Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, May 31, 2026. Gospel of St. John 3:16-18. Theme: Reaching Out and Spilling Over!
Today is Trinity Sunday and there’s something a bit unusual about our readings for this Mass. You see, usually for special feast days we have Scriptures that deal directly with the theme of the celebration. For example on Christmas we hear all about the Lord’s birth in Bethlehem and then on Easter we’re retold the story of the Resurrection. But today as we honor one of the most important central mysteries of our Faith, all we get is a very brief mention of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the closing line of our Second Reading.
But this silence of the Scriptures really shouldn’t surprise us because no matter how much time we spend searching through the pages of the Bible, we’ll never find any explanation whatsoever as to HOW God can be a Trinity of Persons. But what we will find is a hint or a clue as to WHY this can be true. And it's found in one of the shortest but most powerful verses of the entire Bible but which, for some strange reason, isn’t included in today's Liturgy. And it consists of only 3 words:, “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) The reason for these three words being a clue to the Trinity is because love, by its very nature, is relational, so it can only exist within a communion or fellowship of persons. It can never ever be just a solo affair. And so inquiring minds in the past figured that since God has eternally existed before there was anyone or anything else to love, such as angels or human beings, there must be more than one Divine Person.
And so this short three-word verse of Scripture became a starting point in the early Church for trying to grasp and explain the concept of the Blessed Trinity. As a matter of fact it gave rise to about 300 years of popes, bishops and theologians in the early Church discussing and debating this deep divine mystery. And they had to start from scratch, so to speak, because until the year 200, the word “Trinity” wasn’t even in our Catholic vocabulary. It just didn't exist. Of course, they believed in it because Jesus himself had said so, but they had no word to use to describe this mystery of the One True God existing equally and distinctly as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. However, they eventually composed an official statement of faith about the Father and the Son in the year 325 AD at the Council of Nicea in Turkey and it was further tweaked and refined to include the Holy Spirit in the year 381 at the Council of Constantinople. And here we are almost 2,000 years later, about to stand and recite the very words of that Creed that they composed.
But what the Creed is trying to tell us in precise theological and sometimes hard to understand language is more simply expressed in the opening line of our Gospel today which says, “God so loved the world that He sent His only Son…”. You see, the Persons of the Trinity could not just keep this love between themselves because the very nature of love is to go out of itself and spill onto others. And so, God’s superabundant love moved Him to reach out to the human race even though we had turned our collective back on Him through sin. However, rather than condemning us, the overflowing, pouring out and spilling over love of the Trinity moved the Father to give up His only beloved Son who became man through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Then once this Son came into the world He also began reaching out to us, even to the point of spilling out His love as blood upon the wood of the cross. And then, as if all of this wasn’t already enough, the Father and the Son reached out even further to us by sending the Holy Spirit to draw us into their relationship of love. Through this indwelling of the Spirit, who is first poured into us at Baptism and deepened at Confirmation, we actually and amazingly share by grace in the divine life of the Blessed Trinity.
And so hopefully we can see that because of God’s reaching out and spilling over of His love, today’s Liturgy calls us to rejoice in the wonderful truth that God binds Himself to us in an interpersonal relationship as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And in doing so the Trinity becomes for us, not so much a doctrine to be believed (which it is) or a Creed to be recited every Sunday (important as that is), but an experience of God to be lived every day. For it reminds us that we are truly the sons and daughters of God the Father, whose providence in our lives provides for all that we need and who sustains our every heartbeat. It proclaims that we have become brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who has loved us to the point of even dying for us and then rising from the dead so that we could live forever. And it fills us with the joy of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us as our Bond of Connection with the Trinity, as well as being our Counselor, Comforter and Companion throughout the ups and downs of daily life.
To no other religion that now exists or has ever existed on planet Earth has God extended such an awesome invitation and experience to human beings. This is the great gift and unique blessing of Christianity. This is the treasure of Faith that has been handed on to us. This is really what it means for us to stand and say that we believe in God the Father almighty, that we believe in Jesus Christ His only Son and that we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life.
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