STM Homily | Fr. Joseph MacNeill | May 31, 2026

Brothers and sisters. This is the day. This is the day that has pretty much every preacher and and priests and any person for that matter, who stands in a pulpit. This is the day that has us all, in a certain sense, quaking in our boots, because what are we supposed to do today? What is my charge? In a certain sense on this day, this solemnity in which we are celebrating the central mystery of our faith, that of the Blessed Trinity, the preacher's challenge is to in some sense explain the inexplicable, this great mystery of three persons in one Godhead, how the three becomes one and the one is three. A great grand mystery.

If you go back to the etymology of the word mystery, you know I like etymologies comes from a word meaning mute. That is to say, a mystery is something before which we simply remain in silent contemplation and adoration, something that we, at the end of the day, cannot ever, in our own words, explain. Such is the case with this great mystery, the central mystery of our faith, that of the Trinity.

We may as well simply sit in silence. I should just go sit down for a couple of minutes and we can contemplate the Trinity in our own hearts. I won't do that. I am going to preach a sermon. I'm going to take on the challenge today. But this is the great mystery that we that we face, that we reflect upon today.

Pope Paul VI, now Saint Paul the Sixth, whom we celebrated just a few days ago in our church calendar. He once referred to this feast as La Festa del silenzio, the Feast of Silence. Because again, what can we say about so great a mystery.

So what am I going to say today? Well, I want to kind of give us a bit of a paradigm shift, hopefully in the way that we understand this feast day. I think we come into the solemnity of the Blessed Trinity and we think, how am I going to understand more clearly the Trinity today? Let's shift that paradigm a bit. Let's not focus so much on trying to understand what is ultimately a mystery that we believe by faith. Let's try today to grow in our relationship with the Trinity. The question for us today should be, how can I, through this celebration today, relate. Connect more with God who is father, son, and Holy Spirit. Do I know the father well? AM I on a first name basis with the son? Do I have a a close, intimate relationship with the spirit? That should be our question today.

And the readings, All three of them today give us ways in which we can grow in relationship with God, who is father, son, and Holy Spirit. This is a day of three, so I'm going to offer you three ways based on the three readings to grow in relationship with God who is again, father, son, and Holy Spirit.

We'll start with our our first reading all the way back from the book of Exodus, which I think for us, this reading today stands as a reminder of how fortunate we are as Christian disciples. Why do I say that? Well, think about the time under this old dispensation, as we call it, before the coming of Christ. How was it that people, even the chosen people, how was it that they went to seek out the presence of God? We hear today? What does Moses, the leader of that people do to seek out that presence? He traverses the distance of many miles. He scales a high mountain, and there he catches a fleeting glimpse of the God of Israel.

How is it that we, in this Christian dispensation, how is it that we as Christian disciples find the presence of God? Do we need to traverse the distance of many miles and scale a high mountain? Know what is perhaps the most marvelous, but also perhaps the most unknown fact of our Christian life, the indwelling of the Holy Trinity? Have we heard of that before? Hopefully the indwelling of the Holy Trinity, which means that through faith, baptism, and grace, the presence of the Triune God dwells in our hearts. The Catechism says Heaven is not so much a place. Somewhere out there, somewhere. Place that we can point to a location. Some of heaven is within us. As the Catechism says, heaven is in part the dwelling place of God and the hearts of the just. It's your heart that's my heart.

So how do we seek out the presence of the Triune God? One way. First way here is simply to look within, as Jesus says, to go in our innermost room and simply in the silence of our heart, have a conversation with the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? But that's what prayer is. So I invite you the first way today. Start today in your prayer. Have a conversation not just with with God in the abstract. Have a conversation with the father, with the son, with the Holy Spirit. Look into your inmost heart and give thanks for this great gift that God, the Triune God, does indeed dwell in our hearts. And he's waiting for us to find him there. It's the first way.

