying God, when the love of God the Son embraces us and we walk in his love, when “we stand in his grace.”

How can we sinful women and men do that?  It’s darn hard, isn’t it?  We all know that!  But the Father and the Son assist us by giving us the Holy Spirit, which the Collect calls “the Spirit of sanctification,” the Spirit that sanctifies us.  The Spirit, the 3d Person of the Trinity, “guides us to all truth” (John 16:13), the truth about God’s love for us and the right ways of living as Jesus teaches, and he strengthens and encourages us, “pouring the love of God into our hearts,” St. Paul says (Rom 5:5).  The Spirit points us toward holiness, leads us to holiness, bonds us intimately to the Father and the Son.  We, God’s Church, are “the unity of the Holy Spirit” that our collects always refer to, bound together and bound to Father and Son by the Spirit’s power.

And divine Wisdom finds delight in his brothers and sisters, bound to him, those whom he’s graced with forgiveness, faith, and a share of his love.