Homily, Holy Trinity Sunday 2024
From The Pastor
Church religion is not always the entry point that leads to faith. Increasingly, in this post-modern world, formal religion is less likely to be the incentive that leads a person to active faith. What is it that draws us to God and inspires faith? Love is the root and the foundation that stirs an awakening to God that inspires a relationship of faith and trust.
Prior to the development of formal religion, people like Abraham and Moses were drawn by an inner encounter that touched them deeply. These ancient believers looked to the heavens gazing upon the stars with their hearts in awe. Something inside them stirred, and they began to listen to an inner voice that called them to a relationship with the Divine. God was making the Divine presence known for the sake of relationship. Abraham and Moses trusted this personal encounter that led to a relationship of faith.
To understand the Trinity, we must start at the beginning. God is love. God is a unity of love expressed in three foundational movements. God creates in love. God becomes incarnate in the Divine Son to redeem creation. God enters and remains in the human person and all creation through the Divine Spirit of Love. Love is our common nature and identity as human beings. Love is what makes us human, gives us dignity, instills a desire for unity and connection, and satisfies our fulfillment here and hereafter.
The Trinity is most often described as a mystery. It is a mystery, but not a hidden or unknowable one. God is a mystery because this side of heaven we cannot know the fulness of God as the Essence of Divine love. The power of Divine love creates out of nothing, surrenders to human sin through an incarnate Son who redeems all that is, and dwells in human beings and all creation in the Holy Spirit. Life is meaningless and unsustainable without love.
Why does the Trinity remain such a mystery? Because we look for its meaning outside ourselves. We look for a knowable understanding outside ourselves when the deepest meaning of the Trinity can only be known within us. God is the essence and origin of our being, our existence. God is within us. In the realization and acceptance of this reality, we discover the awareness of God in the joy and happiness God intended for us.
Love is our common identity as human beings. Growing in the awareness and acceptance of self-love is a lifelong task with innumerable ups and downs. Self-love reveals and awakens a person to the presence of God within. Self-love is an act of faith because it is an action and a gift of God meant for every human being. Self-love leads to a maturing self-identity that looks beyond the self toward relationships and connection with others. Love realized and accepted becomes love for and with others. Why? Because God is a pure relationship of love in a unity of persons in mutual self-giving. Each person of the Trinity is nothing without the unitive love of the others. The love of each person in the Trinity, Father-Son-Holy Spirit, Creator-Redeemer-Sanctifier, continuously flows each to the other in an endless dance of Divine energy.
This action is seen and experienced by those who accept God’s love and freely share it with others. Acceptance of Divine love honors the Creator, accepts the forgiveness of the Redeemer, and acts in the movements of the Holy Spirit. Mature love always has a humility that realizes it is not self-generated, created, or of itself sustained. God is the source. We do not and cannot redeem, heal, or forgive ourselves. This is the work and the gift of Jesus the Redeemer. We cannot animate or give ourselves meaning in the isolation of personal success. Any worthy activity motivated by love is the action of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. If this seems high and heady to you, consider the movements of love in your life. Do so with an interior awareness from the heart, and not an exterior or outer looking.
What moves, motivates, or inspires you? If you are looking from the heart, love is the truest response. Where there is love, God is present. Grandchildren motivate and inspire grandparents. Love is given and received. People love their cottages, the lake, and summer campfires. Often God is unnamed, but on everyone’s mind or felt perception. Enjoyable hobbies, recreation, satisfying work, gardening, woodworking and the like all serve as avenues to the presence of God.
Human relationships are a privileged place to experience God. Love, affection, friendship, camaraderie, group support, and faith communities all reveal and inspire the security, stability, and happiness of God’s presence. Forgiveness of wrongs, resolution in conflict, and tolerance in change all reveal the action and presence of the Holy Trinity. Feel and appreciate the love in your life and give thanks and praise to God who is the source and origin of it all. Embrace the gift of your life, the redemption of your soul, and the inspiration of your love. All praise and glory to the Holy Trinity of God.
Father John Esper
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