"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"!

Many sermons all over the world, in all Christian denominations, start with evoking the Holy Trinity. We do it to signify that what we say is not said primarily in the name of God, it is not said about God, for God – but in and with God. It signifies that when we gather around Christ's table, we participate in the trinitarian life. We live in the world, but as Christians, we go beyond every "normal" social order.

In this sense, every time we preach, we preach on Trinity, but today we talk about it explicitly.

During the year the lectionary gives us opportunity to linger on mysterious, unique events that are a part of our faith, to question them and know them better. Like when we talk about the Annunciation, for example. What happened there? Who is virgin Mary? Who is the angel? What is this incredible thing that the Lord has done in her?

Last week we spoke explicitly about the Holy Spirit, about the birth of the Church. How can it be both divine and human?

Today we are trying to talk about the mystery of mysteries, that summes up everything in itself. The Holy Trinity can be compared to an ocean from which every rivers flows. It is the very center and heart of our faith.

There were so many attempts in history to explain it, on different levels. St Augustin was writing for 17 years and left us a big and complex treatise. St Patrick used the three-leaved clover, the shamrock to explain how something can be one and triune.

One of the most renowned icons, the Trinity of Rublev, depicts the episode of the first apparition, the prefigurment of the Trinity in the Bible. The episode of the hospitality of Abraham.

Abraham receives and prepares a table for three strange guests, three angels – this is the moment the icon represents. The angels gathered around the table sharing one chalice in the middle.

It is one of the most mesmerizing works of art. As you try to understand how do the angels relate to each other, you get caught up in the dynamic that is going on between them, the circular, even spiral movement of their gestures.

Each angel refers to another, echoes another, but what gives this hypnotyzing effect is that their gazes never meet. The first one is not watching the second one, but the second one doesn’t look back – he is watching the third one. The third one doesn’t look back, but he is tilting his head. They do not meet each other’s eyes. Their relationship is completely opened.

Why is that? If two would exchange looks, the third one would be left outside, excluded. But their relationship is not exclusive. None of the angels, none of the persons of the Trinity is caught up in binary relation. What the icon tells us is that the nature of the Trinity is to embrace everything, to be opened.

Trinity represents the very idea of the possibility to go out of yourself. Three persons, but there is no domination. There is not one person that usurps all the attention.

In other words, the Holy Trinity excludes everything that makes human beings suffer. They do not search for approval. There is no fear of being excluded from the table. There is no fear of being overshadowed or, vice versa, to lose the position. There is no play of power.

Trinitarian persons are not searching to receive their own reflection back, as we are often

tempted to do. We want to see in the other only what is familiar to us, only what we like. We create our own ideal and see this ideal reflected in others. We want to see our own ideas being confirmed. We think that this is our comfort zone, but is it really? Does it make us free? Does it make us happier? Does it make us progress?

Many religions have come to an idea that God is one, that behind the multiplicity of natural phenomena there should be something unifying.

But who God is within Himself our mind is unable to comprehend. Only God knows who He is. Only the Son knows the Father. Only when God has to decide to make Himself known, can we discover that, yes, God is one, but there is something else. He is one, but not alone. He is the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Moreover, each of the divine persons is fully God, but it doesn’t make Him three Gods. Each person is different, but the differences do not divide the divine essence.

The Christian concept of the Trinity reveals that God is not the chief commander or the chief avenger – but the crucified love. Not unit, but unity. God is not just personal, but interpersonal God. He is dialogical. Within Him there is a timeless dialogue of infinite and untiring love, and we have been taken up into this dialogue.

We refer to ourselves as the body of Christ, because we are incorporated in Christ through our baptism. Since we are incorporated in Christ, we are also incorporated in the Holy Trinity. We can imagine ourselves sitting at the table with the three angels and sharing the chalice with them.

When I was a kid, we were not using cell phones, and to call your friend out to play you needed to come to his or her house and start shouting and throwing pebbles in the window. Sometimes, an angry mother of grandmother would appear instead and the chances of getting the friend out would diminish.

We often understand prayer like that. Not as a conversation, but as shouting and throwing pebbles in God's house, hoping that He will be in the mood to go out. However, what happens in reality is quite the opposite. It is not us trying to get God out of His fortress - but trying to get ourselves out of ours.

When we pray, with willingness to listen, we can hear the Trinity discussing us, speaking to us and waiting patiently for our answer.

There is no way we can understand the Trinity with our reason, but we are not meant to. God is the creator our reason - not its prisoner. The most important knowledge of our life is not the knowledge of pure reason, but of love.

The supreme way of understanding God is loving and desiring to Him. "How do you love?" is the question that the Lord has answered with His life once and for all. God so loved the world that He have His only begotten Son. He loved the world so much that He became fully man, thus inviting us to make a leap of faith, to abbandon ourselves to Him fully - without the fear of losing, but with the hope of finding ourselves.

The iconographers are trained not only as artists, but also as theologians. They study and pray a lot before starting to paint.

For all of us our lives, our personality is an icon, an image that we are working on. What does an iconographer do in performing his art? He turns to God in prayer - then returns to the canvas. Again – to God – and back to the canvas. He tries to express the spiritual in physical terms of paint and tint and colors and wood. We are learning to do the same with our lives. We express the spiritual in our words and actions. In the decisions we make. Our art is the art of living. The image we are working on is the image of the Blessed Trinity in us.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit encourage you, guide and sustain you in this task.

Amen.