Sermons from the Latins/Sermon 33
Trinity Sunday.
The Holy Trinity.
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" — Matt, xxviii. 19.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : Plan of Church liturgy for year.
I. The Trinity: 1. Truth and error. 2. State of nature and under law. 3. Under gospel.
II. Benefits conferred : 1. By Father. 2. By Son. 3. By Holy Ghost.
III. Our return: 1. Salvation by faith. 2. Works. 3. Final reckoning.
Per. : Imitation of Blessed Trinity.
SERMON.
To-day, my dear Brethren, the Church celebrates the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. In Advent she glorified the Father for the merciful redemption she saw Him preparing for mankind; from Christmas to Easter she adored God the Son in His birth and sufferings and death, and last Sunday she sang the praises of God the Holy Ghost the Sanctifier and Saviour of mankind. To-day having, as it were, chanted a solo in honor of each divine person, she bids her children join one and all in a grand chorus of praise to the ever adorable Trinity.
That you may the more readily lend your voices to swell the chorus of praise, I will ask each of you to consider briefly, first, What is the Blessed Trinity? second, What has the Blessed Trinity done for me? third, What am I bound to do in return? In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.
What do we mean by the Blessed Trinity? By the Blessed Trinity we mean one God in three divine persons. We agree with the Unitarian in saying that God, the infinite first cause and supreme Lord of all things must be one, for if there were two first causes, neither would be first, or if there were two infinite supreme beings both would be finite and subject to a higher third. Again we agree with the Trinitarians that God is three, because faith tells us so. But when the Trinitarians say " there are three Gods," or when the Unitarians say " there is only one person in God," we disagree with both, and stand halfway between the two and say " there is one God in three persons." For just as in myself there is a human nature which is common to me and to all men, and a personality which distinguishes me from all others, so in God there is one divine nature but three distinct personalities, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Oh, but you say, " I cannot see how a thing can be one and three at the same time, and so I do not believe your doctrine." Brethren, remember Our Lord's words: " Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed." Faith is a belief in things unseen founded on the word of God, and without faith, especially in the Blessed Trinity, it is impossible to be saved. Now as well might we attempt to drain the sea drop by drop into the palm of the hand, as introduce an idea of the Trinity into our shallow brain. But is, therefore, that great mystery a lie? Is our feeble mind on a par with the infinite intelligence of God, the measure of transcendent truths and divine mysteries? Will we refuse to accept on faith a truth which the voice of God asserts in Scripture and Tradition, which God's infallible Church teaches, and in the presence of which the sublime intelligence of an Augustine, an Aquinas, and even the angels themselves bend in lowly homage? We cannot prove this truth to be false; we have God's word for it that it is true, and therefore though we cannot understand, we believe and beg God to help our unbelief. In fact if we look around us we see that many of the things God has made bear His likeness in that they are at the same time one and three. A triangular tower is one of these, because as we view it from three different sides it is ever the same tower we behold. St. Patrick used the shamrock to illustrate the Trinity. As the Son proceeds from the Father and the Holy Ghost from both, so the blossom comes from the tree, and the fruit from tree and blossom. The brute beast is a complete being and in himself he contains two other distinct beings; his soul and his body. The soul of man which God made to His own image and likeness — that too, and in a special manner bears the impress of the Trinity, for while it is one soul, it possesses the three faculties of memory, understanding, and free will. It was precisely on account of this wonderful combination of unity and multiplicity in natural objects that men, even before the coming of Christ, were led to conclude some kind of a plurality in the Divinity. Hence, while the unlettered throng held to the doctrine of one God in nature and person, the Pagan philosophers taught Pantheism, and the wise men of God, guided by divine inspiration, came to a knowledge of the mystery of the Trinity. But when Christ came He announced this truth in plain terms, and men began to see why God in creating said: " Let us make man to our own image and likeness." For Christ taught that Himself, the Father and the Spirit, though three, are still one; that He went to the Father and would send the Holy Ghost. He commanded men to be baptized in the name of God — the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and finally He said, by John, " There are three in heaven who give testimony — the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and they are one." So plain are these words that for every Christian, and more especially for every Catholic, the existence of a triune God must be a fact beyond dispute. Now it is one thing to know the existence of a truth, and it is another thing to be able to explain it. That I move my hand is certain, but how I move it, not all the philosophers that ever lived know or will be able to explain. Hence, that God is at the same time one in nature and threefold in person we are certain of, relying on the word of an infallible God and His infallible Church. But when we ask how this can be, we can only lift up our eyes to God and adore His incomprehensible perfections and exclaim with St. Paul:"0 the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God!"
