Fr. Jarek Kurek OSB: This year feels so much under the shadow of the 2025 Jubilee Year, with all our travelling to Rome, going through the Holy Door and so on.
But it should not escape our notice that it is also 1700 years after a very important council which took place in Nicaea. This was a very significant moment in the history of the Church, and so it is not by chance that this place has been chosen by our new Pope, Leo XIV, as the destination of his first papal visit.
What was the Nicaea about? 318 bishops from all around gathered to discuss the most fundamental issues of the Christian doctrine. The most lasting legacy of the assembly is what we commonly know as the Nicene Creed, the foundational statement of our faith in God as Trinity, which, with some additions, we proclaim so often in our churches.
In 325 Nicaea, which is situated in what is now the north-western part of Turkey, was a part of the Christian empire. But when Pope Leo goes there in November, he will visit a Muslim country.
I do think it’s becoming more and more essential that we grasp the dynamics of the Christian-Muslim interreligious context. So this morning I would like us to look at the Most Holy Trinity, this key element of our belief that we are celebrating today within this frame, through the lens of a certain Benedictine abbot, called Peter the Venerable.
Why him? Because this French abbot realised, and we are talking about the 12th century, that there was an urgent need to reach out to the Muslim world, to get to know about their beliefs. So he commissioned the first translation of the Quran into Latin and also composed very important works about Islam, which includes addressing the Muslim believers themselves.
In his dialogue with the world of Islam, he was rather outspoken, to put it mildly. And the idea that mattered to him most was precisely the concept of God as Trinity, distinctively missing in the doctrine of the Muslim faith.
That was the first thing he dwelt upon, clearly very important to his penetrating mind.
Now the question: do we ever reflect upon this great mystery, the mystery of the Trinity in God?
Sadly, as one contemporary theologian noted, there is nowadays a tendency to regard all the mysteries as mysterious, obscure, beyond our comprehension. So also the Trinitarian mystery has been relegated to the list of objects and concepts considered virtually useless for a practical dimension of our Christian life. This doesn’t help at all.
But how about the idea that the Trinity shouldn’t be considered only as the theoretical foundation stone of Christianity, a relic of the dim and distant past, but become the practical, concrete, and existential basis of our Christian life today?
It is up to us, each of us attending this liturgy to make a choice. Am I interested in getting to know the deeper meaning of this mystery? Do I want to learn the truth about Trinity, as much as I can? Do I want learn more about God the Father, his Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit?
If you say yes to it, why not pay a special attention to it today while pronouncing the Creed, while it is sung by our congregation in a few minutes’ time? Why not take it up again at home, trying to penetrate the meaning of the words and their significance?
In doing so, we will be well advised to take the powerful suggestion of Peter the Venerable given at the time to the Muslim brothers? To him the true knowledge of God should never be neglected. It must be investigated, debated and examined until the one who does not grasp it understands it.
Blessed Peter the Venerable was full of holy audacity in his attempt to penetrate the essence of God who is Trinity. May it become so also with us, may we strive to deepen our understanding of this mystery in the belief that the more we try to get it, the more it will be revealed to us, by God.
Believe in the message of today’s Gospel, the Holy Spirit will declare those things to you.