Sunday: TRINITY SUNDAY Date: MAY 30, 1999 Year: A The readings: [Ex. 34:4-6, 8-9; 2 Cor. 13:11-3; Jn. 3:16-8] The message: PERCEIVING THE TRINITY. Prepared by: CATHOLIC DOORS MINISTRY Total words: 1732 |
Click here for the Index of all the Homilies
My brothers and sisters, today, you are celebrating Trinity Sunday. This celebration provides us as the children of God with the opportunity to reflect on the mystery of the Trinity at least once a year. As the Holy Scriptures teaches us, there is no God but One. [1 Cor. 8:4] He is One. Beside Him there is no other. [Mk. 12:32] He is the only true God. [Jn. 17:3; 1 Jn. 5:20]
As we know, there are three Divine Presences in God. This proof is found throughout the Holy Bible. In the Old Testament, we find a passage that says, "By the Word (Son) of the Lord (Father) the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath (Holy Spirit) of his mouth." [Ps. 33:6] In the New Testament, we find another passage that says, "And I (Son) will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate (Holy Spirit), to be with you forever." [Jn. 14:16]
Even in our Baptism, the Trinity was mentioned. As Jesus commanded His disciples, we were baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. [Mt. 28:19] The mentioning of the three Divine Presences of the Trinity is also found at the end of the Second Letter to the Corinthians where it says, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." [2 Cor. 13:13]
The Trinity reveals to us that God incarnated in human form to live with His people. In the Gospel of John, it states, "And the Word was God.... And the Word became flesh and lived among us." [Jn. 1:1, 14] In other passages of the New Testament, you read, "... Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God..."[Phil. 2:6] "He was revealed in flesh..." [1 Tim. 3:16] "For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell." [Col. 1:19] "For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." [Col. 2:9]
As we all know, having been taught this since our childhood, God the Father, being all-powerful, all-knowing and all-present, is formless. While it is difficult for us to visualize an invisible or formless God, it is no different than trying to visualize our own souls. The intellectual consciousnesses of our souls is also formless. Our soul is the "I", the "me", as we call ourselves. In the same way, God the Father is alive and active as the Divine soul consciousness of the Trinity. That is why God refers to Himself as "I am."
How do we know this? It is because the Bible reveals the Trinity of God to us. The Bible begins by saying that God created man in His image. [Gen. 1:27] In the New Testament, we learn even more, truths that Jesus taught to His disciples. In the Book of Romans, it says, "Ever since the creation of the world His eternal power and Divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things He has made. So they are without excuse." [Rom. 1:20]
My brothers and sisters, we are without excuse for not knowing God because His Divine nature is understood and seen through what God has created, that being ourselves, created in His own image!
Because our formless soul cannot be seen, it requires a physical body to manifest itself so it can be seen. Our soul manifests itself through the mind of our body. When we are talking about someone, in our mind, we visualize the physical appearance of the body of that person. Yet we know that the person himself is the soul consciousness. No one can visualize the soul consciousness. Therefore, we describe the person by the physical appearances of his body.
In the same way, God manifested Himself through Jesus Christ. God incarnated in physical form so He could be known by those He loves. When we visualize Jesus, we literally visualize God the Father. Those who have seen Jesus have seen the Father because they are One. [Jn. 14:9]
While the Heavenly Father has life in Himself, He also granted Jesus to have life in Himself. [Jn. 5:26] In the same way, as our soul is a living being in itself, our physical body is another part of us, another presence of our entire being. As our soul manifests itself through the mind of our physical body, God the Father manifested Himself through the mind of the body of Jesus Christ. The Words that Jesus spoke were not His own, but of the Father who dwelled in Him and who was doing the work. [Jn. 14:10]
At this point, we might be ask ourselves, what about the Holy Spirit? As God incarnated in human flesh through Jesus, granting Him to have life in Himself so God could manifest Himself to those who live in the physical world, God had to do the same thing through the Holy Spirit. In order for the angels of Heaven who live in a spiritual world to know the formless Heavenly Father, God had to manifest Himself in a spiritual form through the Holy Spirit.
We also have a spirit. It is the gift that we received from God during the Sacrament of Baptism. It is through our spirit that our salvation is assured, our soul consciousness continuing to manifest itself through the mind of our spirit after physical death.