Brethren, the first and greatest object of our faith must ever be this great truth, that God exists; that in Him there is only one nature, but three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and I know of no better way to strengthen our faith than to reflect what each person of the Trinity has done for us. What has God the Father done for us? " I have loved you," He says, " with an eternal love, and I have drawn you out of nothing." A million, a thousand, a hundred years ago what were we? Who thought of us? Were we not lost or forgotten among the millions and trillions of human possibilities? No; there was One who thought of us. We held a place in the eternal knowledge and love of the great Father of all, and when the time came He chose us and brought us into existence, leaving millions of others in their nothingness forever. With existence He bestowed on us every blessing which could make existence happy. The heavens and the glory thereof, the earth, and the sea and every member of the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, all He created for us, for our use and for our enjoyment. Then, when He saw we would destroy ourselves by the abuse of the things He had given for our use, He so loved us as to give up His only-begotten Son to ransom us. And lest we should fall again He has surrounded us on all sides with safeguards — He has placed us in the true Church to imbibe her salutary doctrines, and with her sacraments to nourish our souls unto eternal life. " I have loved you with an eternal love." We are eternal beings, not only because we existed in God's knowledge and love from the beginning; not only because with the same fatherly affection He watches over and guards us all during this life, but because His love for us will endure forever in the next life. If we go to heaven we will see and enjoy Him forever. In purgatory, though He punish us, He will still love us, aye, and even in hell though He will hate our wickedness He will still love us with an aching, regretful, but withal an eternal love.
Secondly, God the Son — what has He done for us? Say, rather, what has He not done for us? He came down from the royal throne of His divinity, and stripping Himself of His princely robe, of His divine perfections, laid it on our shoulders and clothed Himself with our shabby, filthy humanity. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us " in miserable poverty for thirty years. Then the charity of God the Son appeared in that He delivered Himself up for us — and having loved us He loved us unto the end. He said Himself in His Passion " even unto death," aye, even unto the death of the cross. The greatest favor that man can do for man; the strongest proof of the love of a brother for a brother, is for one to give up his life for his friend — but Our Lord and Saviour has done something greater still — He gave up His life for us while we were still His enemies. When dying He was not content that the infinite life He gave up should pass into and vivify all men past, present, and future, but He also left special graces to guard us from danger; the precious food of His body and blood to strengthen souls staggering under temptation; and the Sacrament of Penance to revive them after the misfortune of having died in sin. Oh, surely the love of God the Son for us is not less than that of the Father, for while the Father's love for man knows no limit in duration — is eternal — the love of the Son knows no limit in intensity — it is infinite.
Lastly, God the Holy Ghost — what has He done for us? Oh, we can well exclaim with the Virgin: " He that is mighty hath done great things to us, and holy is His name." For what would it have profited us for the Father to have created us, for the Son to have redeemed us, unless the Holy Spirit of God had come to sanctify and save us? And come He did on Pentecost in the form of tongues of fire — of tongues to show He came to teach us all truth, and of fire, because He came to enkindle in men's hearts the fire of divine love. For the Holy Ghost is the love of the Father and Son, and since the Son became man, the infinite love of God embraces all mankind. Hence when the Son ascended into heaven He and the Father sent the Holy Ghost to men to vivify the spirit of His Church, to protect her doctrines from error and her morals free from corruption. Not only the Church in general, but each and every one of us in particular, experiences the effects and fruits of the Holy Ghost, for He tells us it is His delight to inhabit our souls. Every temptation we resist is resisted with His help, every good action we perform is done by His inspiration and assistance. He has come to us not for a time, but to stay — to enter our souls in the innocence of childhood — to accompany us all through life, encouraging us in tHe practice of virtue and again going down after us into the abyss of sin and dragging us back even from the brink of hell. In the ups and downs of life He is with us through it all, even to our last breath, for Christ promised to send the Paraclete, who would abide with us all days, even to the consummation of the world.
