HOMILY TRINITY 2025
ACCEPTING THE MYSTERY, WITHOUT EVER FULLY UNDERSTANDING
Jn 16.12-15 Prov 8.22-31 Rom 5.1-5
In 1958, when I was in Prep, at St James’s Gardenvale, I clearly remember how Sister Bernadine drew a triangle on the blackboard and thus explained the Trinity! At the time, it all made sense to me, as we made the Sign of the Cross together, every time we said a prayer. (I mentioned earlier the recent misunderstanding of a Prep student who said “In the name of Father John and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”!!) It’s funny how what seem simple things can get more complicated as we get older.
There’s the story of Saint Patrick and the 3 leafed clover explaining the 3 persons in one Being, and the mathematical Venn diagram of 3 overlapping circles, reflecting unity in diversity. And there’s Rublev’s 15th century Trinity icon (said to be one of the highest achievements of Russian art), described as “The unity of Persons in the Trinity, along with the spiritual nature of God’s Divine Essence by depicting the Triune God as simply 3 angels.” The Trinity was seen as “the embodiment of spiritual unity, peace, harmony, mutual love and humility”. Then there was the 3-wicked candle I once bought from ‘Wicked (Wick-ed!) Candles’ shop in Manly as another image.
The whole idea of mystery, however, is that we can never fully understand it. Acceptance in faith is part of the deal, when we think about meaning. In the Christian tradition, the heart of Jesus’ message is that he reveals a God of life and love in the image of a father, but whom we cannot see, and ultimately promises to send the Spirit of Truth.
The closest we can get is in the person of Jesus, who walked with us as one of us, the mystery being that he was fully human and also divine, existing from the beginning as the Word of God, but a Word who then dwelt amongst us, who was born, lived and died, like us. Then the story changes as we believe that death was not the end for him, but that life continued in the Risen Jesus, whose promise was that he would be with us always, to the end of time. For us that means throughout our lives, until we reach fullness of life with him, after death. Therein is the mystery of faith, as we can’t define this experience in human terms.
The best we can do is to try to find ways of understanding the meaning of life and faith, through images and metaphors, as Jesus used so often in his teaching. God as Father reflects love and care, security and comfort, compassion and forgiveness, revealed through Jesus. God as Son, in the person of Jesus, demonstrates this love and care through his words and actions throughout his public ministry of service to others. Then, as he promises in his long farewell discourse in John’s Gospel, God’s Spirit will always be present among his followers and in the broader world, a Spirit that cannot be contained or controlled.
As we reflected last week, in celebrating Pentecost, the 7 gifts of the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety and fear of the Lord, are to be lived out as we are challenged to produce the 9 fruits of the Spirit that Paul describes, as love, peace, joy, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, patience and self-control. These are the simple qualities that result from us making a choice to respond and be guided by the Spirit. By trying to live this way, we can make our world a happier place, and also finding our own inner peace and happiness too.
The theological mystery is one thing, but the practical application of faith is reflected in the way we live, believing that we are guided by the Spirit. It’s not a matter of automatic pilot, but making personal decisions to follow the way of Jesus in our lives, reflecting his love in action, through the good choices we make.
Silvester O’Flynn OFMCap takes the ocean as a metaphor for reflecting on Trinity, with its vastness suggesting infinity, its ceaseless movement speaking of eternity, its depth an awesome mystery. The heart of the ocean “is like the Father, the first principle of all being. From this… proceeds the incoming tide, as the Son proceeds from the Father, reaching our shores… The work of Jesus was a cleansing wave of mercy and forgiveness on the sands of life… The flowing to and ebbing from is under the power of the Holy Spirit who has ever hovered over the waters as the breath of God.”
Rowan Atkinson, no, (not Mr Bean!) I mean Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury speaks of the mystery of God this way: “As a Christian, I believe in God as Trinity. I believe in God as an interweaving of personal agencies, the love and mutuality of what we call the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In that sense, I’m not saying I believe in an impersonal God. Far from it… The God I don’t believe in… (is) an individual who sits in the remote parts of the universe and treats the rest of the universe as an intriguing hobby for himself, rather than the God who is much more like the ocean that soaks through everything that is and yet is infinitely beyond it.”
Brendan Byrne SJ’s perspective is similar: “The sense of three Persons in the One God came into being – not as a remote heavenly mystery, let alone an arid theological puzzle, but as a way of expressing the Christian sense of being drawn into the divine communion of love. There they (early Christians) found the impulse and energy to be instruments of the saving outreach of that love into the world… The truth is ultimately the revelation that ‘God is love’ (1Jn 4.7).”
It’s for you and me to reflect that love throughout our lives, in a complex and flawed, but wonderful world (as Louis Armstrong sings!).
john hannon 15th June 2025