Trinity Sunday 2023
Exodus 34: 4-6, 8-9; 2Cor 13:11-13; John 3:16-18
I have been reading back through some of my Trinity Sunday homilies, in search of inspiration for today. In doing so, I have been struck by the number of people, both probable and improbable, whom I have quoted over the years.
There is St. Patrick, with his use of the trefoil, to illustrate the concept of three-in-one. By way of contrast, I have considered Plato, and his “Form of the Good”, a sort of abstract version of God; and Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, a remote god, if we can use the term, with no concern for anything outside itself.
Returning to attempts to express our Christian understanding of God, I have looked at the mediaeval wheel, its three points on the rim labelled Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each linked to the others by the words “non est”—“is not”. The Father, Son, and Spirit are not each other, but are all linked to the hub, labelled God, by the word “est” meaning “is”. Each, whilst distinct from the others, IS God.
Seeking light relief, I have quoted Kipling—not the cake man but Rudyard of that ilk—who has one of his characters complain of “your tangled trinities”, and even the old joke about the Jewish tailor, lying severely injured in the road after an accident. A passing priest takes him by the hand and asks “Do you believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?” to which he replies, with a roll of his eyes “Here I am dying already, and he asks me riddles”.
Furthermore, I have lifted from the homily of a priest at a church in the Ormeau Road, Belfast, a quotation from one of the Nicaraguan Cardenal brothers: “God is community, and God is communion, and God is communism”. I think that both brothers are now deceased, and I am not sure if they would have continued to insist on that third element, given that one of them was imprisoned by the President, Daniel Ortega, as the latter began his oppression of the people and his persecution of the Church. Perhaps they would argue that God is the only true expression of communism, being a totally unified whole made up of equal parts.
What struck me most forcibly, however, was a homily in which I expressed the view that the Trinity is a reality to be lived, rather than a mystery, in any case unfathomable, to be inadequately defined. We see that in the simple but profound words of today’s Gospel “God loved the world so much that He gave His only-begotten Son, a begetting and a giving accomplished by the Holy Spirit: we experience it in every Mass as the Son offers Himself to the Father through the working of the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps, then we need to speak less, and to listen more. Rather than attempt to fathom the Trinity, we should allow the Trinity to fathom us, as we open our hearts and minds to receive the Trinity, who desire to enter into us, to dwell within us. Silent openness, love, and welcome, are more valuable than intellectual speculation. Maybe I need to add one more quotation to my list, focussing on the God who is three in one by reflecting on the words about love, sung by Ronan Keating: “You say it best when you say nothing at all”.