What's the second way? Move to second reading. We've all heard before. We all know from the book of Genesis that we are created in the image and likeness of God. Right? We've all heard that. What does our feast of the Blessed Trinity today tell us? Well, if we're created in the image of likeness of God, and if God is Trinity, a communion of three persons eternally loving each other, then what does that say about us? How can we grow in the image and likeness of God? How can we become more like God? Well, by imitating on this earth more perfectly the Triune Communion of God, by loving one another as the father loves the son. By loving each other as the son loves the father. By loving each other. As the spirit loves the father and the son, and so on and so on.

This is the message of Saint Paul in the second reading today. He says, what does it look like if we imitate the Triune God? Well, here he says to the Corinthians, mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace. The Triune God will be with you.

Listen to these words again. Mend your ways. Make up with with others around you. Through forgiveness, through mercy. Encourage one another. The word here in Greek actually is the same word from which we get the word Paraclete, the title of the Holy Spirit. So what is Paul saying here? By saying encourage one another, he's saying be Paraclete to one another. In other words, he's saying, be the Holy Spirit For other people. Stand by them, give them inspiration. Give them strength, especially in moments of difficulty. Agree with one another. In the Greek it literally says, think the same thing as others. We do our best in spite of our diversity, to focus in on those things that bring unity, especially unity and faith. And finally, live in peace, which of course is so timely in the age in which we live. This is the way in which we imitate the Triune God. And this is one way again, the second way in which we draw deeper into relationship with the Holy Trinity.

Which brings us to the final way and our gospel reading. We have this part of this clandestine, under cover of darkness encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus, Nicodemus as this righteous man who is interested in the truths that Christ has to offer, but he's a little bit scared and nervous. In the course of their discussion, Jesus proclaims to him essentially what we call the kerygma, the great kernel of the gospel, that God sent His Son, his only son for our salvation, and those who believe in his death and resurrection as Christians will not no condemnation, but eternal life. The great mystery of our redemption in Christ. And what is the central focus of this particular passage that we have today, that of the Son of Man being lifted up, and John's words, which means the crucifixion.

It's through the the death and the resurrection of Christ through the cross, by drawing near to the mystery of the cross. Another mystery that we find our salvation in Christ. And as Jesus says in the gospel today, this is why it's the gospel for Trinity Sunday. In the cross we see. The father, the son and the Holy Spirit. The father giving us the gift of His son crucified and the son giving forth the spirit.

This particular crucifix that we have here, as many of you know, illustrates all of this so wonderfully, doesn't it? Because you see, do you see the gift of the spirit being given by Christ? Sometimes people wonder what that is in his left hand as Christ giving forth the gift of the spirit we have before us in the cross, a reminder not just of Christ the Son, what he did for us, but we have a reminder of the entire operation, we might say of the Trinity, father, Son, and Holy Spirit working together for our salvation and redemption.

So the third way in which I think we can grow in greater relationship with the Triune God is by reflecting upon the cross. And we have a wonderful way to do that. Every time we make the sign of the cross, in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the Holy Spirit. What are we doing when we make the sign of the cross? Think about this. We are invoking upon ourselves the mystery of the Triune God. We are calling father, son, and Holy Spirit to come upon us and to bring us salvation and redemption. We are calling to mind, as I mentioned before, the fact that the Trinity dwells within us, which can be, as I mentioned, so often forgotten, that marvelous and powerful truth. So I invite you to enter into deeper relationship with the Triune God by not just making the sign of the cross, but doing so reverently and prayerfully.

I'll end with a joke. I've mentioned this here before, but my aunt, one time she was in a movie theater. See where this is going. And she was finding her way to the aisle for her seat. And she made the sign of the cross right there in the aisle of the movie theater, as she was genuflecting before finding her seat. So mindlessly, don't we so mindlessly? I think at times. I love my aunt. She's great, but so mindlessly. A lot of times we make the sign of the cross without even thinking about it. We walk into church, do this. Can we do so with prayer, with reverence, realizing what we are doing. Again, we're calling on ourselves. We're invoking upon ourselves the mystery of the Triune God. We're entering into that mystery, and we're calling to mind this great truth that the Trinity dwells within us.

So, friends, on this Trinity Sunday, may we take up this invitation of our readings to grow in greater relationship with father, son, and Holy Spirit as we pray together. Glory be to the father, and to the son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.