May 31, 2026 – Feast of the Most Holy Trinity (Year A)
Ex 34:4–9; 2 Cor 13:11–13; Jn 3:16–18
H O M I L Y
Dear brothers and sisters,
We sometimes ask the question: ‘Is the God of Christians the same as that of Muslims, or Hindus, or Buddhists, or the God of some other religion?’ In reality, there is no possible answer to such a question, because it is a question that is poorly posed. It is as if we owned God, and were asking ourselves whether the God we have, whom we possess, we Christians, is the same God that others possess. Yet no one possesses God.
There is, however, another, even more serious error in this way of framing the question. It is that, by framing the question in this way, we tend to identify God with the ideas, images and concepts we have of Him. It is clear that Muslims, Christians and Hindus have entirely different conceptions of God, and conceptions which, in most cases, are irreconcilable. But, ultimately, this is not so important, because God is entirely different from anything we can think or say about Him – even what we Christians can think and say about Him.
A Catholic theologian caused quite a stir some forty years ago with the title he gave to one of his books. The title was: ‘God is not god, for God’s sake! ’ Yet what this title meant was quite accurate. That is to say, God (with a capital ‘G’) cannot be reduced to any of the notions of God that we humans, whatever our religion, might have. He is infinitely other, infinitely greater.
That said, if God is important to us, it is natural to speak of Him, and we can only speak of Him using human language, that is to say, using images and concepts. We can then imagine God as a stern master and an implacable judge, just as we can imagine Him as a loving father or a tender husband. Obviously, the second way of imagining Him is more pleasant than the first. How, then, can we know which is the truest?
We know this because God Himself has spoken to us. The God who has spoken to us is not the God of the Jews or of the Christians. It is God, plain and simple – the one God, the God of all humanity and of all creation. He spoke to Moses and to the prophets of Israel, to whom He revealed Himself as a God who is ‘gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness’. This revelation, even though it was given to this or that person, is intended for all humanity. God has also spoken, throughout the centuries, to the hearts of all women and men of good will.
But if we know who God is, it is essentially because God became incarnate, because he became one of us, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This revelation of God in Jesus is the Word of God addressed to all humanity. In His person, in His life, in everything He did and said during His life on earth, Jesus revealed to us who God is. Having become one of us, He therefore also spoke to us in human language. To help us understand who God is, He therefore used human images and concepts. He told us that God was His Father, that he loved his Father and that his Father loved Him, that He and His Father were One; that They were united by a bond of love which He called the Spirit. All this remains human language which merely opens windows onto an infinitely greater mystery that cannot be reduced to any formula.
The most important thing for us is that He revealed to us that we too are
invited to enter into this mystery of God’s inner life, through the experience of love: ‘If anyone loves me,’ he said, ‘he/she will keep my word, and my Father will love him/her, and we will come and make our home with him/her.’
Beyond all the explanations and formulations that have been offered over the centuries, the ‘mystery of the Trinity’—which is the focus of today’s celebration—boils down to this revelation given in Jesus and through Jesus, of the mystery of love that constitutes what might be called the inner life of God.
Armand Veilleux