SUNDAY HOMILY OF SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

SUNDAY HOMILY OF SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY – YEAR B

HOMILY THEME: THE HOLY TRINITY AS MODEL OF THE HUMAN COMMUNITY

Deuteronomy 4:32-34,39-40; Psalm 33:4-6,9.18-22; Rom 8:14-17; Matthew 28:16-20

BY: Fr. Luke Ijezie

The mystery of the Holy Trinity can be described as the greatest mystery of the Christian faith. It is a revealed truth and can hardly be understood with unaided human intelligence. The doctrine of the Trinity helps us to understand that God is one but not as an individual. God is a Community. This is where one may begin to wonder. How can God be a Community? God is a Community of three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When we pray to God, we are actually praying to the Divine Community. We can also personalize our prayer by naming God as Father or Son or Holy Spirit, even though each of the Three plays a role in every prayer. This is a stimulating fact just as it is difficult to conceptualize. The interesting thing is that we human beings are called to share in this Trinitarian Community and to model the unity of our human family on the unity of the three Persons. In other words, all human beings are supposed to function as a community on the model of the Blessed Trinity. How possible? The readings of this Trinity Sunday offer practical steps.

1. The first reading from Deut 4:32-34,39-40 expresses the incomparability of the God of Israel, shown particularly in the way He relates with His people. But the people are called upon to remain attached to Him so as to achieve the good and happy life. So, they share in the Divine nature by attaching themselves to Him.
2. The second reading from Rom 8:14-17 expresses how the Spirit of God makes it possible for us to relate to God as Father. Through the Spirit, we human beings acquire the new identity as God’s children which also means that we are brothers and sisters. In other words, the Spirit that represents the love between the Father and the Son also brings about the love that unifies our human family.
3. The Gospel text from Matt 28:16-20 presents the missionary mandate of Jesus to his disciples. This mandate expresses the mission of the Church as that of making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Trinity and teaching them to observe the Commands of Jesus. This means that the Church’s role in the world is that of being a Community builder and teacher. The mission of making disciples of all nations and baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit means going about gathering people together into one community – the family of God. This mandate is one that poses great responsibility on the Church and on the followers of Christ in every age.
4. We are called to build all the nations of the world into one communal family. This is the great mission of the Churchin the world and in every age and culture. Every other thing is commentary. The tool for carrying out this mission of community building is the word of God taught by Christ. As Christians, what is paramount is to see ourselves always as instruments and signs of unity among all peoples. It also means that wherever we fail to work for the unity of God’s children we fail in our missionary apostolate. The other aspect of the mandate is that of teaching the nations to live according to the commands of Jesus. The greatest of these commands is love. This love is the only energy that can unify the fragmented human family and make it one community as found in the Trinity. The Church has tried through the ages to teach and preach love both in theory and in practice. Despite all these, the human family remains largely fragmented and disoriented. The consciousness of having a common Father often exists only in theory in the minds of people. Its practical implications should have led to a greater unanimity, but unfortunately walls of division and hostility continue to be built with reckless abandon. Pope Francis, in his Angelus nessage on Pentecost Sunday (last Sunday), made it clear that the Holy Spirit brings unanimity, meaning that the Spirit empowers us to work towards unanimity and not to preach and create divisions and hostility. One must continue to dream of a world, a society, a nation, where all work collaboratively together as brothers and sisters with no one oppressing the other.
May the love that binds the three Persons of the Holy Trinity continue to unite us as one human family and Community!

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