A Homily for Trinity Sunday

+ In this morning’s Gospel we hear Our Lord’s final instructions to His disciples given as He ascended into heaven: to baptise all peoples and to teach them all that I have commanded you. The two can never be truly separated, nor neglected. Europe, now being mission territory, requires us to take up this command anew with zeal and vigour. The unchanging truth of the Gospel, the Good news of our Redemption, imperatively demands proclamation.

It is only through baptism in the name of the Most Holy Trinity that we can be saved. Precisely because baptism is a once and for all event in our lives, we must guard the purity of that baptism ever more closely intact. It is for this reason that Our Lord so pertinently repeats that association of teaching with baptism. And what is it that is be taught? “To observe all that I have commanded you.” Without any doubt this includes the final command to baptise, in the name of the threefold persons who are one God. But this is far from all. It includes all the precepts assuring justice and charity before God. This is sacramental and ritual demand just as it is a moral one. Keeping the Lord’s Day holy, for example, requires the rightful worship of God and doing what good to one's neighbour as may be found needful.

No commandment, divinely given, can be explained away or be manipulated or inverted through some sophism. God has given these commands because they are pertinent and good for us. We cannot find some excuse to shake them off. Nor, however, can we observe them so pharisaically so as to destroy the reason for their being given. This is precisely the fault of the Pharisees. There are, moreover, times when, without obfuscating the truth, some tact is necessary in order to convince the world of the truth of the Church before revealing the fullness of that truth to them. Never can this be done in such a manner as to imply an acceptance of their sin, but rather in offering a delicacy which does not drive them ever further from the Church.

The command to instruct and baptise offers the highest form of charity to neighbour. Living integrally within the Church is the first fundamental choice that is necessary for somebody’s eternal good. All temporal goods are fleeting and as nothing in comparison, but they are nonetheless goods. This is a reality.

The apostolic mission requires all to work together. No individual person is sufficient, yet all are nonetheless required to play their part. The laity can reach those places and persons to whom the clergy do not have easy access, especially in schools and universities. But the clergy are needed to offer the necessary formation, and above all the sacraments. Neither can work in isolation or distance from the other.

Let us allow, therefore, this Holy Mass to infuse within us an ever more fervent love of the Trinity. Praising God ever more fully, let that fervour pour out from us to those around us, in all scenarios. Working with all the vigour of a true Apostle in the modern world, ever must we proclaim the reality of the Holy Trinity more clearly through our words and actions. +