Trinity Sunday
St Mary's Cathedral
Ex 34:4-6, 8-9 2 Cor 13:11-13 Jn 3:16-18
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
26 May 2002
Today is God's feast, when we celebrate the mystery of God in all its fullness.
Trinity Sunday celebrates not just God's Son living among us - as at Christmas and Easter - but the whole baffling mystery of love; spiritual, invisible, but absolutely real and all powerful. It is the feast day of the only true God, the creator of the entire universe and our tiny planet, who is worshipped by all monotheists; not only by Christians, but by Jews and Moslems as well.
Therefore God is not a tribal god (as many believed for a long time, including many Jews). They used to boast their "god" was a stronger than their opponent's god (like my football team is better than yours!).
Knowledge of God is not just the fruit of human intelligence, although our instincts and nature are wired, if faultily, into recognizing God. God revealed his nature to the Jewish people. We do not know why they were chosen. It is possible even that some of the neighbouring Egyptians, a much more highly developed civilization, came to suspect or acknowledge briefly the oneness of God. Jews were a small, fierce group of tribes - no match in power or wealth for the neighbouring Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and then Greeks. But God chose them, protected them and acted through them. Choosing them was nearly as odd as choosing to send God among us, when His Son, the Eternal Word, took on a Jewish human nature.
Unlike the Jews and Moslems we believe Almighty God is a Trinity of persons Father, Son and Spirit. Some of us would remember the example St Patrick is reputed to have given the Irish - one shamrock with three leaves to represent Father, Son and Spirit.
There was fierce debate, much hard thinking and serious divisions in the Church for well over 400 years as Pope and bishops tried to clarify the full significance of the Trinity. The Emperors wanted Christianity to unite the Empire and not provoke serious divisions. They often backed one side or the other, occasionally imprisoning or exiling bishops on the wrong side. St Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria and defender of divinity of Christ, was exiled seven times.
Was Jesus as Son of God the equal of the Father in divinity? or was He partly divine or perhaps only a perfect human being; the most perfect human being who ever lived?
These struggles are reflected in the Creed we recite at every major Mass, based on the gathering of bishops at the council of Nicaea in 325.
Once it had been taught officially that Jesus was the "only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God," as we will soon recite, the theological quarrels moved on to the nature of the Holy Spirit whom we revere as "the Lord, the giver of life, who is worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son".
The Eastern European Christians loved theology and entered into fierce theological quarrels. In Constantinople (modern Istanbul), then capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, often the smart set would only come for the sermon, to hear the latest round of the theological quarrel!
They were the opposite of some of the Irish Australian men 100 years ago, who would leave the Church for a smoke while the sermon was preached and come back for the offertory!
We recall the Trinity every time we bless ourselves with the sign of the Cross. People are baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. An important basis of our belief is in the second reading taken from St Paul writing to the Corinthians: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all".
All of this is interesting and important, but the more foundational truth is that God is love and God loves every one of us. The 19th century English theologian Cardinal Newman once wrote that worse than there being no God, would be a God who did not love us.
From Moses' time, despite occasional Old Testament language about God's anger, we heard today of a "God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness and faithfulness." Jesus God's only Son, showed us God's love in action; he revealed what God is like.
The God of our fathers and mothers, known for more than 3000 years, is a good God, who created all truth and beauty in the universe and all history. We praise God and bless him; thank him for all good things.
In the words of today's psalm:
You are blessed, Lord of all fathers.
Glory and praise to you forever.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
