Trinity Sunday - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2007

The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. St Paul’s comment in today’s Second Reading bears reflection.

There are different kinds of love: some people say they love chocolates; some love their pets; most love their children; and most love their spouse. Let’s look more closely at the last two loves: the love of parent for child and the love of spouse for spouse. Both are beautiful; both are strong – but they are different.

When parents love their children, there is an inequality. The parent is in control, as it were, and operating from a position of superiority. When spouses love spouses, or adult friend loves adult friend, there is equality -  neither is in control; both are vulnerable. Beautiful as it is, the love between parent and child is not as total, or as perfect, as love of adult for adult can be. I think that the deepest love is the love between equals.

The Creator God loves creatures: the First Reading put it beautifully. But is that love more like parent for child than adult for adult, or equal for equal? When Paul said in the Second Reading that the love of God has been poured into our hearts  by God’s Spirit was he referring to the love of creator for creature, or to something else?

Ask a Muslim the same question: I think (I’m not totally sure) a Muslim would say that God loves us as Creator loves creature – from a position of absolute superiority and total control.

I am not sure what a Jew would say. The Hebrew Scriptures use the imagery of the love of bridegroom for his bride to convey a sense of God’s love; but the context of the imagery was of a patriarchal society where man and woman were by no means equal.

So what does the Christian disciple answer? Is God’s love for us something immeasurably more even than that of Creator for creature? The answer is “Yes!”.

I think, though, that, unless we believe in Trinity, our answer would have to be that God can love us only from a position of infinite superiority, that is, as Creator loves creature. In fact, I think that, unless God is Trinity, God can never even offer or experience within God’s own inner life a love like that of adult for adult, the love of  equals, the love where control is surrendered.

We don’t understand Trinity – it will always be mystery – but, as far as we can see, the fact that God is Trinity allows for some sort of personal relating within God’s own self. We refer to Persons in God: two persons in love, first and second Person - whose mutual love for each other is so perfect and complete, and lacking nothing, that it, too, their mutual love, is personal – a third Person.

So, the first and the second Persons relate to each other as equals. The experience of loving each other and being loved by each other - totally, infinitely - are very much God’s experience. And they love as equals. And the breath of that mutual love – the deep energy of love – is the Holy Spirit.

Paul says that this love of God for God has been poured into our hearts. When we became, through baptism, mysteriously christened – Christed - we were made one with Christ, sort of identified with him – but without losing our own identity – and thereby graciously drawn into the inner life of God. Because we are in Christ, then, to the extent that we are in Christ, God can love us not simply as creator but as lover.

Indeed, God’s love is better understood not so much as a noun but as a verb – not as some thing that can be given and received but as an event that is happening. God is not so much love as loving.

So rather than receiving the gift of their love, we are, more accurately, drawn up into their mutual loving of each other. As the Spirit of God pours into our lives, we are ennobled to share in the inner living of God, the God that is Trinity.

 Such is the dignity of the human person. We hold on to it now on faith. Our ultimate destiny will be to experience the mystery face to face.