June 15, 2025 - Trinity Sunday
Prov 8, 22-31 ; Rom 5, 1-5 ; John 16,12-15
H O M I L Y
The Scripture describes creation as the work of a playful God. In the book of Proverbs we heard the Wisdom of God say: "When he made firm the skies above, when he fixed the foundations of the earth... I was beside him... and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in human persons”.
The book of Genesis shows God playing in the sand, or in the clay, on the early morning of creation, and ending up with a form in his hands – a form that he liked so much that he breathed into its nostrils His own breath of life, and it became a living being. Paul describes the same reality when he says, in a more theological language, that "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us".
We have been created at the image of God, from the own breath of God, bearing in our hearts a seed of divine life that is ever called to grow. Therefore, we may say that we have been created with an infinite capacity of growth.
Jesus of Nazareth is the human being in whom this capacity of growth reached its full flower: so much human (as God wanted human beings to be), so perfectly at the image of God, that He is that image, that He is God. Perfectly God and perfectly human. He lived in a human fashion everything that God is. He manifested to us the wealth of relationship, the capacity of love and commitment that God is.
He shared that experience with us: He spoke to us of His own relationship with God. He spoke of God as His Father. He said that His Father and He were one, that they were bound by a mystery of love that He called the Spirit. He also spoke of God as a tender mother; He spoke of Himself as the bridegroom as the shepherd. Through innumerable symbols and images He gave us a glimpse of the very rich affective life of God. It is important to remember that God is infinitely greater and wonderfully more beautiful than any of these symbols, which are so many windows allowing us to have a glimpse of the mystery.
John, the disciple closest to Jesus' heart, summed up all this teaching by saying that "God is love". Later on, a word was invented to describe this dance of life and love within God. We called it Trinity. Then the Fathers of the Church and the theologians elaborated various theological systems using the categories of person, nature, relationship, etc. inventing a more and more complicated language, using words like circumincession, and the like. Then they began to fight about those words and developed various heresies with still more exotic names. In the end all these systems and these deep theological reflections say nothing more than what John said in three words: God is love.
For us, the most wonderful thing is that we are called to join in that dance, to enter into that relationship, to join the divine Wisdom "playing before God on the surface of the earth, and finding our delight in the Sons and Daughters of God". If it is true that God is love, every time we authentically love, we share in God's nature and in God's life. Whether it is the love between parents and children, between spouses, between friends, between brothers or sisters in a monastic community, we share in God's life. When we love others, and also when we love ourselves (as God does), we live the mystery of the Trinity, of God who is at the same time lover, beloved and love.
At the end of the Last Supper Jesus told His disciples: "If you love me, you will keep my words. My Father will love you; and we will come and make our dwelling in you". The mystery of divine life is a mystery of indwelling, and therefore we could say that it is a monastic mystery. The word used in the Greek text for dwelling is "monè" which is the Greek name for monastery. Therefore Jesus is saying: "we will come and make our monastery in you". The etymology of "monè" or "monasterion" is the verb "menein", which means to dwell. A monastery, therefore, is nothing else than a "dwelling place", that is a place where we dwell on God's word, where we dwell together, and where God comes and dwells with us. A place of relationship, friendship, love. In other words, a place where we do not only proclaim but actually live the mystery of the Trinity: the threefold mystery of Someone who is lover, beloved and love. And of course, the same thing can be said of a family.
Armand Veilleux