The Blessed Trinity: from concept to living experience

“…God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:5)

The Visitation of Abraham or the ‘Old Testament Trinity’ … a fresco in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex, interprets a Trinitarian and Eucharistic theme (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 16:12-15 (Year C: Trinity Sunday, 16^th June, 2019)

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AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SUNDAY’S READINGS

COI	RC
Proverbs 8:1-4,22-31	Proverbs 8:1-4,22-31
Psalm 8	Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5	Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15	John 16:12-15

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SERMON NOTES (746 words)

Meeting the Trinity

Every Sunday is special in some way. The Liturgy never fails to provide us with a new challenge and new opportunities for growth. This Sunday we focus on the Holy Trinity – the unity and diversity of God as One but diverse in a communion of Persons. Like many aspects of our shared faith explaining the Trinity to ourselves let alone to those around us who do not share our Christian faith is a challenge.

The Trinity in our Liturgy

Perhaps we take the Trinity for granted. After all, we pray to the Trinity and in Trinity in the Gloria (Glory be to the Father…) several times in morning prayer or evening prayer. The Trinity is at the centre or our celebration of the two great Gospel sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist.

Explaining the Trinity

Why is orthodox (with a small ‘o’) Christianity unique in teaching that there can be only One God but Three Persons in the One God?  Why three or even two Persons? Or, as our ancestors believed, why not have many gods? I suggest that the answer is that the One True God loves diversity. Not only that, He (strictly God is neither He or She but we may follow tradition in addressing God as a He) loves the created material world so much that he could not pass the opportunity of becoming material, human and one of us. In that way, we were ‘divinised’ or raised up to godliness as our sisters and brothers in the Eastern Christian traditions like to emphasise. In short, God likes to get down and dirty in our messy and mixed up world. Put another way, Christianity is a materialist religion in the best sense of that term. Our God became one of us in order to raise us up and bring us safely to our eternal home.

Listening

‘I still have many things to say to you’ says Jesus to his disciples in the passage of John’s Gospel that we have heard. In other words, we have a lot of learning and listening to do in life. Yes, we will find the full and complete Truth in the scriptures. However, we need the practical help of the Holy Spirit to travel deeper into a life of communion with one another and with God in his Oneness and Threeness.  The Holy Spirit provides when our words and thoughts fail as they must at some stage.  Jesus, the Word, came to speak love and life to everyone. Some listen; others don’t and quite a few listen, only, to what they want to hear.  But we must listen to everything that the Holy Spirit is saying to us today.

Lifelong learning

Being open to the Holy Spirit means divesting ourselves of useless and destructive patterns of thinking and acting. It means – in a certain sense – being ‘empty’ and ready to be filled. We need to let go; we need to let God act in us through his Holy Spirit. If we trust in God’s Holy Spirit to guide us then we will find freedom to live more and more in the present moment firm in the conviction that God will guide us, step by step, to that place or that decision or that response which will be right at the right time. It is not a question of receiving the whole picture or truth in one go. The Holy Spirit leads us gradually towards the complete picture (John 16:13).

And so often we fret and worry about how we will perform or what we will say whether in a situation of a written examination, or a very difficult conversation with someone (e.g. breaking the news of a serious illness) or an interview for a job. The list is endless. Each time, we can slow down, rest in the present moment, breathe easily and let the breath of God emerge in our thoughts and actions.  As Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel:

But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say. (Matthew 10:19)

In that moment of trial we will be given the words and means to bear witness as we should. Trust! But we must conclude with a warning: be alert and ready because we don’t know where the Holy Spirit leads us. We only have the light of today and of this moment. Walk in that light.