Brethren, we believe there are three persons in God and that the favors each has conferred on us are inestimable, but is that enough? The devils in hell believe, but what doth it profit them? Ah! what will it profit us to have known the Father, if we prove rebellious sons? To have known the Son, if, like another Cain, we murder by our vices, Christ, our Brother? To have known the Holy Ghost, if, like ingrates, we turn from Him to follow the demon of sin? Oh, it were ten thousand times better for us never to have known this truth, than after we have known it to neglect to conform our lives to the faith that is in us. Faith without good works is dead, aye, worse than dead, for it makes the sinner more responsible and consequently more guilty in the sight of God. Of him to whom much is given much shall be expected. " Have faith and fear not," is the cry of the whole Christian world outside the Catholic Church, but that is not the way of the Catholic Church. No, nor of Christ her Founder, for from Him she has received her commission not only to teach all nations the mystery of one God in three persons; not only to make known to them the merciful works done by each person in our behalf — the works of creation, redemption and sanctification, but also to teach men to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. So there, in brief, is the whole system of man's salvation, the Trinity above directing all— «God's Church and her ministers on earth teaching her children, by sermons and instructions, what they must believe, and showing them by example what they must do to be saved, and finally the great throng of God's people, bound to accept God's revealed truths, and so shape their lives in accordance with them, that they may one day be among the blessed who have both heard the word of God and kept it. Brethren, are we doing all this? Am I living the life and doing the work of a faithful minister of God? Are you doing your whole duties as children of God and heirs of heaven? Alas and alack, are we not each individually and all together one grand colossal spiritual failure, with only one , consolation for the present, only one hope for the future — the thought that the Trinity loved us from the beginning, loves us now, and will continue to love us without end in eternity? But if the thought of God's infinite love and goodness to us tails to excite us to do something in honor of the Trinity and in return for the blessings they have bestowed on us, let this other thought sink deeply into our minds, that the day will infallibly come for you, aye, and for me too, when we shall stand in the presence of that Trinity to give an account of our stewardship — I, if I have faithfully by word and example taught Christ's commandments; you, if you have conscientiously reduced to practice the truths which I have taught. Woe to you and woe to me in that terrible day, if during our lives we refused to bow our intelligences in simple faith before the mystery of the Trinity, or forgot the goodness of each divine person to us, or having admitted and believed these truths, failed to conform our lives thereto. Woe to us then if we have to confess to the Father that instead of loving and serving Him as our first beginning and our last end, we gave all our thoughts to and placed all our happiness in the creatures He intended to help rather than hinder us on the road of our earthly pilgrimage to heaven. Woe to us if we have to own to the Son that His incarnation, His lowly birth, and His humble life were for us all in vain; that His sacred body was bruised and His adorable blood shed only to make our guilt greater and our punishment more terrible. Woe to us then if we have to report to the Holy Ghost a neglect of all His inspirations, a contempt for His heavenly gifts, and a steady refusal to listen to His repeated warnings and invitations to return to repentance, and to God. For if such be our condition in the last day, we will then find that the day of mercy has given place to the night of wrath — that God the Father is as omnipotent in hell as in heaven; that God the Son is as all-wise in devising a hell of torture as He is in planning a heaven of delights; that the justice of God the Holy Ghost is as implacable as His mercy is infinite. " For they that shall believe and be baptized and keep My commandments shall be saved, but they who shall not believe shall be condemned."
Brethren, believe and do. Have a firm faith in this great mystery of three persons in one God, and a lively appreciation of the favors each has conferred upon you. But above all things see that your faith be reflected in your life. Try to imitate the allpowerful Father by doing all in your power for Him; try to imitate the Son who died for you by dying to the world for Him; try to imitate the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of love, by doing all you do for God out of pure love. Then will the Trinity bestow on you its threefold blessing, the greatest of all blessings, the blessing I wish you all, this morning; that the Father may guard you with His paternal providence, that the Son may enlighten you always to know the way of salvation, and that the Holy Ghost may ever draw you nearer and nearer to Himself in the bonds of His eternal love.