Trinity Sunday - Homily 4

 Homily 4 - 2019

The Feast of the Trinity has come at a good time. Just last Sunday the Plenary Council steering Committee released what they call Six Major Themes, distilled from the thousands of replies sent to them from people all round Australia in answer to their question, “What might God be asking of the Church in Australia now?” Apparently over two hundred thousand people gave their views – most by taking part in group discussions [some of you here no doubt], and over seventeen thousand by sending individual replies.

Some quiet reflection on the Mystery of the Trinity may be just what we need as together we move into the next phase of the Council preparation – narrowing down the field and discerning where the Spirit of God is leading us. Discernment is something much richer than a majority vote. It is more a search for consensus on the part of all concerned, based on prayerful cooperation with the Spirit’s leading.

Why reflection on the Trinity is appropriate is precisely because we have been created in the image of our Trinitarian God. We believe firmly that there is only one God. Yet our God is not like some great solitary monolith but exists mysteriously as three persons. There is diversity in God. And this diversity is held together by the fact that each of the persons loves the others with infinite love. Difference, yet unity, through love! Did you notice in today’s brief Gospel reading how Jesus insisted, “All the Father has is mine”, and then, “All the Spirit tells you is taken from what is mine” – each person lovingly giving to the other all that it is and has, and then receiving that same gift in return.

Created in God’s image, we are each unique persons, necessarily different from each other. We arrive at what God dreams us to become by our deliberate and free choice to relate to each other, with all our diversity, in mutual love. That is what we were made for. Only there shall we find true fulfillment. It is written into us, more deeply than our DNA. It is there in the creative mind of the Son of God, of the Logos, the Word, the Wisdom of God, of whom we joyfully heard in the First Reading, “I was by God’s side, a master craftsman, delighting him day after day, ever at play in his presence, delighting to be with the sons of men”.

But there is another mood abroad in our world, that we inevitably and constantly breathe in, as it were. It is exemplified in our political world; it is reinforced by our media. We align, not on the basis of acceptance, respect and love, but driven by our ideologies. We do not listen to each other. We do not want consensus. We want instead to win. Instinctively we align for or against. It seems that we need opponents, enemies, in order to feel secure and somehow at home in our own identity.

Growth and change are written into the plan of God, and stimulate our capacity and our need to penetrate ever more deeply into the truth of God and the things of God. While “two plus two equals four” might be true forever, what we can know and say about God keeps opening out into eternity. It is the Spirit of God who wishes to lead us there. As we heard in today’s Gospel passage, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to complete truth”. It is a process that never finishes.

Among the themes, or general orientations, already discerned by the National Centre for Pastoral Research as we continue our preparation for the Plenary Council is one entitled “Open to conversion, renewal and reform”. Another sees us as “Prayerful and Eucharistic”. We need to prioritise prayer as individuals, especially contemplative prayer that opens us to mystery. And we need Eucharist – with its sense of community – brothers and sisters sharing the one Bread and the one Cup, with Christ among us as our enthusiastic host.