Feast of the Holy Trinity

                                                         

                                                         

Trinity Sunday

May 26, 2013

                          
                    John 16:12-15

Jesus said to his disciples: "I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine;
for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you."

The Feast of the Holy Trinity which we celebrate today, arose as a response to the 4th Century heresy of Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ. We proclaim our belief in the Holy Trinity in our Sign of the Cross, our Creeds, and in many parts of the Mass.

 

We have all entered into salvation having been baptized in the Name of the Father (ie., the Creative Parent God) and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.      Our faith as Christians, as followers of  Jesus, indeed rests on the Foundation of our belief in the Holy Trinity. --the doctrine of which itself  has 3 parts: 

 

1.    We do not believe in three Gods, but in One God in three persons-- with each of the persons of the Trinity, being God, whole and complete, such that each of them is the Same Reality of divine substance, essence and nature which had no beginning and will have no end.

 

2. ]We also believe that the three Divine persons of the Trinity are really distinct from one another--thus, the person of the Parent God is distinct from that of the Son, the Son distinct from the Parent, and the Spirit is distinct from the Parent and Son.

 

3.  Finally, the Three Divine Persons of the Trinity are relative to each other, such that a perfect and complete "Tri-unity" exits amongst Them -- an interrelatedness of perfect harmony and peace--of perfect Love. They possess in common and they act in common -- what a model for us!

 

 All our readings today contribute to our understanding of this fundamental belief in a Triune God -a God Who is:

 

Sovereign:  having established the heavens, drawn circles around the deep, made firm the skies, assigned the limits to the seas, laid the earth's foundation, and continually creates and sustains life (1st Reading Proverbs 8:22-31)

Sympathetic: from the word's two parts 'sym' (with) + pathos (feeling, suffering)....For although God is transcendent and powerful, God chose to live and love among us, to feel and suffer all things with us, bearing oh so much more than any of our sufferings, and indeed, bearing the sum of all mortal suffering of all time(2nd Reading Romans 5:1-5 -- " so through our Lord Jesus Christ...we [can]boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God)

Sufficient: "Everything that the Parent God has belongs to me and the Spirit will take what is mine and reveal it to you." (today's Gospel, John 16:15)

 

 The doctrine of the Trinity, ie., Three Persons in one God, is the CENTRAL MYSTERY of the Christian faith because it is the mystery of God's very self......and while we can never fully understand this Mystery, we are called to live its reality because we are created in the Triune God's Image.

 

Our Baptism in the name of the Trinity immerses us into this unity of Divine Relational Love and throughout our lives as Christians  we confess God (the Source of all Good) as well as call upon God in time of trouble...

 

Our troubles and persecution, as Paul reminds us in today's 2nd Reading, give way to glory as we grow in imitation of Christ's sacrificial Love  thru the power of the Spirit, thus becoming part of and co-creators by our gifts,  of the Triune Love of God.

 

---------------------

 

Sister Joan Chittister's Creed, In Search of Belief,  pp. 205 - 209

 

(with some adaptation)

 

I believe in one God Who made us all and whose divinity infuses all of life with the sacred.

 

I believe in the multiple revelations of that God alive in every human heart, expressed in every culture, and found in all the wisdoms of the world.

 

I believe that Jesus Christ, the unique Son of God, is the face of God on earth in whom we see best, the Divine justice, Divine mercy, and Divine compassion to which we are all called.

 

I believe in the Christ Who is One in being with the Creator and Who shows us the presence of God in everything that is and calls out the sacred in ourselves.

 

I believe in Jesus, the Christ, who leads us to the fullness of human stature, to what we were meant to become before all time and for all other things that were made.

 

Through Christ we become new people, called beyond the consequences of our brokenness and lifted to the fullness of life.

 

By the power of the Holy Spirit Jesus was born of Mary, a woman pure in soul and single-hearted--a sign to the ages of the exalted place of womankind in the Divine plan of human salvation.

 

Jesus grew as we grow through all the stages of life.

 

He lived as we live, prey to the pressures of evil and intent on the good.

 

He broke no bonds with the world to which he was bound; he sinned not.

 

He never strayed from the mind of God.

 

He showed us the Way, lived it for us, suffered from it, and died because of it so that we might live with new heart, new mind, and new strength, despite all the death to which we are daily subjected.

 

For our sake and for the sake of eternal Truth, he was hounded, harassed and executed  by those who were their own gods and who valued the Sacred in no other.

 

He suffered so that we might realize that the Spirit in us can never be killed, whatever price we have to pay for staying true to the mind of God.

 

He died but did not die because He lives in us still.

 

"On the third day" in the tomb he rose again in those he left behind and in each of usas well to in hearts that will not succumb to the enemies of life.

 

He changed all of life for all of us thereafter.  He ascended into the life of God and waits there for our own ascension to the life beyond life.

 

He waits there, judging what has gone before and what is yet to come against unending values, and, in behalf of eternal virtue, for the time when all of life will be gathered into God, full of life and light, steeped in Truth.

 

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the breath of God on earth, who keeps the Christ vision present to souls yet in darkness, who gives life even to hearts now blind, who infuses energy into spirits yet weary, isolated, searching and confused.

 

The Spirit has spoken to the human heart through the prophets and gives new meaning to the Word throughout time.

 

I believe in one holy and universal church, bound together by the holiness of creation and the holiness of hearts forever true.

 

I acknowledge the need to be freed from the compulsions of my disordered life and I acknowledge my need for forgiveness in the face of frailty.

 

I look for life eternal in ways I cannot dream of and trust that God, the Source of All, goes on creating in this world and in us forever. 

 

Amen.

 
Homily written by Reverend Mary Wagner

 

                              St. Valentine Faith Community

                                                              Mass: 10AM Every Sunday

2301 E Sunset Road

Suite 18

Las Vegas, NV 89119

702-523-8963 Rev Sue Provost, Pastor

  


"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. " (1 John 4:9-10)