The Sunday After Pentecost

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

May 18, 2008

Homily for the Anglican Usage Mass

of the

St. Thomas More Society

celebrated at

St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church , 1013 Wood Street

Scranton, PA

John 3:16-18

            In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen

            “No, but they have a dog,” is often the answer I receive when I pose the question, “Is she pregnant yet?”  The implication of such a retort is that the pet the young married couple has acquired is the stand-in for the child they as yet are unwilling to welcome into the world.  That is, the dog that so many young couples in our country get shortly after their wedding day, more often than not, is a love-substitute, a replacement for what naturally proceeds from true love.

            A dog is not the only love-substitute common among young American married couples or simply Americans for that matter.  They might jointly dedicate themselves to saving enough money to purchase a home, or they may become grossly involved in politics or some other cause, such as the environmental movement, all the while intentionally delaying child-bearing until they are “ready”.

            What love-substitutes indicate is that people understand intuitively that love by its very nature is supposed to be fruitful.  Love, by its very nature, is to be fruitful.  Those who acquire love-substitutes may not desire, because of their sinfulness, the natural fruit of love, but they still desire fruit because they, after all, are human.  At their core of cores they are good, so they desire that love be fruitful.  The doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity can help us understand why the fruit of love-substitutes never satisfies and always leaves young lovers yearning for something more substantial.

            The doctrine of the Trinity is the explanation of the truth found in Scripture that “God is love” (1 John 4:8).  From Scripture we learn that God the Father and God the Son are one and that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.  Thus, we can deduce that the Holy Spirit is the product, so to speak, of the love reciprocated eternally between the Father and the Son.  That is, within God’s very nature, in the Trinity of persons but in Unity of being, love is fruitful. God only can be described as being love because love and its fruits exist within His nature, within who He is.

            In other words, God does not need us to love.  We are not co-dependents:  we rely on His love while our existence gives Him the subject that He requires to do what He does best.  No, not at all:  God loved before the foundation of the world because God is love.  Our existence is the result of His act of generosity, rather than a ploy to keep His love from being eternally self-directed.  We see in the Trinity the action of love and the fruit that naturally proceeds from love.

            Because we humans are made in God’s image, our love is a reflection of the relationship between and among the three persons of the Trinity.  At least it should be.  We know that unfortunately, in our fallen state, our attempts at love often do not in any way approximate the love of God.

            In order for love to be authentic, and in order for our love to approximate the love of God, it must be able to be reciprocated completely.  Thus, the nature of those who love must be the same, yet the persons must be different.  The love between persons that are the same sex is never fruitful.  The love between creatures that do not share the same nature is not, either.  These are indications of both how we are to love and who we are to love, as people made in the image of God, as male and female created in God’s image. 

            We noted that both men and women share the same human nature, yet men and women are not the same.  In a similar manner, the Father and the Son share the same divine nature, yet only the Son took upon Himself human flesh, the most obvious distinction between God the Father and God the Son.  And, of course, just as the one flesh union of men and women produces the fruit of a child, we see that the Holy Spirit, while not the offspring of the Father and the Son, nevertheless, proceeds from the love between the first and second persons of the Trinity.  The fruitfulness of God’s love indicates the point with which I began:  our love is to be fruitful, and the fruit of our love must be of the same nature as those who love, if we are to live into the purpose for which we were created.  Substitutes for true love are just that, substitutes, because they do not allow us to fulfill our purpose of people made in the image of God, who is love.

            Love substitutes do not work because they invariably are of this world, dogs without souls, houses that will crumble, causes that are meaningless against the backdrop of eternity.  What God desires to proceed from our love are the things that are not of this world, the things that are eternal—the soul of a child, the salvation of a penitent sinner.  If our love is not directed towards these eternal ends, we will exist perpetually dissatisfied and unfulfilled because our objectives fall so short of the nature bestowed upon us at our creation.

            Those who seek out love-substitutes do so because of their unwillingness to make the sacrifices that true love requires.  Ignorant of the love within the vary nature of God, they imagine they can love in half measures or define love for themselves and still find happiness.  Our role as Catholics who confess the Trinity is to remind our fellow men of their true nature, a nature whose origin is in God, and whose love must be directed towards returning to God, if we are to find contentment.  We must remind our neighbors that we are made to love by the same God who showed love by the ultimate act of self-emptying, Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf in obedience to the Father’s will.

            Therefore, banish love-substitutes from your life and encourage others to do the same.  They do not do the trick, and they are a poor witness to the love God intends each of His children to know.  Instead, model your love after the love inherent to the Most Holy Trinity and thus let your love reflect the love of God.  The truth is that children, both physical and spiritual, are a lot more work than are dogs and every other love-substitute.  They require so much more sacrifice.  The good news is that, unlike love-substitutes, your children can spend eternity with you in heaven before the throne of grace, where true love prevails eternally, with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.