MAY 26TH 2013. TRINITY SUNDAY
Gospel: John 16:12-15 
Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio
______________________________________________________________________

GOSPEL:  John 16:12-15
Jesus said to his disciples:

I still have many things to say to you
but they would be too much for you now.
But when the Spirit of truth comes
he will lead you to the complete truth,
since he will not be speaking as from himself
but will say only what he has learnt;
and he will tell you of the things to come.
He will glorify me,
since all he tells you will be taken from what is mine.
Everything the Father has is mine;
that is why I said:
All he tells you will be taken from what is mine.

THIS IS THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD:  PRAISE TO YOU LORD JESUS CHRIST 

Don Fabio encourages us to approach the doctrine of the Trinity in a non-abstract way. It is not so much a doctrine to be analysed intellectually as put into practice on a daily basis in our personal lives. His homily explains how we are called to participate in the life of the Trinity by living for others and not for ourselves. Jesus tells us that a characteristic of the Holy Spirit is that he speaks not about himself but of the Father and the Son. In the same way we are called to speak not about ourselves but about the saving activity of God. Don Fabio explains how embracing the Holy Spirit can lead us away from the anxious and frantic life that is lived in the service of our own egos. It is ironic that when we stop being preoccupied with ourselves and begin to live the life of the Trinity, then we become truly ourselves.

Trinity Sunday reminds us that we are called to live the divine life!

This week we celebrate Trinity Sunday. This celebration does not only focus on the interior nature of God, but also focuses on how we are called to participate in this interior life of God. Sometimes it is hard for us to appreciate the radical manner in which the incarnation of Jesus calls each of us, here and now. to enter into the divine life. This involves a sort of divinisation of our lives, an extraordinary process in which we begin to live the kind of life that God himself lives! Hard to believe? Read on!

The life of God is a life of communion, in which one is completely oriented to the other

In the Gospel passage, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will tell us things that pertain to Jesus. But the things that pertain to Jesus, we are told, are the things that belong also to the Father. What confusion! Don't any of these divine persons have anything that belongs to them individually? How are we to distinguish their individual identities? The key to understanding the passage is to remember that God is love, and the divine life is a life of complete communion. God the Father is love, and being love he gladly gives away everything that belongs to himself. God the Son lives this love joyfully, returning it completely to the Father. Curiously, even though the divine persons give away everything they have, they do not lose their identity. And this is an experience that can be shared by anyone who is redeemed and enters into this volcano that we call the life of the Trinity. The person who is redeemed possesses nothing of his own; everything is expropriated from him; yet he remains himself. And this is how it is with God. God is the owner of the house, yet he has given his house to everyone. It is impossible to reconcile the Christian vocation with a life in which the person considers himself to be the owner of his possessions, his capacities, or his achievements. We in the Church must consider ourselves to have nothing that belongs to us. Any riches that we possess must be shared freely with others.

The Holy Spirit is hard to define because he always leads away from himself to the other persons of the Trinity

Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit does not speak of himself. The characteristic of the Holy Spirit is humility, and this is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to define him. If we reflect on him and try to figure out his nature, we are led to start thinking about the Father, or about the Son! The Holy Spirit leads us always to start thinking about others, not Himself! And Christians should do likewise. Christians who are filled with the Holy Spirit do not talk about themselves. Unfortunately we often meet the opposite. When we encounter a Christian, we hear about his achievements, his intentions, his experiences. How boring! Sometimes we want to say, "Talk to me about something that saves, because you don't save anyone!" If we must speak about ourselves, then let it be about how we have been redeemed by the Lord; let it be about the gratitude that we owe to God for his saving action in our lives.

Living the life of the Trinity involves stopping living lives that are based on our own egos

When we are filled with the Holy spirit, then our egos are no longer the frantic centres of our lives. As it stands, we live an existence in service of these enflamed egos and our principal preoccupation is with ourselves. Me, me, me. What boredom! But when the Holy Spirit comes, then we start to focus on the other. When someone is in love, they think only about the one that they love; they speak only about the one that they love; and they act principally in relation to the one that they love. And this is how the life of God operates. The Spirit speaks only of the other persons, of the Father who gives everything, of the Son who is totally obedient to the Father.

When we live the life of the Trinity then our lives become decongested and healed

It is sobering to compare the life of the Trinity with the lives that we live habitually. The tragedy of the human being is that we lose our relationship with God and live an existence that is based on our ego. All the terrible things that humanity has done originate in the basic sin of not allowing ourselves to be loved by God, and the failure to love him in return. We fail to give space to the Holy Spirit in our lives. If we listen to Him, then we experience true healing, true rest, and the decongestion of our lives. He speaks only of God. He does not speak to the ego that we have made the central focus of our lives.

It is only by living the life of the Trinity that we become truly ourselves

When we contemplate the Trinity we discover the truth about ourselves. It is important to remember that unless we open our hearts completely to the Holy Spirit, we cannot be fully ourselves. It is only when we love and are loved that we become authentically ourselves. When we are in a place where we are not valued or appreciated, we implode. We become defensive, aggressive or bitter. But when we are in a house where we are loved, then we are free to be ourselves. We speak frankly and laugh freely, without fear of rejection. We feel welcomed for who we are. The life of the Christian is to live in the House of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is to live in the knowledge that God is my father, that Jesus has redeemed me with his blood, and that I am one body with Him. When we enter someone's house, people often say, "Make yourselves at home". The Holy Spirit does not only make us feel at home in the house of the Father, he makes us take up residence in the house of God! We start to become children of God; we begin to have the love of Christ for the Father in us. What a beautiful thing it is to live like that! May the truth of the Blessed Trinity become our truth, so that by living in the Trinity we may become truly ourselves..