Homily from the Parish Priest for Trinity Sunday
“One of the silver linings amid the tragedy of the pandemic has been the way in which so many have come together to care for the weakest in society”. Something I’ve heard many times lately – and it’s true – certainly here at Farm Street we’ve seen that expressed so powerfully over these last 15 months. And the effect of that, in an unexpected and of course totally unintended way, has been to show the Church as a whole in a better light. The Christian vocation is indeed to spread our faith through deeds more than words. One common criticism of Christian faith is not practicing what we preach – too many words, too little action.
So why, when what we profess rather than what we do, is so much less important, do we need doctrine? Why on earth believe in something as strange as the Trinity? Why do we need to accept the teaching most Christians profess that God is one in three persons? Is it really necessary? Surely doesn’t it make religion less real, less hands on, less grounded than we hope to be and to appear? Well, for me, rather than lead us off track, our belief in the Trinity draws us into a more grounded perception of our faith in God. God creates, God becomes human flesh and God stays with us as our strength and power. In the God the Father of creation, the Son who is rooted to this earth, the Spirit who is our life force in the world, we see a God who is truly present right under our noses in the world we inhabit.
And that God is truly present in our world through you and me. Yes, we have a God also behind the cloud, shrouded in mystery, yet that God who is unveiled in Christ and poured into our hearts through the giving of the Holy Spirit, this is a God, the God, who lives in our world and in particular in his people, each one of us called to serve him through how we serve each other and are good stewards of the earth we inhabit. God who is present in a special way in us, in human beings, baptised in his name, in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When we respond to his call in our lives we live out our baptism and our confirmation in the Holy Spirit when we are strengthened as adults to live the Christian life according to the virtues and gifts bestowed on us. We live out what is deep within us, the very presence of a God who is our origin and final end, who experienced every human emotion and thought but without sin, and whose power is a force of spiritual energy in the world.
And yet the mystery of the Trinity remains a mystery. It is simple and real and yet, as St Augustine teaches us, when we begin to say we understand God’s presence fully, we realise we can never express the full grandeur of who God is. The reality of the tragedy of the pandemic, of the ways in which right now so many are stricken by the death of loved ones, a year without access to loved ones and to each other in society, the businesses closed down – many around this neighbourhood of London – shows us, some would argue, that God is absent or belief in God must be false. As we heard last week in Cardinal Vincent’s pastoral letter the world we inhabit is heading towards destruction as climate change takes hold – so is this not the proof that a good God would not allow this to happen? Has the creator lost control of his creation? Or is our belief in him just part of an outdated world view. It’s sometimes very hard to find God in all things when we detect his absence right under our noses.
But this is where the doctrine of the Trinity comes in. Because what we profess in the Creed is belief in a mystery which together as a community we profess as a people bound by a common experience of humanity, searching to discover where this mysterious God is real in the midst of a very troubled world. I hear fairly regularly these days – in fact I have regularly over the years at Farm Street – from people who find right at the heart of doubt and difficulties, right in the midst of the nitty gritty of broken relationships and lives which are torn apart, deep existential questions. I think many in our society are yearning not so much to make logical sense of the beliefs of the Christian and Catholic faith, but desiring to embrace a mystery, embrace what for me is the mystery of faith which professes a hopeful certainty that God is right at the heart of it. The God present in our world is in the midst of of all the broken hearts, the failure to flourish, the lies of corruption, the evil of conflict and war, yet his Spirit is to be found in the soaring of the human spirit which incarnates a God whose mercy flows on our streets as those who live on the streets gather to share food and company with volunteers wanting to help, where sheer goodness is infectious, where the image of God in humanity is discerned so clearly when we take time to meditate on God’s beautiful creation and how it is enraptured by God’s grandeur.
And this is what we profess and we live together. We are a people of faith, in it together. Pope Francis, in The Light of Faith (Lumen Fidei) explores what having Christian faith really means to people of today. “Faith is not a private matter, a completely individualistic notion or a personal opinion: it comes from hearing, and it is meant to find expression in words and to be proclaimed. For "how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?" (Rom 10:14). Faith becomes operative in the Christian on the basis of the gift received, the love which attracts our hearts to Christ (cf. Gal 5:6), and enables us to become part of the Church’s great pilgrimage through history until the end of the world”.
Where in my life do I see the presence of the God who has created the world, who is present in it, and who sustains it? And how will my faith contribute to the common good of society? Pope Francis again is clear that “faith is truly a good for everyone; it is a common good. Its light does not simply brighten the interior of the Church, nor does it serve solely to build an eternal city in the hereafter; it helps us build our societies in such a way that they can journey towards a future of hope”.
May Trinity Sunday lead us more deeply into the mystery of the God who is real and who calls us to embrace the mystery and respond to the call he makes of each and everyone of us to realise our vocation to be fully human, to be his presence in our world longing to be touched by the breath of his loving kindness.
Fr Dominic Robinson SJ