Homily: Solemnity of the Holy Trinity (Year C)

I have added a video of this homily below. The text follows.

Readings: Prv 8:22-31; Ps 8; Rom 5:1-5; Jn 16:12-15 
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22 years ago I was ordained a deacon on the Saturday before Trinity Sunday, and that happens to be today. 

During our little celebration following the ordination, my pastor said, "You know, deacon, since you and I minister at Holy Trinity Parish, I think you should preach at the 9 o'clock Mass tomorrow. After all it's Trinity Sunday."

I was actually hoping for maybe a few days to prepare my first homily, but no, it would be the very next morning. Actually, I think it was a pretty good homily, and I wish I'd saved a copy so I could use it again today. But it's gone and I can't recall a word of it. Sadly, I suspect this homily won't be nearly as good.

Yes, indeed, today is Trinity Sunday, or as it's officially called, "The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity." It's the day we celebrate what must be considered the key tenet of our faith as Christians: the Trinity

Interestingly, though, the word, Trinity, cannot be found anywhere in Sacred Scripture. But the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, points to the Trinity on many different occasions.

The Trinity is perhaps most evident in the very last words of Matthew's Gospel when the risen Jesus gives His great commission to the disciples:

"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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" [Mt 28:19-20].

We encounter the Trinity, too, in those opening verses of Genesis:

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...and the Spirit of God was moving..." [Gn 1:1-2].

...and the opening words of John's Gospel:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" [Jn 1:1].

Yes, Father, Son, and Spirit present from eternity.

The Trinity at Creation

We encounter another example in today's Gospel passage from John [Jn 16:12-13], where Jesus speaks of Himself, the Holy Spirit, and the Father as three distinct Persons. And so It's here and elsewhere that we find the Trinity embedded in Scripture: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - Creator, Savior, and Sanctifier.

You and I call on the Trinity whenever we make the Sign of the Cross and lift up our prayer in the name of this Blessed Trinity. And yet how many of us really understand this divine relationship, this dogma that in one God there are three divine persons? 

St. Augustine

Over 1,500 years ago St. Augustine answered this question with one of his own: 

"Who can understand the Trinity? ...Who, when they speak of it, also know of what they speak?"

The answer, of course, is: nobody. For the Trinity is perhaps the mystery of mysteries. And yet, we strive to understand at least something of this divine relationship as it's been revealed to us. But we have to be careful. Our theology can sometimes blind us to the simpler truths that God reveals. Let me give you an example.

I'm sure you all remember the scene in which Jesus asks the disciples [Mt 16:13-16]:

"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"

They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"

Now just image Simon Peter, speaking as a modern theologian and responding like this:

"You are the Logos, one of three co-eternal, consubstantial divine persons, the hypostases of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Although the three are distinct, you are one substance, essence, and nature, always distinct and yet working inseparably, and interpenetrating each other and causing no division."

And hearing that, Jesus might well have said, "What?"

Jesus and Peter at Caesarea Philippi

You see, sometimes our theology can get in the way of our faith. In truth Simon Peter replied with these glorious words:

"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

And like Peter, you and I hear those words, and in faith, we understand. Like Peter we know that Jesus is a distinct person and we believe, too, what Jesus reveals about His relationship with Father and the Holy Spirit. It's a relationship in which neither Father, nor Son, nor Holy Spirit exists in separation or acts in isolation. The Three are always as One.

This, brothers and sisters, is enough for me.

You see, if we really want to define the Trinity, we can define it with one four-letter word. The Trinity is Love. In the Trinity we see the same kind of love that God demands of us; for we are called to love God and love each other.

Our personal experiences of love, the deep love between husband and wife, the love of strong, long-held friendships, the sacrificial love of a mother for her child - all of these give us a glimpse, if only a glimpse, into the love that is the Trinity.

That's right, echoing St. John we proclaim that "God is Love" [1 Jn 4:8], the Trinity is Love. In loving one another we can experience the delight and beauty of close human relationships, of being there for each other. This is something enriching and satisfying - indeed, mutually life-giving!

