The Most Holy Trinity
Sunday, May 31, 2026
St. James Cathedral

Watch this homily! (begins at 34:40)

 
Today’s feast of the Holy Trinity and next week’s feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord celebrate two central beliefs of our faith. These are so central to us that there could be a temptation to take them for granted, and so the Church gives us these two Sundays as an opportunity every year to pause and celebrate and reflect on these two profound truths.
 
This Sunday we celebrate that we have come to know God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But what does that mean for us; what are the implications for our own journey with God? How do we think about God? How do we talk to God in prayer? How do we worship God?
 
Several years ago Pope Benedict XVI said that at the heart of our belief in the Trinity is that “God is not solitude but perfect communion” (Pope Benedict XVI, May 22, 2005).
 
The Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church, called YOUCAT, puts it this way: “God himself is not a-social; he is not a solitary, self-sufficient being. The Triune God in himself is “social,” a communion, an eternal exchange of love. Patterned after God, we are also designed for relationship, exchange, sharing and love. We are responsible for one another” (YOUCAT, #122).
 
Our scriptures for this Solemnity further unpack the roots of our belief in God as Trinity. The passage from the Book of Exodus shows us God’s response to Moses’ request to show him the glory of God. So God gives him a glimpse and proclaims his name as “Lord.”
 
But most revealing of all is what God cries out about who he is: “…a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” God reveals himself, names himself, in how he relates to his people. Relationship is at the heart of who God is.
 
St. Paul, as he concludes his Second Letter to the Corinthians, describes how God is present with the community of faith: “Mend your ways, encourage one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you..” God not only reveals himself as kind and merciful, but is also revealed wherever his people live in peace, reforming their lives, seeking peace, encouraging and caring for each other. 
And in one of the most well known passages in all the Bible, we hear Jesus describe why God sent the Son into the world. For many Christians, this one line from John’s Gospel is so central, that just the citation is enough: John 3:16. We see it at public events - football and basketball games and a whole host of other gatherings of large crowds.
 
“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.”
 
In this passage we hear echoes of God naming himself to Moses on Mt. Sinai as “merciful, slow to anger, rich in kindness and fidelity. That mercy, patience, kindness and fidelity reaches its pinnacle when the Father sends the Son as the embodiment, the real presence of mercy itself.
 
Our belief in the Trinity affirms that the Son, Jesus, is not just a sign that points to this love and mercy and fidelity, but that he actually makes it present in himself because he too is part of this communion, this community of life and love that is God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
 
And as we celebrated last Sunday on the feast of Pentecost, that real presence of Jesus among us did not end with his ascension, and his return to the Father. Jesus has breathed into the Church the very breath of life that comes from the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit fills the Church and the whole world with the presence of the Holy Trinity, this communion of life and love.
 
This can all sound pretty abstract, and when we talk about the Trinity, we can easily stay there in the abstract thoughts of who God is, who God is in himself and how that communion of life and love that he is relates to us. I am one of those people who are fed by those kinds of abstract reflections.
 
However, as much as some of us might be attracted to those abstract concepts,  I think our understanding and our experience of the Triune God lends itself to something that is first and foremost very concrete. The last part of that definition from the YOUCAT, I think, gets at it: “…we are also designed for relationship, exchange, sharing and love. We are responsible for one another.”
 
In friendship, in marriage, in family, we participate in the life of God. These human relationships of love and care, and the hard work we often have to put into them, are sacred and holy experiences that give us a glimpse and an experience of our God.
 
We can also experience the opposite. When we are selfish and self-centered, or when we experience the selfishness of another, the hurt we participate in is a brokenness in relationship. This brokenness is sin because it violates the very substance of God himself as a self-giving communion of life and love.
 
The Sacrament of Penance, and the Eucharist we celebrate, are intense encounters of reconciliation - of repairing the damage done with selfishness, of putting communities of life and love back together, of restoring the unity that allows us to participate in the life of God.
 
Our God, the Most Holy Trinity, this communion of life and love, also calls us beyond our immediate relationships with family and friends, to a communion of life and love with all people on the earth and the whole of creation. Paraphrasing from the Book of Genesis, YOUCAT reminds us that “we are responsible for one another.”
 
The cares and concerns, the joys and sorrows of brothers and sisters in our community, in our state, in our country and across the globe calls us to be in solidarity, in relationship with them - to see their lives as part of ours in a larger community of life and love.
 
May our celebration of the Most Holy Trinity today empower us to cherish our relationships, our marriages, our friendships, our families, and our communion with all people and all of creation. May we see in these communities of life and love a chance to participate in the very life of God.
 
As we turn to this sacred altar now, and feast on the very presence of God himself, may all of us be drawn deeper into that eternal exchange of love who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  

Father Gary F. Lazzeroni