TRINITY SUNDAY - REMEMBERING HOW THE EARLY CHURCH REFLECTED ON WHO JESUS IS

11 June 2017 Trinity Sunday

Sharing my notes taken @ the Immaculate Conception parish in Hawthorn, Melbourne

- Homily by Rev Fr Tom Henshaw, SJ

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"The early disciples had to contemplate who Jesus is.  Jesus referred himself as Son of God, He called God Abba, Father, and He gave his Spirit to the disciples, realised at Pentecost.  In the early decades, there was only a beginning of the understanding of the One God three persons concept.  And the early disciples clung to the depth of their imagination and intellect.  It took nearly 400 years after Jesus' death and resurrection for the Church to proclaim that God is three persons, consubstantial, co-existent, co- external to each other."

The Church teaches us 

that with Jesus and the apostles, 

full revelation has been given to men. 

And we know too, 

"I have much more to say to you, 

but it is more than you can bear now.” 

John 16:12.  

What we take for granted today as our beliefs, 

the Church which Christ instituted at Pentecost, 

in her wisdom guided by the Spirit, 

has led us, 

and will continue to lead us 

to the fullness of Truth.

With apostolic Tradition (the Oral Word) 

and the Bible (the Written Word)

With certainty today

we can address our God 

as Father, Son and Spirit.

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Fr Tom concluded:

“The loving relationship that exist in the core of who our God is....an expression of love that moved God to give his only Son, and His Spirit to men.  Our appropriate response is to share the love which is between the Father and the Son, continued in the gift of the Holy Spirit.... It all begins from the experience of the heart, and the Spirit leads us into the mystery of God."

Fr Tom's closing remark made me think....

As we respond to our God of love, we must want to seek to understand him better... and as we seek to understand him, we begin to love him deeper... It is a coupling of heart experience and head knowledge, of faith and reason....May we, all Christians, have the desire to continuously seek the truth, the fullness of truth.

St Pope John II. 

"Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth..." 

St Augustine (354-430)

"credo ut intelligam" - I believe in order to understand... and in understanding, I believe....