A Homily for Trinity Sunday – A 2017 STM/SVDP Toronto

Trinity Sunday – A, 2017                                                                                 The Catholic Parish of St. Thomas More, Toronto

Communion with the Holy Trinity is the goal of our life and of our worship—and it is the purpose of salvation history that begins with God’s revelation in creation. 

We understand God's action through natural law, then by the revealed Law (Torah) and the interpretation of the Prophets. Our communion now continues in the Eucharist and Sacraments of the Church, the Body of Christ, of which we are members by Baptism in water and the Holy Spirit.

We see the beginnings of God's self-revelation in today's First Reading from the Book of Exodus. As God passes before Moses and reveals His holy name: “the Lord” or as we see  elsewhere “I am who am,” the creator of Being itself, God the Father. 

This triune God is the one utterly beyond all that exists and yet, as Jesus has shown us, God is the One who chose to live as a human and so is, for us God the Son, who, when he was called from earth to full communion with the Father, He sent the Holy Spirit to guide and help us – "The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." (Exodus 34)

  

Israel had sinned by worshipping the Golden Calf (Exodus 32) just as we have fallen to the powers of the world, the flesh and the devil, and are in the grips of materialism. But God did not allow them or us to perish as a people. 

Instead, God proclaims mercy and establishes faithfulness to His covenant as central to life – true and eternal life – life in the Holy Trinity established by our Baptism in water and the Holy Spirit.

God loved Israel as His firstborn among the nations (Exodus 4:22). Through Israel, the heirs of the covenant with Abraham—God began to reveal himself as the Father of all nations (Genesis 22:18). The memory of God's covenant in the testing of Abraham—and Abraham's faithful obedience—lies behind today's Gospel.

In commanding Abraham to offer his only and beloved son (Genesis 22), God was preparing us for the fullest possible revelation of His love for the world, the love of the Son, of Jesus. Just as Abraham was willing to offer Isaac, God did not spare His own Son but handed Him over to the deep mystery of salvation from us all (Romans 8:32).

In this, God revealed what was only disclosed partially to Moses—that the grace and mercy of God continues for a thousand generations. God incorporates us into the life of the Holy Trinity by forgiving our sin, by washing us in the waters of Holy Baptism and in so doing, merging the physical and spiritual worlds and  in so doing making us God’s very own people (Deuteronomy 4:20; 9:29).

Jesus humbled himself to die in obedience to the will of God. For this, the Holy Spirit lovingly raised Him from the dead (Romans 8:11), gave Him a name above every name (Philippians 2:8-10) and sealed the communion of the Holy Trinity, one God in three persons.

Trinity Dome at the National Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C. - under construction

This is the Name we glorify as we live in and through the Holy Trinity, This is the Name of our Lord, God the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the Name and the unity which is Love (1 John 4;8,16).