If the very essence of the Trinity is constant, enduring love, then the mother of a newborn infant must grasp something of the doctrine of the Trinity as she lies awake in a darkened room and listens to the sound of her baby's breathing. Yes, the love of the Trinity is a vigilant love.

If the essence of the Trinity is ever-giving love, then the care-giving spouse of an Alzheimer's patient or the parent of a special needs child experiences the fury with which God protects, nurtures, and holds the most vulnerable close to His heart.  

Yes, our intellectual, theological descriptions of the Holy Trinity so often fail to convey the true nature of the love that flows from the very inner life of God.

About 25 or 30 years ago I was waiting to board a plane at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. This was back in the day when family and friends could actually meet you at the gate. Remember those days?

Anyway, as I waited, an El Al flight from Tel Aviv landed and the passengers began to file into the terminal. One young man, in his thirties and wearing a yarmulke, stepped from the jet-way and looked anxiously around the waiting room.

Just then a small boy broke away from his mother, ran to the man and jumped into his arms, all the while shouting, "Abba! Abba!" The love on the man's face was something very special indeed.

If our souls call out to the Father, "Abba! Abba!" --"Daddy! Daddy!" -- can you imagine the look of delight on the face of God? Would that we could see it! But this demonstration of love and all other expressions of human love are mere shadows of God's enduring love. 

Yes, the Trinity exists in a communion of love. And as the Trinity reaches outside itself into our world, a world that it created and sustains, there's a divine collaboration among the Three.

The Father loved us so much as to give us his Only Begotten Son. Through this love, the Son gave up his life for our sake. And through the Holy Spirit we can accept within us and extend to others the same love with which God loves us.  It's through the Spirit that we are enabled to mirror God's love on earth, to love each other as we are loved.

And so we pray in the liturgy to our Heavenly Father, "through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever."

Jean Cardinal Danielou

Jean Cardinal Danielou

I believe I can say, without fear of being contradicted, that one of the most under-appreciated and least read theologians of the 20th century is Jean Cardinal Danielou. After a brief check of my personal library I found 19 books by Danielou, but very few of these are still in print. Indeed, I purchased most from used book stores and online book services. This is a shame, because Jean Danielou still has much to teach us.

He was a French Jesuit who had a major impact on the Second Vatican Council, a man whose writings should certainly be published anew so today's Catholics can come to a better appreciation of the theological awakening that took place during the first half of the past century.

Why has Danielou been so ignored? The reasons stem from two events: the circumstances surrounding his death in 1974 and his public criticism of those who misinterpreted Vatican II. Danielou, who was made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1969, was a man who lived his faith by secretly carrying out works of mercy. Following Our Lord's example, he didn't shy away from society's outcasts and public sinners, but did whatever he could to help those in need. Although a cardinal, he rejected all the trappings, and in his final years lived a life of utter simplicity, working as a chaplain to a community of nuns. Sadly, he died in a way that was fodder for the more sensational media and led many to question his holiness.

Cardinal Danielou had gone to the home of a Paris prostitute, Mimi Santoni, to take her the money she would need to hire a lawyer to free her husband from prison. This was typical of the cardinal's frequent acts of charity to those in need of help and forgiveness. After climbing the stairs to her flat, he suffered a heart attack and collapsed to the floor. You can imagine the furor this caused. The left-wing media had a field day accusing Danielou of using prostitutes and describing the incident as typical of the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. Although a subsequent investigation confirmed the cardinal's complete innocence, and brought into the open his many works of charity, even many of his Jesuit colleagues failed to defend him against the false charges that were circulating. Why? Because they had already attacked Danielou for his public comments a few years earlier, comments that criticized those, including many Jesuits, who were falsely interpreting Vatican II. Danielou's comments were made during a 1972 interview on Vatican Radio, and from that moment on, this humble, brilliant theologian was shunned by many in his order.


