Homily for the past solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

The Incarnation is the hidden life of the Most Holy Trinity made visible. But the Incarnation must be understood in the inclusive sense whereby the whole life of the God-Man Jesus Christ is considered from Crib to Cross to Cosmic throne. In a special way, however the Cross highlights the dimension of the Incarnation known as Kenosis, which is the self-emptying love of Christ, the revelatory pinnacle of the inner life of the Holy Trinity. This is the visible, living manifestation in time and space of the Eternal ‘goings on’ operative in the life of the Holy Trinity. The kenosis of Christ on the Cross reveals the secret to the mutual Indwelling of the Persons of the Trinity namely, you make room for the other by making empty one’s self of self but in the life of the Holy Trinity this self-emptying is always met with a mutual self-emptying which only the Spirit of Divine Love can accomplish. Suffering such as crucifixion therefore is the only way kenosis can be expressed by Infinite Innocence in a world where sin only permits of a conditioned indwelling. Our Lord says, ‘whoever receives one whom I send receives me; and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me.’ Jn 13:20 Does not this attest to the Incarnation’s continuance and with it a kenosis or Trinitarian revelation on mutual indwelling in every time and space? The kenosis of Christ has been sealed by the Spirit with the gift of perpetuity. The Incarnation survives the Cross as the Resurrection attests for Christ rose from death in the flesh wherein lies our salvation. Hence the Incarnational kenosis continues by the working of the Holy Spirit in us who have become Christ’s mystical body. So it should come as no surprise how meaningful the words of our Lord really are, ‘If you would My disciple be you must pick up your cross daily and follow Me.’ It is only in hoisting that repugnant wood upon our oil of olay shoulders that we best express the kenosis of Christ and therefore the hidden life of the Trinity who is love. The victory or vindication for our Christian kenosis is begun to borrow from Bishop Sheen when we bring before the Priest our lives symbolized by bread and wine which both had to undergo a certain death for bread consists in the death of wheat and wine consists in the grapes being put through the wrath of the wine press. Our lives therefore, our kenosis is vindicated as Christ in His Priest offers us with, through and in Himself to the Father by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. In the Transubstantiation of ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ we too are changed into his mystical body through our communion with Him. Symbolically speaking, we offer ourselves to God in the offertory as ordinary bread and wine that has undergone many deaths and much self-emptying and yet in return we receive vindication for the obedience of faith by being drawn into a higher life, the life known as eternal and supernatural. Our kenosis must reach the paten. Christ as Priest and Victim will do the rest to vindicate our offering of self. We give not in vain when we give ourselves to our daily cross for Christ consecrates us into a kingdom of priests for His God and Father, a holy nation, a people set apart for the mission of drawing, calling and summoning others to share in the Ecclesial kenosis, the Sacramental expression of the life of the Most Holy Trinity. If we do not accept our own call to kenosis by embracing our cross we will simply remain wheat in the field and grapes on the Vine without ever knowing the Life on the Paten or in the Chalice Divine. The Kenosis of Christ in time is but once because He is eternal and His self-offering bears that eternal imprint but for us who are finite beings who experience life sequentially we must practice kenosis again and again but we can rest assured that we receive infinitely more in Communion then we finitely gave in the offertory. I think this deserves a ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo.’