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Homily for the feast of the
Most Holy Trinity - Year C - Jn. 16:12-15
by
Father Daniel Meynen
" Jesus said to his
disciples: «I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot
bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into
all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever
he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are
to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare
it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he
will take what is mine and declare it to you.» "
Homily:
" Jesus said to his
disciples: «I have yet many things to say to you...» "
One week after Pentecost,
that is to say today, we are celebrating the feast of the Most Holy
Trinity. After having welcomed the gift of the Holy Spirit promised by
Jesus on the Order of his Father, the Church invites all the believers
to remember the three divine persons in one and the same ceremony. How
could we ever separate them, in fact? The Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit are but one God: the Most Holy Trinity is not three gods, but
one God! The three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are
united in the unique divine essence!
" Jesus said to his
disciples: «I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot
bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into
all the truth.» "
Just before his Passion, on
the evening of Holy Thursday, Jesus said: "I have again yet many things
to say to you..." Jesus has come to the end of his life on earth, and
he says to his disciples that he has yet many things to say to them...
It is as though Jesus had not had time to accomplish all his mission
and that another had to come to continue it in his place... Yes, it is
indeed that; Jesus said so: "When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will
guide you into all the truth." Jesus is indeed the truth, for he has
just said: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." (Jn. 14:6) But
if Jesus is the truth, and the whole truth, for he is God and possesses
everything in fullness, another must come - the Holy Spirit - so that
this truth takes on another form, so to speak, another presentation, a
new dimension that enables the disciples and all believers to
understand it fully.
The truth - that which is
true - is the common point through which the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit appear to us. Saint John, in his first epistle, says so
clearly: "This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to
you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we
have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not
live according to the truth; but if we walk in the light, as he is in
the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus
his Son cleanses us from all sin." (1 Jn. 1:5-7)
" «He will glorify
me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the
Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and
declare it to you.» "
What the Holy Spirit comes
to communicate to us is the truth, the proper possession of the Father
which the Son possesses personally. The Holy Spirit communicates to us
the truth of the Father, not in the form in which the Father himself
possesses it, but in the form in which the Son gives it as the Son, as
this Jesus who was made Man and who died and rose again for us! The
truth which unites the three divine persons and which we are invited to
receive in the faith is a divine truth that, in a certain way, took on
human form through the Incarnation of the Word and underwent a painful
and crucifying dimension with the passage of Jesus from death to
resurrection. If Jesus was in the end condemned to death, that was
because Pilate, the last resort for Jesus, if indeed he could be, did
not believe in the truth: " «For this I was born, and for this I
have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who
is of the truth hears my voice.» Pilate said to him, «What
is truth?...» " (Jn. 18:37-38)
The Most Holy Trinity is
the Mystery of the Christian: all those who believe in Christ, the Son
of God, sent by the Father to give us the Spirit through the Blood of
his Cross, all those believe in the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.
Each time that we make the sign of the Cross, we confess our faith in
the Divine Trinity. It is a Mystery of faith, but a crucifying Mystery
for it is the sign of the Cross that recalls it to us. So it is not
surprising, then, if the celebration of the Eucharist, the sacrament of
Christ's sacrifice, also recalls to us the whole Mystery of the Most
Holy Trinity. From the beginning of the ceremony, which starts with the
sign of cross, up to the end, when the celebrant blesses the believers,
and including the great eucharistic Prayer that is addressed to the
Father, through the Son, in the Spirit, everything reminds us of the
Most Holy Trinity.
Let us pray therefore
together on this beautiful day when we commemorate the fundamental
Mystery of our faith! Let us ask Mary, who welcomed the Word of God in
Her, to understand a little better the truth that is in God and which
the Holy Spirit invites us to love with all our hearts and to defend
with all our strength!
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