Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA
Jesus
says to his disciples: “I have much more to tell you, but you
cannot bear it now.” You mean, there's more?! Given everything that
Jesus taught his disciples in the three short years he spent among
them, I'm not surprised that the poor souls couldn't bear it. I'm not
sure I can. What more can there be to tell? He's told us about the
Law of Love; the necessity of forgiving one another; he gave us a
commission to make disciples and baptize them; to remember him in the
Eucharist; and he warned us that remaining in his word would lead to
some nasty consequences for us in the world. All this he told his
disciples back then, and we know it now b/c his apostles wrote it all
down. The promises, the warnings, the teachings, the sermons, the
miracles. . .all of it. All of it except that which the disciples
could not bear right then. What couldn't the disciples bear? Jesus
says, “. . .when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you
to all truth. . .and [he] will declare to you the things that are
coming.” Apparently, the disciples could not – right then –
bear the weight of all
truth nor endure the
news of the things to
come.
Just
last week we celebrated the promised coming of the Holy Spirit, the
spirit of truth. We celebrated the birth of the Church, the birth of
our mission as witnesses to God's freely offered mercy to sinners. At
the First Pentecost, the disciples were given the fullness of the
Holy Spirit's power to preach and teach the Gospel to every nation.
They were set on fire with a passion for giving testimony to God's
goodness. The Holy Spirit swept through their anger and bitterness
and disappointment and fear, burning away every trace of doubt, and
set them all squarely on the path to becoming missionaries of
Christ's peace. We could've come away from our Pentecost Sunday
celebration last week believing that that was then
and this is now,
believing that the Holy Spirit blew through those people way back
then, but now the Holy Spirit must surely rest in heaven with the
Father and the Son. His work is done. No! In fact, Trinity Sunday is
our celebration of the Holy Spirit's on-going work among us, his work
in guiding us to all truth, his persistent enlightenment of the
Church as we confront the things that are to come. Left without the
enduring ministry of the Holy Spirit, the Church would fall into
fundamentalism and fractious denominationalism. The Trinity abides
among us in the mission of the Holy Spirit to the Church.
The
Church long ago accepted that the Blessed Trinity is a mystery, the
central mystery of the faith. Being a mystery means that fully
understanding the truth of the Trinity will have to wait until we
stand before God face-to-face. Being a mystery does not mean that we
can know nothing about the truth of the Trinity, only that what we
can know is always partial, imperfect. We know that the Trinity is
not three different gods. Nor is He one god with three working modes.
Nor is He one god with two minor gods working for Him. The Church
teaches that God is three Divine Persons in a unity of Divine
Substance. One God, three Persons – Father, Son, Holy Spirit. What
this unity is
absolutely is beyond the finite mind. How these Persons relate within
the unity is beyond us. We could say that it is too much for us to
bear. . .right now. What we need to know and believe is that at the
moment of creation, God the Father breathed the Holy Spirit and spoke
His Son the Word over the void and everything that is came to be. The
Blessed Trinity is inextricably infused into the very fabric of
creation – transcending creation, of course! – but still abiding
in the stuff of the universe. The Holy Spirit's continuing mission to
the Church is to guide us toward the truth and strengthen us for what
is to come.
Where
the Holy Spirit is so too is the Father and the Son. The Catechism
teaches: “[God's plan of loving kindness] unfolds in the work of
creation, the whole history of salvation after the fall, and the
missions of the Son and the Spirit, which are continued in the
mission of the Church”(257). Did you catch that? The missions of
the Son and the Holy Spirit are continued in the mission of the
Church. The Son's mission is to preach the Good News of the Father's
mercy to sinners and to die for those sinners so that they could
return to the Father made perfect. The Spirit's mission is to reveal
all truth and strengthen the Church for the things to come. If their
missions are continued in the Church, then the Church's missions are
the same: preach the Good News; make sacrifices to bring sinners to
the Father; reveal and teach the truth; and strengthen one another
for the things to come. Inasmuch as our creation is trinitarian, and
our re-creation from the Cross is trinitarian, so too is our mission
as new men and women in the Church trinitarian. Can we bear this
truth right now? Can we hear it and obey?
We
can. . .if we will.
Our celebration of Trinity Sunday is not simply a Mass to remind us
that there's this really
obscure dogma that theologians believe is really
important. Trinity Sunday follows Pentecost because with the coming
of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we have the full revelation of the
Trinity to contemplate. And we have the missionary work of the Spirit
to assist us in living out our trinitarian ministry. When we love and
forgive and seek forgiveness and share the faith and live in hope,
when we do all these things we so along with the Blessed Trinity as
imperfect agents of Perfect Love. Our imperfect work with the Blessed
Trinity sharpens our love for God, make His love in us more perfect,
and brings us to more gratefully receive His gifts. Can we bear all
the truth? We can. . .if we will. We can if we will give ourselves
over to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in all things. We can if we
will give ourselves over to the freedom bought and paid for by Christ
on his Cross. We can if we will give ourselves over to the mercy that
the Father Himself guarantees is ours for the asking. We can bear all
truth and be strong for the things to come if we will make our own
the sacrificial ministry of the Blessed Trinity.
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