Homily Trinity C
Fr. Paul D. Williams, Jr., St. Joseph's, Dalton, GA
There was a story in Catholic newspapers years ago, about a priest who was reprimanded by the Church for performing invalid baptisms. Apparently, for several years, he had been baptizing infants in the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, rather than in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus commanded us to do at the end of Matthew’s Gospel. I guess he thought he was being modern and progressive, but once this was discovered, the Church had to send a letter to hundreds of families explaining to them that their children had not received a proper baptism.
Why is this wrong? Why make such a big deal? After all, it is true that the Holy Trinity creates, redeems, and sanctifies. In fact, that neatly sums up the work of the Holy Trinity for our salvation. I even have priest friends who, I guess in an effort to be avant-garde, like to begin Mass in the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. But what this fails to do is uphold two truths of our faith that have been revealed to us. First, that God is personal, he is one God in three persons, and second, how these persons of the Trinity are differentiated from each other, how they are related.
If you try to describe the Trinity as simply Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, then you run the risk of falling into any number of religions that teach that God is an impersonal an force, that he is simply the divine mover. Many of the founders of our country had this view: in its extreme form, it was called Deism, where God is like a watchmaker, who created the universe, made it perfect, and then just let it run on its own, having no further involvement in his creation.
But, by the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, we know that God is personal, and he cares intimately about his creation. So much so, that, as St. Paul says, (Romans 5:8), “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” And St. Paul would go even further than that and say (Galatians 2:20), “I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.” Christ on the cross gave his life for each one of us, individually, uniquely, and personally.
And so, by revealing the Holy Trinity to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Jesus teaches us that God is a personal reality that we can have a relationship with. And that’s the second truth that has been revealed to us. As Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God is a community of related persons, a family.
And we are created in God’s image and likeness, so we also define ourselves by our relations. Each one of us is the son or daughter of a mother and father, and we might also be gifted to have brothers and sisters or be parents ourselves. We sometimes define ourselves by what we do – doctor, lawyer, teacher, carpenter, accountant – but these often change, and they don’t describe us totally. But our relations with others define what we are, in our essence. And this happens spiritually as well, its more than mere biology, like adoption, where adopted sons and daughters truly call their parents mother and father, and I like to think that being a priest is more than what I do, but what I am, and that when people call me Father, it is more than just a title.
So, the new catechism says of the Holy Trinity, CCC 254, “The real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another.” And then it quotes the Lateran Council, “It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, the Holy Spirit who proceeds (from both).”
This is the community of the Trinity, the family of the Trinity. And if we are created in God’s image and likeness, then our human family is also an image of the Trinity. When explaining the persons of the Holy Trinity, the Fathers of the Church liked to say that the Father so loved the Son, and the Son so loved the Father, that the result of their mutual love, the personification of their love, is the Holy Spirit. That’s why St. Paul can say in today’s second reading, (Romans 5:5), “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us.” In an analogous way, the human family reflects this image of the Trinity. The love of the spouses for each other is so great that their love is personified in their children.
But as we all know, human families are not always perfect. Because of original sin and our own personal sin, we often harm our relationships with others. Not just within our own families, but also within the community at large and even the community of nations, there is a lot of harm because of sin and selfishness. And it seems that no matter how hard we try, the damage often seems beyond repair.
But since God is not this impersonal watchmaker God who cares nothing for his creation, he decided to fix it, and there was only one way he could do it: adopt us into his family. As St. Paul says, “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. You did not receive the spirit of slavery, but a spirit of adoption through which we cry out Abba, Father. And if we are children, we are heirs as well, heirs with God, heirs with Christ.”
And this great truth – that by our baptism we are children of God, sons and daughters of a loving Father, brothers and sisters of Christ and in Christ through his Church, filled with the love of the Holy Spirit – should fill us with a sense of wonder, and we can say with the Psalm today, “What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man that you should care for him? You have made him little less than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor.” For as St. Paul says, we have been called to a great hope, a place which the Lord has prepared for those who love him, our heavenly home, where we will be united forever with the greatest family there ever was or will be, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
