Why this homily matters?
Understanding the Trinity is difficult. Communicating it is even more so. Bishop Barron’s homily on the Trinity is excellent.
The Trinity is at the very heart of our entire spiritual life and embodies the history of our salvation.
Key Points on the Trinity
One way of understanding the Trinity is based on the work of St Thomas Aquinas (Mens Notitia Sui – The mind and its interior word).
Consider that things make images of themselves. We will explore examples of this below.
Aquinas refers to beings in a hierarchy
- Rocks,
- Plants,
- Animals,
- Humans and then
- God.
The higher you go in the hierarchy, then the process of image making changes. The higher you go the more perfect and the more interior the image made becomes. Let’s take some examples.
Level 1 – Rocks
For Aquinas in the middle ages, the lowest level of being would be basic physical objects like rocks. (N.B. We see in Quantum science that subatomic particles have spooky influences on each other. So what Aquinas is describing can be applied even within our modern understanding).
How does a rock communicate? Think of a rock that has been sitting on the ground for a while. It will leave an impression of itself in the ground. Or if you throw it through a window, it will also leave an image of itself. Finally, it will cast a reflection in water or a mirror of itself.
So at this basic level of being, image making is going on all the time. But the kind of image that is being made is very low level. The indentation in the ground is hardly perfect. The fractured window will not be a perfect image of the rock. And the reflection in the mirror is only a two-dimensional representation. So hardly perfect.
Level 2 – Plants and vegetative beings.
Besides the same sort of images that the rock would make, plants can also reproduce themselves. Their seeds produce saplings and images of themselves.
Level 3 – Animals
Consider a mammal and the young one gestating in the womb of its mother. The image making is becoming more intense.
Level 4 – Humans.
We can reproduce ourselves in these lower level ways. But we are also able to form an image of ourselves in our minds. We can interrogate ourselves. For example, we may ask ourselves what was I thinking yesterday? The I is asking me. In this process, are there 2 people? No, an image has been made inside ourselves. The mind has made an image of itself in a remarkably perfect and interior way.
Recall if you have been through counseling to understand yourself more thoroughly. There is a you who is doing the understanding and there is a you who is being understood.
Level 5 – God
God is the creator of all things both visible and invisible.
God is able to make a perfect interior image.
In God, who is supreme and infinite intelligence, there is a mens (mind). The mind of God is able to form a perfect image of himself. The interior word of the Father, we call this the Son. The Son proceeds from the Father. The nature of this image is not like a rock, or plant or animals or our minds. The Father generates a perfect image of Himself. Just like my imaging does not produce 2 separate people. The imaging of God does not create 2 different Gods. One God in these 2 different persons – Father and Son.
What happens when the Father and Son look at each other. They fall in love. Augustin called this Amor Sui (self-love). Fulton Sheen said that when the Father and Son look at each other they breathe forth a sigh of love. Seeing their utter perfection, that breath is what we call the Holy Spirit.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit – One god in 3 images.
Why does the Trinity Matter?
God wants to communicate with us. He wants us to become sharers in the very life that he is. God, the Father so loved the world that he sent his Son (his interior word). Sending him to the limit of being godforsaken and dying on a cross. The Trinity therefore embodies the entire history of salvation.
Also, through the Holy Spirit, the love that Father and Son share, God can draw all things back to himself. God is seeking us. And so, the Trinity is at the very heart of our entire spiritual life.
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Suggested Homily
Scripture References
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15