The Mystery of the Holy Trinity, June 19, 2011

Ex 34:4b-6,8-9; 2 Cor 13:11-13; John 3:16-18

          As it was mentioned before, today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. For this reason I am going to depart from my usual practice of preaching upon the readings designated for this Sunday, and look closer at this particular mystery of our faith.

          Not the mystery in a sense of a puzzle which some genius can solve someday. But the mystery of our faith in a sense of a deepest reality we may be encountering in our lives. The reality, which is always beyond anything, we can completely experience, understand or comprehend. The mystery which calls and invites us into a dialogue that lasts our whole lives.

 The term Trinity was applied to God for the first time by the early father of the church by name Tertullian (140 – 220). However, the doctrine of the Trinity was truly developed only in the fourth and fifth century councils of our church and taught by the church ever since.

We are at a great disadvantage in regard to understanding of this doctrine of our church. And the reason is very simple - our understanding of the word "person."

Since the Enlightment the word “person” has been understood as “individual conscious subject.” If we apply this meaning of the word to our understanding of the mystery of the Holy Trinity we are doomed to become "heretics" in the eyes of many, for we arrive at the conclusion that God is three centers of consciousness and that implies three gods instead of one.

Thus it is very important that whenever we talk about the persons of God in the context of the mystery of the Holy Trinity we apply ontological, philosophical understanding of the word "person" following for example:

·       A Roman philosopher Boethius (d.524),  who formulated the classic Latin definition of a person as “Individual substance of a rational nature", or

·        Saint Thomas Aquinas who defined person as “subsistent relation."

          There are also two contemporary theologians who are worth mentioning in that regard, namely  Karl Barth and Karl Rahner. Both of them have tried to shed some light on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity describing God as a single divine subject possessing a single consciousness who exists in three ways. However; I need to stop here. For as my source for this part of my sermon says  " Although (their) recommendations are theologically precise, they are unintelligible for nonspecialists and unsuitable for preaching.”

So what does Church teaches us about the Mystery of the Holy Trinity?

This can be summarized in the following points. The Holy Trinity is God who:

·       Is not a lonely, solitary God, but who stays in relationship of three distinct persons: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.

·       In their relationship they are equal to each other. None of them is more important than the other.

·       They are communion of persons who manifest themselves in different ways:

o   As the Father: who created the world, led his chosen people of Israel, who sent us his beloved son.

o   As the Son: who became one of us, shared with us the good news of salvation, who died for us.

o   As the Holy Spirit: who helped us to become one church, who continues leading and strengthening us.

·       The Holy Trinity manifest themselves to us and to the world to be in a relationship with us.

Whenever we make the sign of the cross in the name of the Holy Trinity, our only God, - the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit-, we remind ourselves that we are created in the image of the Holy Trinity:

·       To be in a relationship with others.

·       To live in community and communion with others.

·       To treat others as equal to us and as important as we are; regardless of  talents and gifts which we or they possess.

·       To truly love and care about others in tangible ways. The ways in which the Holy Trinity has loved us.

Pentacost, June 12, 2011

Acts 2:1-11; 1 Cor 12:3b-7,12-13; John 20:19-23

         

          A very talented organist, in the days before motor-driven or electric organs, gave a very magnificent concert in which the big pipes sent forth glorious, thunderous tones. After people finished congratulating him, the little boy who had worked with all his might at the bellows remarked,

“We did pretty well, don’t you think?”

The organist scornfully replied,

“And what did you do?”

He gave the boy no credit at all.

          A month later, during another concert, the organist came to a stormy passage that required all the wind of which the bellows were capable. Suddenly the organ began to fade away. The organist signaled for more wind. Instead, the little boy pulled aside the curtain and said,

“Is it I or is it we?”

          It isn’t just a priest, or a deacon, or a liturgy director,  or anyone else we might name as the staff of the church who does the work of the church, who has time and skills to do it, who is called to do it.

          But every single baptized member of the Christian community through the virtue of his or her baptism is called and enriched with the gift of the Holy Spirit to build the church community she or he is a part of, and by sharing and living out the gospel of Christ to build God's reign in this world.

None of us here ought to have an inferiority complex or be jealous about other people's gifts. Each one of us, let me say it again, each one of us gathered here with his or her unique gifts is needed to continue Jesus ministry. A gift of preaching or celebrating liturgy does not mean that this priest or a deacon, or a lay minister are more important or more spiritual in the eyes of God than someone who, for example, has the gift of hospitality, or greeting, or teaching, or healing, or administration, or has a green thumb, or cast iron stomach, or can easily crack someone up, or can hold well his or her horses, can make pigs fly or knows when Elvis left the building.

Different gifts are given to all of us to build up one another, to build up the community we are a part of,  and to build up the reign of God in this world. Those gifts are to be used to create unity not division, to harness our diversity to the greater glory of God. This unity happens only when the Holy Spirit is present in us and in the community we are a part of.

As Paul says in today’s second reading from the first letter to the Corinthians we are one body through our baptism. And as He continues in other chapters of this letter each part of this body is needed to make the whole body properly function. For if we all were hands how could we walk? Or all eyes how could we hear each other? St. Mary's community need you and your gifts to function properly, to continue Jesus ministry.

What sense would it make  if we were coming together here once a week only to be serviced and to fulfill our Sunday mass obligation so we wouldn't go to hell, but would not be putting to use our talents and gifts given to us by the Holy Spirit? How that would accomplish the mission which Jesus called us to through the gift of our baptism? How that would be so different from going to Kroger, Food Lion or Wal-Mart to get our groceries?