Loveable and Communicable Trinitarian God

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity Homily 16.06.2019: Pro 8:22-31; Rom 5:1-5; Jn 16:12-15

Listen to my homily here

Dear Friends in the Blessed Trinity,

I would like to begin my reflections on the Holy Trinity as we celebrate its feast today with the picture of the Blessed Trinity, "Svyataya Troitsa" (Свята́я Тро́ица) as it is called in Russian. This icon was painted by Andrei Rublev, which is known as “Troitsa” – Trinity.

I

My friends, the Trinity tells us something remarkable about who we are and what we ought to be. Church’s dogma tells us simply and profoundly. There is but one God. In this One God there are three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These three Persons are really distinct: The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. Each of these Persons is really and truly God. And still there is but one God. In other words, there is uniqueness, there is fullness and there is completeness in the trinity

St John’s definition of God: “God is Love” (1 Jn 4:8). In the Trinity we find the perfect realisation of perfect love.

What makes God God – we call it the divine nature – the Father has it completely, the Son has it completely, the Spirit has completely. No one has anything the other does not have. The Father gives to the Son literally all that He Himself has, all that makes Him God, all that makes Him Love. And the Son is a perfect Son, because He is the perfect image of his Father.

The incredible thing is that the love with which the Son loves the Father is the selfsame infinite love with which the Father loves the Son. And this love of Father and Son, this love is the Holy Spirit. God is an eternal exchange of love.

Just as the Trinity keeps the distinction among themselves without being separated so too we have to be utterly and splendidly ourselves, develop ourselves with all the wealth of our talents and personality God has given us.

It is the only way we have of being useful to others, by bringing to them, in a gift of ourselves, what we alone can give them. Just as musical note helps the harmony only by being itself.

II

When the things are difficult to our minds to understand then the best way is to enter the world of an artist and his /her imagination. Sometimes abstract theological constructs constrain us to understand the rudiments of our faith. 

The well-known icon of the Trinity was painted by a Russian Monk Andrei Rublev in the 15th century. He lived between 1360-1430’s in the Monasteries of Moscow. This icon of the Holy Trinity depicts an embodiment of spiritual unity, peace, harmony, mutual love and humility.

Our life experience is as such that we do not understand often our own near ones. You might have heard from your friends saying, “I do not understand my mom or dad”, and the parents saying, “I do not understand my son or daughter”. Often we are mystery to our own people. This is the similar case with regard to the Holy Trinity. As a whole it’s very easy to understand what this Holy Trinity is all about, but when get down in describing it or explaining to others we find it extremely difficult.

We are baptised by invoking the names of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Jesus commanded his 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,” (Mt 28:19).

Jesus himself invoked the names of the Holy Trinity, which would give a person a new life in the Lord. All our liturgies, be it Holy Eucharist, Sacrament of reconciliation or our personal or family prayers begin with invoking the blessings of the Trinity and so too we end them with names of the Trinity.

Now we come to the icon of the Trinity, which you see in the slide. This icon is still preserved and allowed for public viewing in the Tretekov gallery of Moscow city. This icon of Monk Andrei Rublev speaks a lot of about the Trinity. This famous icon poignantly symbolises the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

It is based on the story from the book of Genesis 18:1-15 called “Abraham and Sara’s hospitality”. The biblical Patriarch Abraham was sitting at the door of his tent in the heat of the day by Oak of Mamre and saw three men standing in front of him, who in the next chapter were revealed as angels.

The fruit of Abraham’s hospitality to these three people is a promised son to Abraham.

Three characters are sitting around three sides of a table, leaving open the symbolic possibility of the viewer joining them.

They have the same thick wavy hair, the same face. If their lips are closed, it is probably because they prefer silence to chatting and, as they know each other intimately, a glance or a gesture is enough for them to understand each other.

Each of the faces stand out as their wings.

From the point of view of composition, the three halos are inscribed in a large circle centered on the hand of the central character.

Each of the angelic figures holds a stick and the direction is right to left so too their eyes but the glow of the eyes not static but dynamic and focused.

