The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Saint Anthony Parish (Omaha, Nebraska)
May 22, 2005
If you were to ask me to summarize the meaning of this Solemnity in two words I would say: unity and diversity. The Trinity, you
see, is one and yet three, three and yet one, without contradiction, division or confusion. Would that man, would that the Church,
would that this Archdiocese, would that this Parish learn how to be more one in their diversity and yet more diverse in their unity!
For four years as a College seminarian I lived at Holy Trinity Parish in the Iron-bound section of Newark, New Jersey, where Father
Peter was an excellent administrator for six years. Since Father’s departure in the early 1990s Holy Trinity Parish has passed from being
predominantly Lithuanian to being predominately Portuguese. As I am now here at Saint Anthony Parish in the Archdiocese of Omaha
since the Spring of 2003 I am painfully reminded, given our present circumstances, of certain sayings of Our Lord in the Gospel, “A
house divided against itself cannot stand,” “He who is not with me is against me,” and furthermore “that they may be one even as we are
one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou has sent me and hast loved
them even as thou hast loved me.” All of these sayings lead me to wonder about the future of this parish’s identity, the future of its own
unity in diversity and diversity in unity.
If you take anything away from this homily today please take away this lesson about the essential need for genuine unity and
diversity in our lives, most especially in the Church, for “unless the Lord builds the house in vain do its laborers work.” Remember too
that the Greek word diabolos, from which we get such English words as devil and diabolical, means “to throw across into confusion.” My
dear people, unity in diversity and diversity in unity is the sure work of the Triune God, confusion is the sure work of the devil, who either
works directly or through our human sinfulness. And know that if God permits the devil to bring about confusion it is always so that a
greater unity in diversity and a greater diversity in unity might result. Also, we should never confound the works (plural) of the flesh with
the fruit (singular) of the Spirit who founded the Church on Pentecost.
Being here at Saint Anthony Parish reminds me of the Trinitarian preaching of our parish’s patron saint but likewise of how Saint
Cecilia, the patroness of the Archdiocese of Omaha, a virgin-martyr in 3rd century pagan Rome, professed her Trinitarian faith with her
outstretched fingers as she lay dying with her head half severed on the street outside of her home because she refused to give up her
virginity to a pagan suitor. Let us ask the intercession of both of these great saints, so that unity in diversity and diversity in unity will be
more clearly manifest in our lives as a fruit of the Holy Trinity’s action and our loving, obedient, faithful cooperation with the same.
A most poignant reminder for me of this divine-human cooperation, expressing the unity and diversity of the Church, one, holy,
catholic and apostolic, was when I had the privilege of being present in the Vatican on May 6, 2005. On that day, in the Courtyard of
Saint Damascus, the new members of the Swiss Guard made their oath of fidelity to the Holy See, to defend the life of the Sovereign
Pontiff “usque ad effusionem sanguinis,” “to the point of shedding their blood,” as so many of them in fact did when Pope Clement VII
came under siege during the sack of Rome on May 6, 1527.
On that momentous occasion, I witnessed a dozen or more Swiss Guard firmly grasp with their left hand a banner with the new
Papal Coat of Arms as they thrust the first three fingers of their right hand into the air, professing their faith in the Trinity and swearing
before the Triune God their allegiance to the Pope. Each new Swiss Guard made the same oath in the language of his particular
canton or province. Whether they spoke in German, French, Italian or Romansch, each man professed loudly and clearly his
adherence to the one Faith, his singular allegiance to the Sovereign Pontiff as Vicar of Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed
Trinity, one God in three Divine Persons.
When I reflect on this most central dogma of our Catholic-Christian faith so many ideas flood my mind that I am left
contemplating the simple fact, the simple truth that the mystery of the Triune God can never be fully explained and/or comprehended
in our limited human language. Saint Augustine said that, “God is more intimate to me than I am to myself.” Saint Anselm of
Canterbury once remarked that, “God is greater than that which anything can be thought.” The Angelic Doctor, Saint Thomas Aquinas,
who is often depicted with the five fingers of his right hand spread apart as indicative of his five proofs or arguments for God’s existence,
taught us that we can speak of God only by use of analogy. Furthermore, “the Dumb Ox,” as he was nicknamed by his fellow classmates,
teaches us that it is easier to say what God is not, the so-called Via Negativa, than to say what God is, the so-called Via Positiva.
Nevertheless, everything we Catholic-Christians think, say and do should have as its beginning, apex and final purpose the glory of
the Most Blessed Trinity. A powerful reminder of this truth is emblazoned on the coat of arms of our new Holy Father, Benedict XVI. In
the lower portion of his coat of arms one finds a sea shell. What does this symbol signify? The sea shell is traditionally identified with
Christians who, baptized with water in the Name of the Three Persons of the Trinity, have begun their pilgrimage of faith toward the
harbor of heaven.
The use of the sea shell in the present Papal coat of arms has a further Trinitarian underpinning. Saint Augustine of Hippo
recounts how he met a young boy along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The boy was filling his sea shell with the water of the sea
and then dumping it into a hole that he had dug into the sand in the hope that he could eventually get all the water of the sea into his
hole. Saint Augustine, who was much preoccupied about the mystery of the Trinity at the time, heard the mysterious voice of the child
say: “Just as this hole serves so little to hold all the water of the sea, so too your own reason serves so little to contain the mystery of
God.”