Recently, however, a conference at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross examined Cardinal Danielou's life and teachings, praising him and his work. Here is a brief video tribute to this great theologian:

I have also provided a transcript of the Vatican Radio interview that ruffled so many feathers among those who erroneously thought Vatican II had overturned 2,000 years of Church teaching.
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"THE ESSENTIAL SOURCE OF THIS CRISIS..."

Interview of Cardinal Jean Daniélou on Vatican Radio, October 23, 1972

Q: Your Eminence, is there really a crisis of religious life, and can you give us its dimensions?

A: I think that there is now a very grave crisis of religious life, and that one should not speak of renewal, but rather of decadence. I think that this crisis is hitting the Atlantic area above all. Eastern Europe and the countries of Africa and Asia present in this regard a better state of spiritual health. This crisis is manifesting itself in all areas. The evangelical counsels are no longer considered as consecrations to God, but are seen in a sociological and psychological perspective. We are concerned about not presenting a bourgeois facade, but on the individual level poverty is not practiced. The group dynamic replaces religious obedience; with the pretext of reacting against formalism, all regularity of the life of prayer is abandoned and the first consequence of this state of confusion is the disappearance of vocations, because young people require a serious formation. And moreover there are the numerous and scandalous desertions of religious who renege on the pact that bound them to the Christian people.

Q: Can you tell us what, in your view, are the causes of this crisis?

A: The essential source of this crisis is a false interpretation of Vatican II. The directives of the Council were very clear: a greater fidelity of religious men and women to the demands of the Gospel expressed in the constitutions of each institute, and at the same time an adaptation of the modalities of these constitutions to the conditions of modern life. The institutes that are faithful to these directives are seeing true renewal, and have vocations. But in many cases the directives of Vatican II have been replaced with erroneous ideologies put into circulation by magazines, by conferences, by theologians. And among these errors can be mentioned:

- Secularization. Vatican II declared that human values must be taken seriously. It never said that we should enter into a secularized world in the sense that the religious dimension would no longer be present in society, and it is in the name of a false secularization that men and women are renouncing their habits, abandoning their works in order to take their places in secular institutions, substituting social and political activities for the worship of God. And this goes against the grain, among other things, with respect to the need for spirituality that is being manifested in today's world.

- A false conception of freedom that brings with it the devaluing of the constitutions and rules and exalts spontaneity and improvisation. This is all the more absurd in that Western society is currently suffering from the absence of a discipline of freedom. The restoration of firm rules is one of the necessities of religious life.

- An erroneous conception of the changing of man and of the Church. Even if these change, the constitutive elements of man and of the Church are permanent, and bringing into question the constitutive elements of the constitutions of the religious orders is a fundamental error.

Q: But do you see any remedies for overcoming this crisis?

A: I think that the only and urgent solution is that of stopping the false stances taken in a certain number of institutes. For this it is necessary to stop all of the experimentation and all of the decisions contrary to the directives of the Council; to warn against the books, magazines, conferences in which these erroneous conceptions are being put into circulation; to restore in their integrity the practice of the constitutions with the adaptations requested by the Council. Wherever this appears impossible, it seems to me that those religious cannot be denied who want to be faithful to the constitutions of their order and to the directives of Vatican II, and to establish distinct communities. Religious superiors are bound to respect this desire.

These communities must be authorized to have houses of formation. Experience will demonstrate if the vocations are more numerous in the houses of strict observance or in the houses of mitigated observance. In case the superiors oppose these legitimate requests, recourse to the supreme pontiff is certainly authorized.

Religious life is called to a grandiose future in technological society; the more this is developed, the more it will make felt the need for the manifestation of God. This is precisely the aim of religious life, but in order to carry out its mission it must rediscover its authentic meaning and break radically with a secularization that is destroying it in its essence and preventing it from attracting vocations.

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If you are interested in reading several defenses of the cardinal, see the links below: 

The Quarantine Has Ended, by Sandro Magister

The Rehabilitation of  Cardinal Danielou

Search out his books. You will find them eminently readable, for unlike many of his colleagues, he wrote for the average Catholic not strictly for the theologian.

