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HOMILIES ARCHIVE
HOMILIES
Dear Audience,For better understanding of the spiritual message behind this homily I kindly remind you to first read and contemplate the biblical texts before reading or listening to my preaching - a human reflection on the Word of God!
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (Year A)
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0First Reading
A reading from the Book of Exodus (34:4b-6, 8-9)
Early in the morning Moses went up Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him, taking along the two stone tablets.
Having come down in a cloud, the Lord stood with Moses there and proclaimed his name, "Lord." Thus the Lord passed before him and cried out, "The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity." Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship. Then he said, "If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own."
(P) The word of the Lord.(R) Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalms of David (3:52, 53, 54, 55)
(R) Glory and praise forever!
Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever; and blessed is your holy and glorious name, praiseworthy and exalted above all for all ages. (R)
Blessed are you in the temple of your holy glory, praiseworthy and glorious above all forever. (R)
Blessed are you on the throne of your kingdom, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever. (R)
Blessed are you who look into the depths from your throne upon the cherubim, praiseworthy and exalted above all forever. (R)
Second Reading
A reading from the Second Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians (13:11-13)
Brothers and sisters, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, 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 holy ones greet you.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
(P) The word of the Lord.(R) Thanks be to God.
Gospel
A reading from the Gospel according to John (3:16-18)
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of only Son of God.
(P) The Gospel of the Lord.(R) Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Homily
Today we celebrate the most important of our beliefs, that is, our belief in the Most Holy Trinity. This belief sets us apart from other monotheistic believers, such as Jews and Muslims. Along with Jews and Muslims, we trace our religious origins back to the ancient patriarch Abraham and share a belief in the oneness of God or existence of one God. However, we believe that while God is only one, He exists in three distinct Persons - God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit - known as the Trinity. They are different from one another. In other words, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father, and yet they are all fully and equally God, sharing the exact same divine nature and attributes, such as love, mercy, justice, holiness, knowledge, and so on.
Now questions about the Trinity have indeed persisted for centuries. For instance, "How can God be both One and Three? If Jesus is God, why did He pray to the Father? If the Trinity is the core of the Christian faith is there any biblical basis and so on? However, believers have worked very hard to articulate and defend this key belief, and today, we are all beneficiaries of their work.
While we cannot fully understand everything about the Trinity, the Church provides some foundational facts to guide our faith. The belief in the Trinity is rooted in the fact that God progressively revealed Himself to humanity in a threefold figure:
God revealed Himself as the creator and source of all things; the initiator of the salvation plan; and a loving father who shows mercy and compassion to us his children and a righteous judge who does not ignore our wrong doing.
The same God became fully human in Jesus and lived on this earth in every way except in sin. He taught, performed miracles, and ultimately sacrificed himself on the cross to restore the disrupted divine-human relationship. Jesus was the visible, outward sign of God's love for us.
After Jesus' resurrection and ascension into heaven, God did not become or transform into the Holy Spirit. Instead, He sent the Holy Spirit, an eternal, co-equal divine person who has been present since the beginning of creation so to continue His divine presence on earth.
Although the exact word "Trinity" does not appear in the Bible, the triune nature of God is revealed throughout the Old and New Testaments. For instance, according to the Old Testament, when God created man He said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness", Genesis (1:26a). He also said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil", Genesis (3:22a). So, the use of plural pronoun "us" which in Hebrew "Elohim" for God referring to the aspect of plurality in God already at the very beginning of creation.
In the New Testament, the Apostle John, one of Jesus' closest disciples, opens his Gospel with this profound declaration: "In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God; He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing came to be", John (1:1-13). And then later in the same chapter, John continues saying, "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us; and we have seen His glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father", John (1:14). Thus, John's declaration beautifully encapsulates the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It teaches us that God's Word, who is fully God and was present at the time of creation, entered human history as a man, Jesus Christ, to dwell among humanity.
The Baptism of Jesus is one of the clearest moments in the Bible where all three persons of the Trinity are distinctly revealed at the same time. Matthew and Luke record that God the Son was baptized in the water, God the Holy Spirit descended upon Him like a dove, and God the Father spoke from heaven to declare His pleasure, Matthew (3:16-17) and Luke (3:21-22). Then the final directive of Jesus, widely known as the "Great Commission" is another clearest biblical foundation for the doctrine of Trinity. Jesus commanded His disciples to go and make disciples of all the nations, and baptise them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you", Matthew (28:19). By using the singular word for "name" over the plural "names", Jesus makes it clear that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share a single, unified essence and authority. Moreover, Jesus Himself often referred to God as his "Father in Heaven," and identified Himself as the Son, (Matthew 11:27; John 5:17-18; John 10:30, 36; Mark 14:36; John 20:17).
The early Christian writers and believers, including St. Paul, also incorporated the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - into their daily lives and worship through physical gestures like the Sign of the Cross, liturgical greetings, blessings, and prayers. For instance, St. Paul blessed or greeted the Corinthian Church with "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit", 2 Corinthians (13:14). This is one of the most beautiful and traditional greetings a priest uses at the beginning of Mass, right after making the Sign of the Cross. By frequently mentioning the Father, Son, and Holy Spriit, Christians historically affirmed, actively worshiped and publicly acknowledged these three as equal, divine, and active in the work of salvation. However, this concept provoked intense debates in the first five centuries of church history. While some Christians, particularly mainstream or orthodox Christians, affirmed the triune nature of God, others fiercely rejected it as unbiblical or polytheistic or contradictory or impossible, and this remains a major point of disagreement both between monotheistic faiths, such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism and within Christianity itself.
Besides Scripture and sacred oral traditions, the Church has also utilized many philosophical frameworks, analogies from nature, and mathematical models to make the incomprehensible mystery of the Trinity understandable. However, while these illustrations may give us a picture of the Trinity, they cannot provide a complete, perfectly accurate picture, because God is infinite, and He cannot be fully described by a finite illustration. So, Trinity remains a mystery that transcends human logic and cannot be fully grasped through reason alone. It is only through active participation in worship and the eyes of faith that we can truly encounter and appreciate the dynamic communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Let us therefore deepen the beautiful and ancient Christian practice of tracing the sign of the cross and invoking the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit throughout the day - upon waking and sleeping, before and after prayer, before meals, before leaving your home, when passing a church, in moments of temptation or anxiety, and at the start of actions, daily tasks, journeys, or important conversations. Let us humbly and wholeheartedly entrust ourselves to the Holy Trinity and pray that our spiritual journey may be richly blessed, and that we may grow deeper in both the wisdom of the Scriptures and the beautiful, historic traditions of the Church.
(P) Amen.God Bless You!
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