Today is Holy Trinity Sunday! I tried to give this day to preach to Deacon Lewis, but he gave it right back to me. Actually, among Priests and Deacons we often joke about this day as being one of the most difficult days to preach. Of course, we all know that the Holy Trinity is something easily understood, right?

Yet, I am glad to preach this day, because I think that through the Holy Trinity, God shows us his essence and the essence of the human person. It is therefore the foundation of our Christian Faith. My hope is that by the end of this homily, you will be able to more accurately explain the Holy Trinity.

So what is the Holy Trinity? What is the Holy Trinity? We talk about it all the times. We believe in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, right? So are these three gods that we honor? OF COURSE NOT!!! No, we believe in One God. Hear oh Israel, the Lord is God and there is one God. This has been revealed from the earliest times to our forefathers in faith. We believe in one God! It is one God that we offer all our love, honor, and praise to. But, then what is this Father, Son, and Holy Spirit thing? Well, they are the three persons of the one God. They are distinct and three but one.

I dont know about you, but this is tough to understand.

How can something be three and one at the same time. Yet, this is what Jesus Christ has revealed to us. That God is the Father. God is the Son. and God is the Holy Spirit. You see - everything that theFather is - is the Son. Everything that Spirit is - is the Father and the Son. The only thing that distinguishes them is their relation with each other. The Fatherness of the Father distinguishes him from the Son. Likewise the Sonness and the Spiritness distinguish the Son and the Spirit from each other and the Father. That is how they are three and yet one. I know this is tough to understand.

Let’s look at an image. Do you know we have a great image of the Holy Trinity in our Church? Where is it? We have this image over here on the left side of the Church in the center of the Celtic Cross. You see the circle in the cross represents the eternity of God. Inside the circle, if you have binoculars you can see three figures in the middle of the circle. They are intertwined almost in a dance - a divine dance. Some thinkers of the Eastern Church have suggested that the Trinity is like a divine intimate dance. Where they three persons dance so close that the become one. I guess in a way its kind of like the lambada - okay that is a joke. Anyhow, I find this image that we have to be very unique. I have not seen an image quite like this anywhere else in the world and therefore, we have a piece of artwork that we can be proud of. It is the Holy Trinity in the divine dance here in Corsicana.

So how does this revelation of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit influence us? Well, let’s look at the first book of the Bible - Genesis. When God created man and woman, he said what? He said I create you in my image and likeness. So, we are made in God’s image. We have already seen how God is relationship itself - a communion of persons. If this is God, and we are made in His image, then we are made to be in relationship. We are made to be in Communion with God and each other. Many people will say the definition of hell is the place of total isolation and that heaven is the place of Communion. We actually say that heaven is the place of the Communion of the Saints, right.

Okay so we are made in Communion, then this brings us to the very tangible example of the Holy Trinity in our lives. I am not talking about the clover leaf. I am talking about Marriage. Holy Marriage is the par excellance example of the Holy Trinity in our lives. We go back to the Bible and Genesis. We hear that when a man leaves his father and mother and joins with his wife. The two become one. The two become one because they are in such a united communion. They are dancing and from this most intimate communion comes a third person and it sounds like this. Whaaah! Its a baby. From the love of the husband and wife comes a third person. We say the same thing about the Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit is born from the love of the Father and the Son. So, Holy marriage is the most tangible example of the Trinitarian exclusive love that we have on earth.

When a husband loves his wife and offers himself totally over as gift to her and she receives his love and offers back to Him totally, an image of the Holy Trinitarian love develops. Pope John Paul II talked about loving with the four “f” words. In this love, which is full, free, fruitful, and faithful a man becomes a complete gift to his wife and vice versa.

Now, I know what many of you are saying. You are saying ... Fr. Jason, that might be good in theory, but have you ever tried to talk to my husband before his first cup of coffee. Or many men are saying, Fr. I still dont understand my wife after 30 years of marriage. Yes, that’s the reality - but the key to growing and becoming more like what God has intended for your marriage is not to sit still. We can not create walls and simply say that I am going to coexist with this person. No! We need to constantly try to enter into a deeper relationship. Perhaps, we need professional help to do so, but we need to make that movement towards. One thing for sure is that we need to get rid of the lists. You know the lists. I did this for my husband so he owes me that. Or I loved my wife in this way, she better do this for me. These lists are not about giving yourself as gift to your wife, but about trying to grasp at something that is not yours. Remember who also grasped. Adam and Eve at that first piece of forbidden fruit.

I think because of the sublimity of marriage as an image of the Holy Trinity is the reason why marriage is attacked by satan so fervently in our culture. We all know so well of the movement to try to call same-sex unions marriages as incomprehensible as that is. We also know of the many cohabitational relationships where couples are living a lie pretending to be married but really not. And of course there is the premarital sex, where here in Corsicana reaches to the very earliest ages. Ages like 5th and sixth grade where children are experimenting with sexual relations. All of these deceptions thrown into our culture are smokescreens from the evil one to keep us from seeing the great and marvelous heights of which marriages resemble - the Holy Trinity.

I also would like to speak of one other aspect of the human person that the Holy Trinity shows forth. Going back to the great verse of Genesis where God make man in his image and likeness, we know that he made the entirety of the human person in His image and likeness. He made the body, mind, and soul in the his image and likeness.

I remember a 2nd grade teacher that I met not too long ago, that said something very unique to his class. He told his students that they do not have souls. They then went home and said, mommy - daddy, guess what teacher said I don’t have a soul. Of course you can imagine what kind of response he would have gotten from the parents. Well, the teacher having a doctorate in philosophy was trying to make a very good point. How can something possess a soul. When I say, I have a soul, I am saying something greater than the soul possesses the soul. Likewise I can say that same thing about the body or the mind. Indeed, we are embodied, intelligent, souls or ensouled, intelligent bodies. This would be a more proper way of saying the reality of who we are as persons. We are a composite whole. We are mind, body, and soul in one person. Just like the Holy Trinity.

In our culture today, we often times here that I can do whatever I want with my body and it wont affect me. I can have an abortion, I can do drugs, I can have these piercings, I can have sex with whomever I want. The reality is all of these things have a traumatic negative effect on the mind and soul. What affects one affects all! Remember, that bad guy, satan who tries to isolate us is going to try to convince us other wise. Remember that his role is to disintegrate us. God wants us to be in communion like He is.

So my friends on this feast day of the Holy Trinity, we learn about where we really are made. We are made in God’s image who is relationship and communion itself. Marriage is the greatest sign of this Trinitarian reality in our lives and our very personhood - mind, body, and soul - points to the reality to which we are made. For us to have meaning in this life, we need to take down the barriers that keep us from being in great communion with others. When we do so we will be living a life after God’s own image. We will be living the divine dance. That is what the Holy Trinity is really about!