There are numerous passages in the Bible that teach the truth that we have a soul, spirit and body. Some of these are:
AT CREATION: "Then the Lord God formed man (physical body) from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (the spirit); and the man became a living being (the soul)." [Gen. 2:7]
IN REFERENCE TO YOUR SANCTIFICATION: "May the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ." [1 Thess. 5:23]
IN REFERENCE TO THE POWER OF GOD: "Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit..." [Heb. 4:12]
IN THE MAGNIFICAT: "And Mary said, 'My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.'" Lk. 1:46-7]
Consider for a moment the Bible passages that says, "Those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and truth?" [Jn. 4:24] To worship God in spirit, we must have a human spirit. Without a spirit, how could we worship God in spirit? Further in the Bible, it says, "It is that very Spirit (The Spirit of God) that bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." [Rom. 8:16] If we worship God in spirit and behave as His loving children, the Holy Spirit will bear witness to our spirit when we physically die that we have been faithful to His teachings.
As can now be realized, in God, there are three Divine Presences. There is the Divine Soul Consciousness of the Father. There is the Holy Spirit through who God manifests Himself to the angels. (Let us not forget the saints who have already received their salvation and who live in Heaven in their spiritual bodies.) And there is the physical body of Jesus Christ through who God manifests Himself to man.
In the Old Testament, God the Father stated over and over, "I, I am the Lord, and besides Me there is no Saviour." [Is. 43:11; 45:21b; 49:26; 60:16] God the Father is the Saviour because He is One with Jesus Christ.
Listen to the words of Jesus while He prayed to the Heavenly Father on the night before His crucifixion. "Holy Father, protect them in Your Name that You have given Me, so that they may be one, as We are One. While I was with them, I protected them in Your Name that You have given Me. [Jn. 17:11-2] Notice how Jesus stated two times that the Name of the Father is the Name that the Father gave Him. While Jesus is the Name of the Son, it is also the Name of the Father. That is because they are One. Jesus was in the Father and the Father was in Him. [Jn. 14:11]
While there are three coexisting Divine Presences in God, there is only One God. In the same way, while there are three natures in every human being, our formless soul, our human spirit of the spiritual world and our body of the physical world, there is only one of each of us. This is supported by theological arguments where some say that your soul is the person or that the spirit is a person in himself once the human body has died. While it can be argued that there are three persons or presences in us, in reality, there is only one you. Equally, while God is defined as having three Persons or presences in the Trinity, there is only One God.
In Jesus coexisted the fullness of God, all three Divine presences, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Created in the image of God, we have the fullness of our human being in the coexistence of our soul, human spirit and physical body. While our physical body will die in this worldly life, our hope is in the resurrection when we will receive a new physical body to be glorified in the image of Jesus.
To conclude, I would like to point out a passage in the Book of Zechariah. "On that day... the Lord will become King over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be One and His Name One." [Zech. 14:9] My brothers and sisters, on that day, we will no longer refer to the three presences in the Trinity of God. There will be One God, all three Divine presences coexisting in perfect harmony as One. All three presences of the Trinity will share the one Holy Name, the Name of Jesus. When we will look at Jesus, we will see the Father and the Holy Spirit for they will coexist as One King of kings, one Lord of lords.
That will be the day when at the twinkle of an eye [1 Cor. 15:52], our bodies will be transformed into imperishable and immortal bodies. Once more, we will be in the perfect image of God in the fullness of our being, our soul, spirit and body coexisting as one. My brothers and sisters, that is the mystery of the Trinity that we are celebrating today!
* * * * * * * * * *
The readings...
[The readings were taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (C) 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the United States of America.]
* * * * * * * * * *
First Reading...
"Moses rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone. The lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the Name, "The Lord." The Lord passed before Moses, and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." And Moses quickly bowed h is head toward the earth, and worshipped. He said, "If now I have found favour in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go with us. although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance." [Ex. 34:4-6. 8-9]
* * * * * * * * * *
Second Reading...
"Brothers and sisters, put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." [2 Cor. 13:11-3]
* * * * * * * * * *
Gospel Reading...
"Jesus said to Nicodemus: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God." [Jn. 3:16-8]
* * * * * * * * * *