Trinity Sunday Homily: Divine Mystery and the Seven Ecumenical Councils
Readings and Virtual Homily, June 15, Trinity Sunday; Been to Boston; Saddling Up for the Sabbatical
Readings for Mass this Sunday:
Proverbs 8:22-31
Psalm 8:4-9
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15
Dear Friends and Family,
When it comes to preaching, Trinity Sunday is one of my favorite days of the year. I suppose this is simply because the subject of the Trinity is so vast, so deep and so mysterious. This is the single greatest mystery of the Christian faith -- the truly unfathomable mystery that within the Divine Being there are three Persons. Within the Divine Being there is interPersonal love. Within the Divine Being there is actually a template for what human love might look like and aspire to. We are, after all, made in the image and likeness of God, and we are called to interpersonal love.
The doctrine of the Trinity represents an advance on previous human conceptions of the divine. No real surprise here since after all, the fact of the existence of three Divine Persons within the Godhead is a matter of revelation. We did not arrive at this understanding by the strength and perception of our own reasoning powers.
(Though in fairness to the ancient Greeks, the concept of a divine dynamism described as the One, the Logos -- or Word -- and the World-Soul came strikingly close to the Christian concept. The premiere difference between this sophisticated Greek philosophical understanding and ours is, of course, the Personalism of the Trinity; is the reality of that Tri-Personal love within the Divine Being and of its overflowing into creation. The Tri-Personal God loves. Within the Godhead. And outside of it; God loves us.
(And if you are already scratching your head, dear reader, no worries. We are pretty much at my limit here, as well. This is, after all, GOD we are talking about. It would be surprising, I think, if we COULD wrap our minds around the Being that created the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies, the quasars and inter-galactic stellar dust clouds and everything else being photographed and mapped by the Hubble and the James Webb telescopes...As G. K. Chesterton so admirably put it, over a century ago, a God small enough to fit inside his head was not a God worthy of his worship. So...you do not totally get the whole Trinity thing? No worries. No one does.)
I know that on previous Trinity Sundays I have rolled out some of my favorite analogies and images -- the sort that I use to help the sophomores get a grip in my Christian Scriptures classes at Bishop O'Dowd. Today, I am going to go in a different direction, the direction of the development of doctrine.
The concept of the Trinity, there from the outset of the Christian faith and quite discernible in Scripture, was nonetheless in need of clarification as the early centuries of the Church unfolded. Questions, about Jesus primarily, but also about the Holy Spirit, arose and had to be answered. Depending on how they were answered, humanity would have one understanding of God, or another. This process was centuries in its development, and can largely be traced through the records of seven meetings of Church leaders known collectively as the Seven Ecumenical Councils. These councils occurred between the years 325 and 787.
I'll point out here, just for clarification, that there have been many other councils of the Church. The first was held in Jerusalem in 51 AD when the question, which no one had thought of before, suddenly arose, given the large influx of Gentiles to the faith: "Do you have to become Jewish in order to become a follower of Christ?" The Council of Jerusalem is detailed in chapter fifteen of Acts of the Apostles, in the event that you would like to read about it. (Spoiler alert: The Council of Jerusalem ruled that no, you do not have to become Jewish to become Christian.)
As noted, there have been many councils since. Some have dealt with matters of liturgical practice, Church governance and discipline (such as celibacy for priests and religious) and so on. Some, such as the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century, have met widespread heresy head-on.
The Seven Ecumenical Councils had a different agenda: They were responsible for laying and ensuring the very foundation of the faith itself. This foundation had largely to do with our understanding of God. That is, this foundation had largely to do with defining the truth about the Trinity. As questions arose, answers were needed. The Seven Ecumenical Councils, convened by and acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, provided those answers and -- really, no other way to put it -- defined God. I'll give just a couple of examples.
The first of the Ecumenical Councils was the Council of Nicaea (more precisely, the First Council of Nicaea) held in the summer of 325, at Nicaea, something of a fourth century seaside resort near Constantinople (modern Istanbul) which by then had become the capital of the Roman Empire. The council was called to address the question, which no one had evidently much considered before, of whether Jesus was actually divine, or simply the most exalted of creatures. This question was raised by an Egyptian priest named Arius and the heresy now associated with it bears his name, the Arian Heresy.
In the interest of brevity I will spare you the details, but the council met, debated, discerned, prayed, placed itself under the guidance of the Spirit and voted -- voted 402 to 4 -- that Jesus is, in fact, divine. He is the Second Person of the Trinity. The Arian Heresy threatened the very basis of our understanding of God. It denied the Trinity. It has been resurrected in our times by our dear (I mean that, they are dear to me!) Jehovah's Witnesses. The doctrinal formula established at Nicaea in the summer of 325 is summed up in the Nicene Creed, which we recite every Sunday at Mass.
A contrasting view of Jesus was that which was taken up by the Fourth Ecumenical Council, the Council of Chalcedon, in 451. Again, without going into details, here the question was not at all whether Jesus was truly divine, but whether he was truly human, whether he had, in fact, a fully formed and independent human nature. The ramifications of this debate were enormous. If Jesus was not truly and fully human, what did that mean for his apparent suffering and death?
Chalcedon (once again, a suburb of Constantinople), a council attended by more than 500 bishops, ruled that Jesus possessed a fully human nature, as well as being fully divine. That is, Jesus really did suffer and die. That is, Jesus really does know what it is to be human. And that is, this Jesus who truly knows what it is to be human -- this Jesus, fully human, is God.
Understand, this is waaaaay nut-shell summary here, of both the councils in question. But I offer this assessment as testimony to the landmark importance of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, which largely defined our understanding of the nature of the Godhead. Not just the Catholic Church, but also all of the Orthodox and almost all of the Protestant churches accept the decisions, the doctrinal formulations, of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. These councils were foundational, in terms of our understanding of what we celebrate today, the great and fathomless mystery of the Holy Trinity.
And, just to provide a tie-in with today's Scripture readings: Jesus tells the apostles in today's passage from John that he has "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" (vss. 12-13).
This is precisely what occurred at the Seven Ecumenical Councils.
I went to Boston over the last weekend, for the graduation from high school of my sister Flo's youngest, my nephew Naizejha. (Say it like Isaiah with an N at the start.) Oh my gosh. Naizejha is so.. zen. So chill. So cool. So warm. So open. So hopeful. I have written in these homilies for a year now about my love for the O'Dowd class of 2025. Well, here was a graduate of the class of 2025 from my own family, and I could not be more proud of him. Flo, dying of cancer, during Naizejha's freshman year, so very much wanted to live to see him graduate. He (and his sisters, both a few years older) make me want to live -- in good health and mentally alert -- into my 80s, just to see what they will accomplish in life. On both coasts, the Class of 2025 gives me deep hope for the future.
I love Boston in any event. The city reminds me in various ways of San Francisco, New York and London, and I love all those cities as well, so...easy to see, I guess, why I am so enamoured of Boston. It is one of the few places in our country beyond our state lines where I feel I could happily reside. I stay with very close friends there, when I am in town. That no doubt helps.
The trip East marked a line for me. End of the school year (with my nephew's graduation) and the beginning of the summer, the "seven month summer" of my sabbatical. This is, as I have mentioned before, a work sabbatical. I am not taking time off to study or to travel. I will be here at my beloved St. Clement straight through the time away from the high school and even at O'Dowd, I am committed to all four of our autumn semester retreats and to several on-campus Masses. This sabbatical is about our efforts at evangelization at San Gabriel Media. I may be able to say more on that, next e-mail, but this one is long enough!
Take good care. God bless.
Yours in the Trinity,
Fr. Brawn