Blessed and Undivided Trinity!

Deus Dixit: God has spoken!

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, May 30, 2021

During my days in the seminary, the common joke among students and professors is that Trinity Sunday is the day that all manners of heresies are preached from the pulpit. Others also joke that Trinity Sunday is the “the preacher’s nightmare.” These jokes stem from the difficulty associated with the preaching or teaching of the deepest mysteries of our faith: that God is a Trinity of persons. While the Trinity can be seen as the most abstract and out of reach Christian doctrine, it is also the most ordinary and obvious. Although the finest minds in the Church— Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and Karl Rahner have all wrestled with the meaning of this great mysterious dogma, the most ordinary Catholic regularly invokes the Trinity every time he makes the sign of the cross: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Every time we pray formally or informally, every time we gather to celebrate the Mass we invoke the Trinity and put ourselves within the dynamics of the Trinity. Every baptized Catholic is baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. That means we have been sealed by the Trinity and brought into the dynamics of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is technical and abstract but it is the most ordinary sign of the Christian life. 

How do we understand this unique teaching? Today’s readings give us a good logical guide. In the first reading taken from the Book of Deuteronomy (4:32-34, 39-40), Moses asks the nation of Israel as they are about to enter the Promise Land: “Did any god venture forth and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation… which the Lord, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?” In the ancient world, everyone believed in God or gods or some sacred phenomenon. But what set Israel apart was their belief that the Lord God of heaven and earth has specifically chosen them as his special people. Before you kick against this notion, the Old Testament makes it clear that this chosen has nothing to do with privilege rather with mission. Israel was chosen by God in order to become the vehicle by which the whole world will be gathered unto God. Through God’s mighty acts of liberation in Egypt and Babylon, through his gift of the Torah, through the sending of the prophets, through the establishment of the Temple in Jerusalem, through the cutting of covenant after covenant, the God of Israel sought to draw Israel into communion with him so that liberation, prophesy, covenant, Temple might be universalized and all nations might come to worship the true God. God is a great gathering Force. 

All these reached their zenith in the life, teaching, dying and rising of a young rabbi from Nazareth called Jesus. Was he greater than Torah? Yes, but so much more because he claimed authority over the Torah itself: “You have heard that it was said to your ancestor in the Torah….but I say to you…” (Matt. 5:21-48). Was he a prophet? Yes! He claimed that title but he was so much more. He is not just one more bearer of the truth, but the prophetic truth itself. He says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matt. 24:35). None of ancient prophets— Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel etc could have said such. Was he a lover of the Temple? Yes! He was often in the Temple to pray and preach. But he was also so much more than the Temple because he claimed to be himself the New Temple: “You have something greater than the Temple here” (Matt. 12:6). At the climax of his life, he said referring to the Temple in Jerusalem, “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will rebuild it” (John 2:19). The new Temple he wants to rebuild is the Temple of his Body. 

But what does all these mean? What immediately became clear to the early church especially in the light of the resurrection is that this Jesus who is sent by the God of Israel, also spoke and acted in the very person of the God of Israel. He is the Son of God in an absolutely unique sense. As the New Testament puts it, he is the perfect reflection of the Father’s being. He is the means by which the Father will gather the whole world unto himself. In the old dispensation, prophecy, law, Temple, covenant were used by the God of Israel to draw the world to himself, but now, Jesus of Nazareth, who is the fulfillment of all of those is also the definitive means by which God is drawing the world to himself. In the light of his dying and rising, the first Christian believers saw that the Father has sent his Son to the very limits of God’s forsaken— into sickness, sin, and death itself in order to draw everybody into the dynamics of the divine life. This is the reason why St. Paul says in our second reading of today, “You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, “Abba, Father!” If Jesus is the Son, then we who are grafted unto him are sons and daughters in the Son. That is the Christian Faith! That is the meaning of Baptism. 

And what does today’s Gospel (Matt. 28:16-20) has to say about this? The risen and glorified Lord speaks to the new Israel, the church: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” No Israelite prophet— Moses, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah etc would have said such a thing. The one speaking is the very replica of the Father’s being. After making such an extremely audacious and true declaration, he adds, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” He gives them the order of gathering in the nations of the world. What is the mission of the Church? It is the mission of the Son of God which is to gather all people into the love that connects the Father and the Son which is the Holy Spirit. When we talk about the inner life of God, it could be challenging to do so, however, we should never allow the arcane language of theology to obscure the revolutionary meaning of the Trinity as a summons to mission, as a call to action. The Son is speaking to us all who are sons and daughters in him, to go and do the work giving to him, that is, to gather the whole world into the dynamics of the divine life. The Protestant theologian, Karl Barth says, “The Trinity is the function of the biblical principle “Deus Dixit” which means, “God has spoken!” Within God there is a Speaker, and we call him the Father; as a speaker, there has to be a word spoken. The law, covenant and prophesy are examples of the words that the Speaker speaks. But in Jesus, he speaks his definitive word. Jesus is the Word spoken. And according to Karl Barth, there has to be an interpreter of the Word. The Holy Spirit is the divine interpreter who helps us to understand the Word spoken. Up and down the century, the Holy Spirit through theologians, popes, teachers etc has been teaching us the meaning of the Word.