The Trinity is a doctrine that clearly characterizes authentic Christian belief. It distinguishes us from the strict monotheism of Jews
and Muslims which fails to reconcile God’s transcendence and immanence, especially as concerns the mystery of the Incarnation. It
separates us from the anthropomorphic gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus, the pantheon of ancient Greek and Roman deities, who
remained cold, aloof and capricious in man’s regard. It is a line of demarcation between us and sects like Mormonism and Jehovah
Witnesses whose baptisms are invalid precisely because, as Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) explained as former Prefect of
the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, they do not adhere to the Church’s Trinitarian dogma as it was formulated by the ancient
Councils and reiterated ever since. Furthermore, the Church holds that no baptism is to be considered valid which is performed without
using the Trinitarian formula.
The Trinity teaches us that our God is not a solitary being, but, on the contrary, constitutes a divine family or communion of three
persons who eternally reciprocate supernatural love and life, divine holiness and truth. Saint Augustine, Saint Bonaventure and Pope
John Paul II taught us that the life and love of the human family is meant to mirror the divine life and love shared among the three
persons of the Blessed Trinity.
Just as the Father loves wholeheartedly and unreservedly the Son and the Son likewise the Father and the bond, the fruit of their
love is the person of the Holy Spirit so too is the husband called to love totally his wife and vice versa, so that their mutual love, their
bond of charity, the fruit of their sacrificial and ecstatic love is another distinct person, namely the child. In other words, analogously
speaking, if the Father is the lover, the Son is the beloved and the Spirit is their mutual love so too the husband is the lover, his wife is
the beloved and the child is a concrete expression of the mutual love of the spouses who once two have become one flesh.
If Saint Irenæus of Lyons, a Father of the Church in the 3rd century, could say that God the Father has two hands, namely the Son
and the Spirit, then perhaps we can say analogously that the husband or father as head of the family has two hands, his wife and his
child or children as it were. The defense, therefore, of the human family, of the inalienable right to life from conception to natural
death, of the indissolubility of the Sacrament of Marriage between only a man and a woman signifies defending the Church’s
understanding of the most fundamental truth which she preaches and teaches, without which dogma she would not even exist, the
dogma of the Most Holy Trinity.
The dogma of the Trinity is, whether one realizes or not, the source and summit of our existence as human beings. It is not a mere
abstract concept, a sum of formulæ, worthy of philosophical and theological debate and speculation. Rather, for us who are baptized
the Trinity it is the very root source of our whole life’s identity and mission.
It is not enough for us to accept God as an intellectual concept, to believe that God exists or to know facts about God, but faith
and reason working together in harmony should lead us to know God in an on-going personal relationship and thus to experience His
attributes, His omnipotent mercy and justice in the concrete circumstances of our daily lives. Consequently, we have an obligation to
evangelize most especially those who profess belief in God, even in a Triune God, yet who live as practical atheists, living as though
God’s existence has nothing to do with their way of thinking, feeling and living.
In this Marian month of May we also seek to understand Mary’s relationship to the Trinity. Saint Bonaventure reflects thus in his
commentary on the Hail Mary:
Now take good heed and understand how worthy this feast and this solemnity is; and have therefore a spiritual gladness and
make a special feast, in thy soul thanking God inwardly; for such was never heard before. For this is the solemnity of all the Holy Trinity,
Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, by whom this sovereign deed of the Incarnation was wrought and fulfilled . . . . This also is a special
feast of Our Lady Saint Mary, who on this day was chosen by the Father of Heaven to be His dear Daughter; and of the Son to be His
mild Mother; and of the Holy Ghost to be His Special Spouse.
Today, in a special way we rejoice exceedingly in this great mystery of our faith, we rejoice exceedingly in the unity and diversity
that do have and we do experience precisely because we are faithful children of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We profess solemnly
today and everyday those sublime truths about the Trinity so beautifully summarized in the following ancient prayer of the Church that
concludes the Office of Readings on Sundays and Solemnities. This prayer is known by its Latin title, Te Deum. It was quite dear to the
heart of our own Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman, so thus we too pray it in union with him and with all our ancestors in the one,
holy, catholic and apostolic faith:
We praise you, O God: we acclaim you as the Lord.
Everlasting Father, all the world bows down before you.
All the angels sing your praise, the hosts of heaven and all
the angelic powers, all the cherubim and seraphim cry out to you
in unceasing song: Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of angelic hosts!
The heavens and the earth are filled with your majesty and glory.
The glorious band of apostles, the noble company of prophets, the white-robed army who shed their blood for Christ, all sing
your praises. And to the ends of the earth your holy Church proclaims faith in you. Father, whose majesty is boundless, your true and
only Son, who is to be adored, the Holy Spirit sent to be our advocate. You, O Christ, are the King of glory, Son of the eternal Father.
When you took our nature to save mankind, you did not spurn the Virgin’s womb. You overcame the power of death opening the Father’s
kingdom to al who believe in you. Enthroned at God’s right hand in the glory of the Father, you will come in judgment according to
your promise. You redeemed your people by your precious Blood. Come, we implore you, to our aid. Grant us with the saints a place of
glory everlasting. Lord, save your people and bless your inheritance. Rule them and uphold them for ever and ever. Day by day we
praise you: we acclaim you now and to all eternity. In your goodness, Lord, keep us free from sin. Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy.
May your mercy always be with us, Lord, for we have hoped in you. In you, O Lord, we put our trust: we shall not be put to shame.
