Gospel Jn 16:12-15
Jesus said to his disciples: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.
He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”
Homily
As I have grown as a priest I have also come to see the Trinity as the patronal feast of the family.
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It is part of the culture of Paraguay for persons to sit and sip their local tea together. But this togetherness is not simply sitting at the same time around the same table. It also entails sipping from the same cup and through the same straw. At first we missionaries from countries of the north found this custom unhygienic to say the least, as time went on however we realized that we had never heard of anyone catching a contagious disease because of this practice but more than that we discovered that it was a means of bonding people together.
We also realized that parents would wake early in the morning and sip their mate as that tea is called, using the time spent to share and discuss and come to consensus on various issues, especially those concerning their children so that they spoke with one voice. As the children grew they would also include them in these sessions so that family life was normally very harmonious.
As I read the gospel passage in preparation for this weekend I was reminded of that cultural experience which has helped me to look at the Trinity as the family life of God. As in any family there are three elements, Father Son and Spirit who share all that they hold harmoniously so that the Spirit can speak what he hears from the Father whose thought is the same as the Son’s.
This speaks, analogously of course, of the total trust which exists among the three persons of the Trinity so that in the whole work of ongoing creation as God planned it, there is in fact total harmony. The Trinity is harmonious relationships personified. Whenever disharmony afflicts the ongoing creation, and especially the human family, it is always as a result of human weakness and imperfection. Whenever trust is built we see the beginning of harmony. We see this in families, we see it in organizations like Servol and Hope
It is important to understand also that disharmony is most dangerous when it hits the family because the family is the fundamental cell of society. It is primarily in the family that one learns to trust and one can build the habit of trust. When this doesn’t happen in the family it is so much more difficult to be an agent of harmony.
This feast of the Trinity then has important lessons for us. In an age in which family life is under attack in so many ways, we members of the Church of Christ, If we want family life to survive and with it society as we would wish it to be, must find strategies as the Paraguayans have found to enhance family life and develop the trust upon which harmonious living depends. It was lack of trust which first brought sin into the world and it is lack of trust which keeps disharmony alive.
For us in Trinidad and Tobago, this feast also has special significance. We have been named after the Trinity and to be true to our name we must be a beacon of unity in the diversity. It is not a question of simply giving lip service to this ideal our very future depends on it. We live on a tiny island we all call home, we love to boast of being a rainbow country, yet the election campaign we have just been through is the most bruising that we have experienced. It was a campaign characterized so often by the levels of vulgarity and crassness heard on platforms. Reputations have been questioned and destroyed and now after a government has been elected and the dust has settled we have the task which has become so much more difficult of building a harmonious society, of making our national anthem a reality. This will demand of each one of us the ability to forgive, the ability to put things behind us, the ability to see beyond our own selfish interests to the greater good of our nation. Every Catholic and every Christian has to be proactive, encouraging and leading the way in building the harmonious interpersonal relationships which will model the unity in diversity which the name Trinidad signifies.
As we celebrate this feast then, the feast of family life and of our nation, we thank God for the witness of so many families and individuals who witness to the power of trust in the constructing of harmonious relationships. We ask God to help us develop the habit of trust so that we be agents of the growing harmony of God’s ongoing creation.
Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God, today we celebrate the feast of the family life which you live with the Son and the Spirit. You have revealed to us the total trust and harmony which exists between your three persons. So united are you that You are one God and speak not with three voices but with one voice. Give to our families a share in that trust and harmony so that we can witness to the world what true family life really means. Give to us as a nation the graces we need to make our island the beacon of unity in diversity which we must model for the world if we are to be true to our name. We ask this through the intercession of the Holy Family of Nazareth who most revealed to us the trust and harmony of the Trinity. Amen
