Dear Brothers and Sisters, I am very moved to be preaching today in this abbey church of Notre-Dame de Quarr, built by our fathers of the Saint-Pierre de Solesmes community. Driven out by a sectarian government, they found refuge here, in this land where the freedom of those who wish to devote themselves entirely to God and divine worship is respected. More than 120 years after their arrival, monastic life continues in this splendid place, and in these buildings that are certainly imposing, but whose beauty leaves no one indifferent. It’s a sign of divine mercy, which makes light of the wickedness of men and draws good from the evil deeds of men.
Today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Trinity, and perhaps that’s not insignificant, because this feast is profoundly contemplative. It does nothing less than encourage us to contemplate the inexhaustible mystery of the intimacy of God himself, the mystery of the one God in three persons.
For all that, we do not contemplate this mystery as if we were outside it or foreign to it. Admittedly, this mystery is infinitely beyond us; it remains absolutely unattainable for our nature, when left to its own devices. But it is precisely God who wished to lower himself to us, or rather to raise us to himself, to the point of allowing us to enter into his own intimacy. He has made known to us the mystery of his intimacy; he proposes that we enter into the communion of the three persons that he himself is. This is what the Holy Church invites us to celebrate on this day.
This truth of faith has a profound impact on our everyday lives. It intimately determines the way we behave with each other and with those around us.
We Christians are not a group of friends having a good time together, or partners running a business together to make money: our vocation is to live turned towards the One thing necessary, towards the living God who calls us to enter into his Trinitarian communion.
Living in Trinitarian communion is what we will do when we get to Heaven. But we are already called here below to live as brothers and sisters turned towards God. In this way, we are already living the life of the blessed. This is the New Jerusalem that comes down from Heaven. This is not something that comes from us, it is a gift from God. It is a call, it is what we were created for, and at the same time it is the free gift of God.
Unity is a gift from God. If we are united, it is not because we have agreed on a minimum of common convictions and values, a common interest, a lowest common denominator. Our unity comes from our common vocation to see God, to be united with him. Basically, our unity comes from the unity of the Trinity. The Church, and therefore also a family, a parish, a monastic community, is plebs de unitate Trinitatis adunata, the people made one from the unity of the Trinity, as Saint Cyprian says. This is a vocation that goes infinitely beyond us, that is absolutely free, that raises us above ourselves. Our unity is not a unity from below, it is a unity from above. A unity that does not make us smaller, but on the contrary lifts us up, bringing all our potentialities to their maximum, and even beyond, just as grace surpasses nature. This is the model of communion that the Holy Trinity presents to us, or rather the model of communion to which it calls us.
Our vocation is indeed to form “a chosen offspring, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people destined for salvation”, as Saint Peter says in his first letter, quoting the book of Exodus. We are made to be in relationship. Life in heaven is life in society, in community. Right here on earth we are invited to anticipate and enjoy this life in society centred on the living God whom we contemplate and from whom we receive divine life.
This is the path that the feast of the Holy Trinity invites us to take. The path of unity, but a unity that respects the personality of each person. This unity is a gift from God. In particular, it is the Holy Spirit who unites us, because he is the bond between the Father and the Son, their kiss. This is the vocation of a monastic community: to bear witness to the world that we can live in peace, unity and charity, while remaining ourselves.
May the Holy Spirit make us witnesses to this communion that the Holy Trinity offers to us and to the world!