Following is the prepared text from Bishop Olmsted’s homily for Trinity Sunday.
June 7, 2020
“God so loved the world the world that He gave His only Son.” – John 3:16
“God so loves…” At the foundation of the world, at the creation of the universe, God’s love was the source of all that came to be. All that is, was and is to come flows from the love of God. “In God, we live and move and have our being.” He never acts to satisfy His own need for anything. Everything He is and does is love.
Today, the Church throughout the world celebrates the Blessed Trinity: the wondrous mystery that God is love in three Persons: the Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the Love between the Father and the Son. We come closer to understanding this mystery by means of adoration than by intellectual pursuit.
Jesus tells us “God so loved the world…” Everything that God made, He loves. He loves the moon, the sun, the stars, the earth and all that exists:
- people who are bad as well as the good; – the unlovely as well as the lovely; – those who hate Him, those who ignore Him, and those who do His will;
- those who are sick with COVID-19, those who are healthy and strong; those who are isolated and socially distant; those who are lonely and think that they are forgotten by all;
- those who think no one could love them; those who are sinful and lost.
ALL the world, all creation, every creature, every man and woman, God loves. St. Augustine said: “God loves each one of us as if there was only one of us to love.” There is no end to His love. His love never grows weak or weary. He never stops seeking the lost. As the first paragraph of the Catechism says (CCC #1), “At every time and in every place, God draws near to each human person.” He draws near because He is love.
Dear friends who join us by means of television, radio, or the Internet, we give thanks to God for each of you. If you are in a nursing home, if you live alone with no family or friend to visit you, if you feel like no one cares, know that our loving God is drawing near to you – like one who loves beyond all measure. God never ceases to speak to your heart and to melt any coldness in your soul.
If you feel despised because of your race, the color of your skin, your accent, or the shape of your eyes, remember: God loves you with an everlasting love. For God, there is only one race, the human race. We are all children of God. Every human person He created in love; and because of love He rescued us from sin and death by suffering death for us on the Cross.
But how, you may ask, could the All Powerful and everlasting God love us even unto death? How is that possible? Because the One God and Creator of us all is also a Trinity of Persons. And One of those Persons, the Beloved Son, Jesus, became flesh, assumed our human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary, so that He could reveal to us the depths of the love of the Father, and could redeem us by suffering death on the Cross.
“God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.” – John 3:16
Our Second Reading today contains the last three verses of St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians (13:11ff). In it, the Apostle urged the Corinthians to do five things so that the love of God would flourish within them. These things are not precepts that Paul commanded the Corinthians to do; rather, they are thoughtful instructions to safeguard the love of the Blessed Trinity that had been poured in their hearts. These five things can also help you and me to keep alive in our hearts the wondrous love of God. Let us listen again to what Paul writes:
- “Rejoice!” Let us rejoice in the amazing things that God does. May our hearts overflow with gladness and thanksgiving at the manifold ways that God loves.
- Paul says, “Mend your ways!” What ways did the Corinthians need to mend? In the previous chapter of his letter, St. Paul mentioned two things that needed to be mended for the love of God to remain alive in their hearts: sexual immorality and divisive behavior. “Blessed are the clean of heart,” Jesus says, “for they shall see God.” God longs for us to see His face. But unchastity and rivalry blind our spiritual vision. Let us never allow immorality or discord to keep us from seeing and rejoicing in the goodness of God.
- “Encourage one another!” Just as Paul did in all his pastoral letters, so you and I can do, in our homes and in our parish communities. When we encourage one another, we literally give each other courage and become more alive to the wondrous love of the Lord.
- “Agree with one another.” St. Paul was not asking for lockstep thinking among believers but rather to “put on the mind of Christ and make no provisions for the flesh” (Phil 2:5). When we seek to unite our thinking with the mind of Jesus, we enter in a mystical way into the inner life of the Blessed Trinity.
- “Live in peace!” Peace is not a human achievement; it is a gift of the Risen Lord. Let us receive Christ’s peace with grateful spirits and then live in His peace, which far surpasses anything we can imagine.
After urging the Corinthians to do these five things, St. Paul offered the following promise: Do these “and the God of love and peace will be with you.” Amen!!! St. Augustine wrote of this wondrous mystery, “You made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Do you know how greatly God desires you to receive and rejoice in His love?
During Old Testament times, the Lord revealed many marvels about Himself through Abraham and Moses, King David and the Prophets. Yet, no one ever imagined that the everlasting and merciful God was not only one but also a trinity of Persons! St. Paul acclaims (Rom 11:33f), “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are His judgments and how unsearchable His ways…To Him be glory forever. Amen!”
