Bp. Schneider on Trinity Sunday: ‘The faith of all Christians rests on the Trinity’
Astana's Bishop Schneider's full homily for Trinity Sunday recounts the mystery of the Trinity, central to the Catholic faith.
Editor’s note: The following is the text of a homily delivered by His Excellency, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, at the parish of Saint-Eugène - Sainte-Cécile, on Trinity Sunday: May 26, 2024.
The homily is reproduced here by kind permission of His Excellency. A video of the Mass can be found here.
Homily on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, May 26, 2024
“Christians are baptized ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Mt 28:19). Before this, they answer ‘I believe’ to the triple question that asks them to confess their faith in the Father, the Son and the Spirit: ‘The faith of all Christians rests on the Trinity’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 232).
Faith in the Most Holy Trinity is so particular to Christians that not even the Hebrew people had express knowledge of it, nor did the pagans. God's servant, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, spoke of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity as follows:
“Three in one, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; three persons in one God; one in essence, distinction of persons, such is the mystery of the Trinity, such is the inner life of God. As I am, I know, and I love, and yet I am one; just as the three angles of a triangle do not make three triangles, but one; just as the heat, power and light of the sun do not make three suns, but one; just as water, air and vapor are all manifestations of one substance; just as the form, color and fragrance of the rose do not make three roses, but one; just as our soul, intellect and will do not make three substances, but one; just as once once once makes one, and does not make three, but one (1x1x1=1) - so, in a much more mysterious way, there are three Persons in God and yet only one God. ...
The greatest wonder of all, then, is that being perfect and enjoying perfect happiness, He never had to create a world. And if He did create a world, He could only have had one motive for creating it. It couldn't add anything to His perfection; it couldn't add anything to His truth; it couldn't increase His happiness. He created the world only because He loved.” (The Divine Romance: The Blessed Trinity, Part 2).
Father Louis Bourdaloue, a brilliant seventeenth-century preacher, left us the following luminous considerations on the mystery of the Holy Trinity:
“To believe in one God in three persons is the greatest homage of faith that a creature can pay to God. I can form no higher idea of God than when I recognize that he is incomprehensible. Now, in what mystery is God more incomprehensible to man than in the Trinity? Hence it follows that the only way I can exalt God's sovereign being is by believing in this ineffable Trinity. Such is our faith. We profess it with our mouths, we say enough that we would be ready to die to defend it: but it's not a question of dying for the faith; it's a question of supporting it and honouring it by the innocence and purity of our morals.
Believing in one God in three persons is the greatest source of confidence a creature can have in God. When we are instructed in Christianity, where do we begin? With that which is most elevated and most difficult to believe in, which is the mystery of the Trinity. Because it is the foundation of all our hope; for I cannot be saved without the faith of a God in three persons: as this faith requires a greater effort on our part, so the profession we make of it is of greater merit. ...
The formula of faith we pronounce in confessing the Trinity, and conceived in these terms: In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. This formula is so holy and so venerable in our religion. That's why we place it at the head of all our actions, so that it sanctifies them and makes them meritorious. A practice handed down to us by the apostles, and solemnly and constantly observed by the Church in all her divine offices.
If we had observed it up to now in the same spirit and with the same piety as the Church, how many merits would we have acquired before God? When, at the hour of our death, the priest prays for us, what name will he use to make his vows more effective? The names of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And when, addressing God, he recommends the soul of the dying to him, what reason will he use? This one: Whatever he has sinned, Lord, he has confessed even the august Trinity. To believe in a God in three persons is to have before our eyes the most powerful motive and the most excellent model of the charity that should unite us in God and according to God.
1. The faith of the Trinity is the motive and the substantial bond of the charity that should be between us; 2. the mystery of the Trinity is also the great model that Jesus Christ gave us in his Gospel.
1. The faith of the Trinity must be the bond of our mutual charity. As Saint Paul teaches: “Since you all have one God,” he said to the first faithful, “and one faith, and one baptism, and one body, which is the Church, is it not right that you should all have one Spirit? In whose name were you baptized,” adds the same apostle, ”to stop certain discords? Is it not in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and should not this unity of religion form among you the union of hearts?
2. The mystery of the Trinity is the great model of our charity. What did Jesus Christ ask his Father for his disciples? That they should be one among themselves, just as the Father and the Son, in the august Trinity, are one. In this adorable Trinity, there are no different interests, no opposing sentiments, no conflicting wills. Are we formed on this model? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
From that faith, says St Augustine, which we regard as the Church's most precious treasure; that faith which justifies sinners, sanctifies the just, baptizes catechumens, crowns martyrs, consecrates priests, saves everyone. Almighty Father, you formed our hearts, and you are still master of turning them as you please! Son equal to your Father, and eternal like him, but made flesh for us, you have brought us together under one law, and it is a law of love! Holy Spirit, you are the substantial love of the Father and the Son, and it is through you that charity is poured into souls! Sovereign adorable and lovable Trinity, it is from your bosom that we all came forth, and it is in your bosom that you wish to call us all back! Unite us on earth, as we must be in blessed eternity,” (Oeuvres complètes de Bourdaloue. Published by the Priests of the Immaculate Conception of Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne). Tome troisième, Tours 1864, pp. 129-130)
Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity left us this short, moving prayer: “O my Three, my All, my Beatitude, infinite Solitude, Immensity where I lose myself, I surrender myself to You as a prey; bury yourself in me, so that I may bury myself in You, while waiting to go and contemplate in your light the abyss of your greatness.”
Let us make our own this brief prayer by Saint Hilaire of Poitiers: “I beg you, O my God, keep intact the fervor of my faith and until my last breath give me to conform my voice to my deep conviction. May I always keep what I affirmed in the symbol proclaimed at my new birth, when I was baptized in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Treatise on the Trinity III, 57).