C Cycle – Feast of the Holy Trinity 22

Jn.16:12-15

How can anyone adequately describe the incredible mystery, unity and love between God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.   There are perhaps some who could expound on the three persons in one God and make it understandable to us.  I remember many years ago the shamrock was used by many to describe how three could be one.  One homily I heard by a priest who described the Trinity as being like a cherry pie. God as the curst, Jesus as the cherries and the Holy Spirit as the liquid filling.  Creative but it certainly did not help in anyone’s understanding.  

I will make no such attempt to give you an image because we do not need images because the scriptures reveal to us what we already know.  The church in its wisdom unveils the oneness of God intent on bringing us into that relationship.  It begins with God creating us as the crowing glory of his creation.  God created us to share intimacy with him and to lavish his love upon us and for us to love him in return. 

Baltimore catechism 101, God made us to know him, love him and serve him in this world.  We lost more than the garden when Adam sinned, we lost immortality, we lost a life where there was to be no pain, suffering, violence, jealous and all the other ills that plague us today.  But God’s desire for intimacy with us did not change.  Immediately upon our expulsion God the Father, Jesus the Son and the creative Holy Spirit began to unfold a plan to redeem us. 

Adam and Eve sinned because they were tempted to acquire for themselves what God had already prepared for them.  We like them easily follow desires that prevent us from experiencing the depth of God’s love, the fullness of his delight in who we are and the promise to know the power of God that is available to us.  Let me use and analogy of to give you a picture of what we are missing by living our faith in a one dimensional approach when we should be experiencing the fullness of the trinity.  In Louisiana every cook, uses in their recipes three ingredients they call the “holy trinity.”  Onions, celery, and green peppers which work together to enrich, enhance, and bring out the flavors so unique that people desire more of the dish.  Leave one ingredient out and the dish is not satisfying. 

In a one dimensional approach to our spiritual life, we can as Paul says, “hold to a form of religion and deny the power of it.”  By doing that we fail to experience the fulness of what the Father, Son, and Spirit can do in our lives.  God’s love is free flowing, liberating and it penetrates the barriers we put up to protect ourselves.  Jesus said to us, “he came to reveal the Father.”  Everything Jesus did was to reveal to us the depth of the Father’s desire for us to run to him, jump into his lap and embrace him.  Every word of Jesus, every encounter, every miracle, every touch, every parable, and every encounter with the Pharisees was to reveal the Father.  Finally, the death of Jesus and his resurrection were the fulfillment of the desire of God to remove the penalty we deserve for our sins and make it possible for us to look upon ourselves as worthy to be in the presence of God. 

God promised us in the prophets he would send his Spirit upon us to change our hearts changing our desire from pleasing self to a desire to please God.  Jesus tells us the Spirit will teach us and remind us of everything he ever did and said. Jesus said the Spirit only speaks what he hears from Jesus, The Spirit will always glorify Jesus and through the Spirit working in us we will become bold in our witness and in our willingness to tap into the power of God and do the things that Christ did.    

The Holly Trinity is at work within us to change our desires and give us the courage to say yes to God. To say I have lived my life according to my plan long enough. To acknowledge we are missing the fulness of knowing forgiveness means we are not condemned because we failed.  The scriptures tell us the love of God is poured out on our hearts by the Holy Spirit.  The Trinity has been at work all our life to open our eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to say yes, I want what the life you offer me. 

The Trinity does not need to be explained it needs to be experienced.    The Chruch has been unfolding that to you from the beginning of Advent when God showed us his plan to send us a redeemer.  We celebrated his birth, we repented for our sins, and we celebrated his death and resurrection.  We celebrated the life God promised us by the outpouring of his Spirit on all of us and now we are entering what the church calls ordinary time.  There is nothing ordinary about the life we are being called to live. One we are animated by the Spirit we will remember the words of Christ. Once the Spirit animates us, we will feel the Father’s love and we will feel deep within ourselves what the Prodigal Son felt – welcomed, restored, celebrated and worthy of being in the presence of the Father.   

My brothers and sisters it is time for us stop trying to understand. Instead, it is time for us to go into our upper room, invite the Spirit to glorify Jesus and fill us with the love of God.  It is time for us to experience the Trinity not to understand it but to have it bring out the essence of who we are.  Sons and daughters of the most high God.