Exegesis and Theology...Not!

Over the years -- at retreats, continuing education programs, courses, etc. -- I've heard a lot of odd things roll off the tongues of professors, theologians, scriptural scholars and others. Because I'm such a compulsive note-taker, I've written down many of these remarkable comments. This morning, while doing a little housecleaning in my den, I came across a few of the old notebooks in which I had jotted down some of these gems. And so, I thought that at least a few of you might enjoy reading them along with my inadequate responses.

"You have to be careful when reading the New Testament since some of it really doesn't apply today, at least not without substantial additional redaction." -- By a well-known New Testament scholar in answer to a student's question (1995)

Whoa! There are so many troublesome things in this statement that one hardly knows where to begin. Let me begin by stating that once one gets so caught up in the zeitgeist and decides that some of the Gospel doesn't really apply to today's more "sophisticated" forms of Christianity...well he might as well toss the whole thing. This, of course, is exactly what many folks like this have done. And what they haven't tossed, they have turned into an ideological manifesto that can be massaged and reinterpreted to ensure it applies to and supports their constantly changing lifestyles and shifting politics.

Why these people think they even need the Gospel is beyond me, but I suppose many are still at least culturally attached to their "faith" and need the reassurance and consolation they have associated with it. Or perhaps it's all about power, and their appeals to Scripture are needed to attract new adherents to whatever cause they espouse. Or I suppose it could just be simple intellectual arrogance and pride of the sort that's behind the generation of so many off-the-wall, wacko concepts.

And then there's that "redaction" comment. Of course, by "redaction" the exegete really meant a form of radical editing of the sort that has generated some of our more questionable Biblical translations. Ah, well, let's pray that our scholar has changed his views since 1995 and is now more willing to accept the Gospel as the Holy Spirit gave it to us. Trust me, it's radical enough as it is.

"We really don't know who the real Jesus was since virtually everything we know about him was written by his followers." -- By a priest and professor of theology during a Sunday homily (2004)

This has to be one of the more absurd comments I've ever heard in a homily, and so I won't expend too many words critiquing it. What the good father seems to be saying is that we really can't trust those disciples to speak or write the truth about Jesus. After all, they obviously liked Him and so would be unlikely to say anything negative about Him.

It's important to remember that the four evangelists never intended to write biographies; they were witnesses who wrote testimonies of their faith. The Holy Spirit had them include just enough biographical information about Jesus to support that faith and show Jesus as the fulfillment of Scripture. Unfortunately it would seem our homilist also completely disregards the rather important role of the Holy Spirit in the development of Holy Scripture. Either that or He doesn't trust the Spirit to speak the truth either.

I suppose if Pontius Pilate or Herod Antipas or Caiaphas or all three had left us their impressions of Jesus, our theology professor would have given these more weight than the Gospels.

"You can't understand the Gospel unless you have a strong grasp of the cultural, political, and religious aspects of life in first century Palestine." -- Moral theologian during a lecture on "Morality in the Gospels" (1996)

This is one of those statements that, to the educated person, sounds fine at first...until you think about it from a perspective of faith. Believe it or not, the Gospels were not written for theologians or Scriptural scholars. They were written for all of us -- for the wise and the not so wise, for the rich man and the beggar, and for the the educated and the illiterate. Yes, the Gospels were written even for the illiterate, for those unable to read them. My own first exposure to the Gospels came before I had learned to read, largely from my father who would regularly read or recite Gospel passages to my brother and me. And do you know something? Even as a child I could grasp the essential meaning of much of what I had heard.

Too many scholars get so wrapped up in the cultural and political particulars of the setting that they fail to grasp the timelessness of the Gospel message. And it is this message that the average Christian will usually comprehend without access to all that specialist knowledge. Yes, the Gospel can enlighten the mind, but through the mysterious working of the Holy Spirit it moves the hearts of all who approach it with humility and faith.

Enough for now. The grandchildren are calling for Papa, so I must respond. More later...

God's peace...