The religious work encapsulates the mysterious relationship between the Father, the Son and the Spirit.

Even though the Christian tradition quickly saw in these three visitors of Abraham an evocation of the mystery of the Trinity: the only God is at the same time Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This hypostases or persona is revealed through their symbolic attributes, i.e. the house, the tree, and the mountain.

The starting point of the divine rule is the creative Will of God. Abraham’s house is placed above the left angel’s head. The tree can be interpreted as the tree of life, a reminder of Jesus’ death on the Cross and subsequent resurrection which opens up to eternal life.

This Oak tree is at the centre, above the angel who symbolizes Jesus. Finally, the mountain is a symbol of spiritual ascent, which humanity accomplishes with the help of the Holy Spirit.

But the God who reveals himself remains 'Unrecognizable' and, on the spiritual path, the one who claims to "know" is on the wrong path. As St. Thomas Aquinas himself says God often appears to us as “Deus Absconditus” as hidden God, concealed, unknown God, unknowability on the essence of God.

Therefore, the icon does not therefore directly represent the three divine persons (unrepresentable in Eastern spirituality), but it passes through the mediation of these three archangels, images of their Creator, to introduce us to the mysterious relationships of the Trinity.

The most widespread interpretation is that the angel on the left evokes the Father, the angel in the centre the Son and the angel on the right the Spirit.

In the Byzantine iconography Christ is depicted as Basileous, king in majesty, Pantocrator etc. Therefore it has come to suggest Christ as a mild but stern, all-powerful judge of humanity.

The Son wears the brown tunic that symbolises earth, his humanity and his given life and the blue mantle that evokes his divinity and the gold speaks of kingship of God. Placed above it, the tree that refers to the Mamre oak is an allusion to the cross, the tree of life.

Coming back to the book of Genesis 1:1-2 writes, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters...”. So too the book of Proverbs evokes similar understanding in today’s reading.

In other words, Spirit of the Lord was always at work in the works of the Father and of the Son. It is the spirit of the Lord that lead Jesus into his public ministry and the incident happens at the river Jordan when Jesus received the Baptism from St John (Mt 3:13-17).

The Son naturally turns to the Father: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was turned to God" (Jn 1:1). Above it, the architecture depicted undoubtedly evokes the "house of the Father" to the "many dwellings" of which Jesus speaks in the Gospel (cf. Jn 14:2). The angel on the right, whose coat has green reflections, evokes the Spirit who enlivens.

Their relationship is not closed; it is open to men. The cup, a reminder of the Eucharist around which they are gathered, symbolises God's great love for men, which will be fully expressed in the gift that the Son will give of himself.

III

The Russian émigré theologian Vladimir Lossky famously said “Between the Trinity and hell there lies no other choice”. He writes in his famous work “Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church", “If we reject the Trinity as the sole ground of all reality and of all thought, we are committed to a road that leads nowhere; we end in an aporia, in folly, in the disintegration of our being, in spiritual death. Between the Trinity and hell there lies no other choice. This question is, indeed, crucial— in the literal sense of that word. The dogma of the Trinity is a cross for human ways of thought” (p.66). Yes, it’s difficult but essential. Incarnation and resurrection is not possible without the work of the Trinity.

What scripture tells us, in story form is that the mystery of the Trinity is our own history: We exist because we are loved- loved by the Father through the Son in the Spirit. To grasp this you need only open yourself in faith to God’s word. Read Scripture with eyes of faith and the Trinity will no longer be difficult subject to grasp but a joy for believers.

Today we share in the rhythm of God’s own life. Christian holiness is essentially Trinitarian. We are all sons and daughters of the Father, precisely because the very Spirit that is Christ’s own is now given to us. And so today we celebrate the Eucharist with singular understanding: Inspired by the Spirit, we offer Christ and ourselves to the Father in sacrifice, cry aloud in thanksgiving: “Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honour is yours, almighty Father, forever and ever!” Amen.

Questions for Reflections:
1. What role does the Holy Trinity play in my life?
2. Does my uniqueness contribute in anyway for the welfare of others?

- Olvin Veigas, SJ

Trinity Sunday, 2019