HOMILY FOR THE SOLEMNITY OF THE BLESSED TRINITY, YEAR C
Rev. Fr. Ezekoka Peter Onyekachi
Firmly I believe and truly that God is three and God is one. God is three in their persons. God is one in His nature. Today is a special day that prompts us to assert once more an indispensable article of our faith as Christians. This could produce in us a better understanding of our entire Christian life. Could it not be then true that the success of the Christian life starts with a proper knowledge of God? I believe that having a wrong image of God affects to a great extent our relationship with Him, and with our fellow humans. It then means that the proper way to start relating with God is by developing a proper understanding of Him, just as the best way to be a friend to another begins from a good understanding of his/her character and temperamental dispositions. Having an inappropriate image of God might hamper our interaction with God in prayer and might also lead to confusion and unnecessary arguments about the Christian lifestyle which could result in disunity.
There is this famous story of six blind people. They were meant to feel an elephant, an animal none of them never came in contact with. They were expected to touch the elephant since this discovery could only be made with their sense of touch. Then should they give a name to what they felt. The first person approached the elephant from the side and thereupon felt himself standing against a broad and very solid object; and thus said it was like a wall. He tried to climb it but failed. The second person also approached from the side but well forward and thereupon felt the elephant’s tusk, which appeared round, smooth and pointed; and thus concluded it was like a huge spear. Out of fear, he pulled back. The third person approached from the front and thereupon felt the elephant’s trunk, which moved and squirmed as he touched it; and thus concluded as he drew back in fear that it was like an enormous snake. The fourth person who was small in stature approached and came in contact with one of the elephant’s legs, which was so thick that he could barely get his hands around it; he thus concluded it was like a tree. He withdrew from it for fear of hurting himself. The fifth person came and accidentally touched one of the elephant’s ears, which began to move back and forth creating a draught, and thus concluded it was like a fan. Not happy with cold, he pulled back. The sixth person then came and approaching from the rear touched the swinging tail of the elephant; and then concluded it was like a big rope. He abandoned it since he had no use for ropes.
The six of them shared their discoveries with one another. A long and loud debate followed, but as each of them stuck rigidly to his own finding, they didn’t come to a clear understanding of the image. Each of them had a piece of the truth, as it were, but none of them wanted to merge those findings with the others’. If only they did that, being open to analyse within themselves their individual findings, they could have arrived at the true picture of the animal. Those findings conditioned also their individual reactions to the elephant. None of them also persisted to discover more parts of this elephant. At the very first finding, they all had some fears and drew back.
Now, we can be like these blind people. At the end of the day, we might be able to grasp little bits of the mystery of God, and what he is like. Over the years, various cultures and races have had their ways of understanding the divine revelation of God. Many religions and belief systems emerged as a result of their perception of God. But for us Christians, once upon a time, God saw the confusions that men have had as regards his image, and deemed it fit to reduce Himself and to become part of us, so that we can be lead to the perfect understanding of God. This was the special and ultimate revelation in Jesus Christ, who came in our own lowly form so that the blind might see (Luke 4:18) and that he might lead us to the indisputable discovery of the Three-in-one God (the Trinity). The revelation of the Blessed Trinity then was a very important goal of the creative power of God the Father in Creation, the redemptive power of God the Son in Incarnation, and the vivifying power of the God the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. As human beings who understand things better through perception, if we need to know and understand God, then we must embrace the Son who have lived like us, and among us. How do I know the Trinity? The answer is: embrace the Christ.
Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15); and like the Second Reading (Rom. 5:1-5) says: by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we are declared righteous and at peace with God. To know the Father, we need the Son. To know the Holy Spirit, we need the Son. In 1 Cor. 1:24, Christ is the power and the wisdom of God. And so, the First Reading (Prov. 8:22-31) personifies wisdom, and in a very close attention to it, one could hear Christ speak as that Wisdom of God who lives eternally with the Father and who was there before creation. In the Gospel (John 16: 12-15), the inseparability of these three persons is clearly shown. The Holy Spirit is the person gift of the Father and the Son who leads us to the complete truth and does not do say anything that is not taken from the Son. Christ is the way. Again, these readings reveal the activities of the triune God. The first informs us of the wisdom of God the Father who creates in an orderly manner with the divine purpose of salvation. The second tells about the work of God the Son, Jesus Christ who redeems us by leading us towards justification, and thereby glorifies the Father with it. The Gospel speaks on the work of the Holy Spirit who brings to completion the work of the Father and the Son by leading us to the complete truth. Hence, we believe in a God who lives as one and works as one.
Back to the allegory of the blind men. Some times, we may act like those blind people. Is it not true that our points of disunity as Christians might be as a result of our individual blindness and the obstinacy towards being open to the findings of others like those blind people where? Is it not also true that we could be our own problem, in the sense that the image of God stands very perfect before us, but due to our blindness, we choose always to relay it the way we feel like? It cannot also be true that we fail to grasp the revelation of God due to the fears we have. If this holds true, it then implies that God wishes us to approach Him not in fear but in love to discover who He truly is. It also means that when we find ourselves in the process of discovering God, and along the line experience any sign that could stir fear in us, the solution is not to leave Christ and run away, but to stay with Him for in Him is rest and serenity.
To get it right, we need to be frank about our individual inspirations and ecstatic findings about God with open hands and minds to accept and understand one another. To get it right then, we need to embrace God gently and with all sense of calmness without fear. To get it right, we need to come together like the Three persons in one God; living and working together in unity, listening to one another in joy, complementing one another in love and being open to the presence of God in all of us. May the Blessed Trinity break every chain of division among Christians today. Amen. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. God bless you.
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