I recently
received an email from a parishioner containing some young people’s
questions for God. A couple of them asked pretty good theological
questions:
Dear God: Did you
mean for giraffes to look like that or was it an accident? – Jennifer
Dear God: My
brothers told me about being born. It just doesn’t sound right.
They’re just kidding me, right? – Jimmy
Dear God: I bet it’s
very hard for you to love all the people in the world. It’s hard enough
just to love my brother. – Joey
Dear God: Does
wasting my time damage eternity? – Kelly
All of these
“Dear God” questions raise theological questions about the
Catholic faith which is exactly what the two Sundays following Pentecost
are intended to do each year as the Church focuses us upon two
particular mysteries of our Catholic faith. Today, we celebrate
“Trinity Sunday” to renew and deepen our familiarity with this fundamental mystery
of the Catholic faith as well as to grow doctrinally, spiritually, and
humanly. Next week, we celebrate another fundamental
mystery of the Catholic faith, “Corpus Christi” (or, “The Body of
Christ”) which denotes the Eucharist as well as the Church.
Abstract
theological concepts like these, precisely because they are abstract,
oftentimes make people wonder, “Why do we need to think about these?
After all, life is complex enough, isn’t it? There’s a lot more
important things to worry about, aren’t there?” Teenagers think
theological concepts like these are boring.
The reason the
Church places these two mysteries of our faith here in the annual
calendar is to bring the catechesis of our newly baptized to its
completion and, then, for all of us to reflect upon what is central to
our faith and without which there would be no Catholic faith.
You might recall
that, after the homily during the season of Lent, the “elect” were
scrutinized concerning their motives and knowledge of the faith. Then,
they were dismissed to go purify their motives and to learn more about
the basics of the Catholic faith. This rite occurred several times as
the elect increasingly were growing in their knowledge of the Catholic
faith and desire to be baptized into it.
Following baptism
at the Easter Vigil, the elect (now called “neophytes” for bearing the
“new light” of baptism) continued their
catechesis during the seven weeks of the Easter season, learning the
more “adult” mysteries of the Catholic faith. Then, with the
celebration of Pentecost last Sunday, where the neophytes learned about
the gifts of the Holy Spirit which they received at their initiation in
the Church at the Easter Vigil, all of us—youngsters and oldsters
alike—consider together for the first time as one community of faith the
deepest and most substantive mysteries—the “prime rib”—of the Catholic
faith.
One of the
reasons these mysteries are abstract and boring is that we oftentimes
don’t see how they’re connected to our daily lives and experience. For many,
these mysteries are so disconnected from the “meat and potatoes” of our
daily lives and experience that it’s hard to see any relevance to
anything that “real” people do. But, these mysteries—and particularly
the mystery of the Trinity—grew out of centuries of theological
reflection upon the “meat and potatoes” of daily life and human experience
through which our forebears in the Catholic faith attempted to give
greater clarity to what they learned about their lives and experience
and how these mysteries enabled them to grasp the reality of God’s
presence in their daily lives and experience. The word “Trinity”
may not appear in Scripture, but the idea does and it has been defined
to be part of the Church’s living Tradition.
We need to note
that these mysteries—although we believe in them—are not matters that
anyone can claim to understand fully—or else, of course, they wouldn’t
be mysteries! There’s a legend, for example, relating how after St. Augustine finished writing his massive tome, de Trinitate
(The Trinity), he went for a walk along the shore. St. Augustine
happened upon a youngster who was shoveling the ocean’s water into a
bucket. St. Augustine inquired of the youngster what he was doing.
“Don’t you know that the ocean is so vast that your bucket can’t
possibly hold all of the water?” Augustine asked. “Yes,” the youngster
responded. “But,” he remarked while he continue to shovel, “I will fill
this bucket with the ocean’s water before you ever even begin to explain
the mystery of the Trinity.”
The mystery of
the Trinity is defined simply: “one God in three divine persons,
Father (the Creator), Son (the Redeemer), and Holy Spirit (the
Sanctifier), where each person (or face) of God is completely different
from but perfectly united with the other.” That is, each
person—Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier—acts independently but is
always of one will with the other two persons.
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church explains the Trinity this way:
The mystery of the
Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It
is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the
other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most
fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of
faith.” The whole history of salvation is identical with the
history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son
and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men “and reconciles and unites with
himself those who turn away from sin.”
This paragraph
expounds briefly (I) how the mystery of the Blessed Trinity was
revealed, (II) how the Church has articulated the doctrine of the faith
regarding this mystery, and (III) how, by the divine missions of the Son
and the Holy Spirit, God the Father fulfills the “plan of his loving
goodness” of creation, redemption and sanctification.
(I:2:1.i.2.234-235)
While that all may
sound simple and be very clear, the mystery of the Trinity gets very
complex when we begin to contemplate what it means. And, for that reason,
theologians over the two Christian millennia have used metaphors and
analogies to describe the Trinity.
We are all
familiar—especially those who are enamored with Notre Dame University
(the “Villanova of the Midwest”) with St. Patrick’s use of the
“three-leaf clover” to teach about the Trinity as he was catechizing all
of those Fightin’ Irish pagans in South Bend, Indiana. Three leaves—each independent of the other—but
one stem. If any part is missing, you don’t have a shamrock. No, you
have nothing more than a bunch of blarney.
St. Augustine
used the image of marriage to teach his congregation in North Africa
about the Trinity. A marriage involves three distinct persons, St.
Augustine asserted, the husband, the wife, and God. A perfect
marriage—the living image of the Trinity in the meat and potatoes of our
own human experience—is when the three persons are so in love with one
another that they seek to fulfill the others’ will rather than their
own. As this happens, there really is only one entity, the “marriage,”
through which new life is begotten, just as when God—the Trinity—created
the universe.
St. Augustine
also used a psychological analogy to describe the Trinity. Taking a
look at ourselves, he noted that each of us is comprised of a body, a
power of will, and a mind. For St. Augustine, when our mind—which
grasps truth—directs our power of will, that is, allows the truth to
direct our body, we become “fully human,” that is, a wise and good
person. Three distinct parts—mind, will power, and body—when acting in
concert with truth, become one. The opposite, where the body directs
the will power and we deny truth because our body’s desires overwhelm
our minds—for example, a person who is addicted to drugs, alcohol, or
other forms of self abuse—this person is neither wise nor good but is
headed toward self-destruction.
Jumping ahead
sixteen centuries to our era, there’s a scientific analogy of the
Trinity related to the chemical formula for water. One formula, H2O,
can take three distinct forms—liquid (water), vapor (mist), or solid
(ice). Each form—or person—is unique but is the identical formula
defining each.
Although St.
Patrick’s shamrock is the most popular analogy and the H2O
analogy is more in touch with our modern scientific sensibilities—and
both do help us to reflect upon the mystery of the Trinity—I am partial
to St. Augustine’s more human analogies because they communicate how
intimately related this mystery is to our daily lives and experience.
Our marriages and our lives teach us not only about ourselves but also
the Triune God of our Catholic faith who is present in the meat and
potatoes of our daily lives and experience.
Whereas so many
people get bored when people like me talk about the mysteries of our
faith, those who recognize the relationship of these mysteries to the
meat and potatoes of their daily lives and experience actually see God’s
presence in their lives. And, that’s what our Catholic faith is all
about. It’s certainly not a “feeling” and while the content of the
faith are a bunch of “thoughts,” our Catholic faith is about
transcending both feelings and thoughts so as to see God present in the
meat and potatoes of our daily lives and experience...and nowhere more so than in those
places where we may believe God is most absent.
- Contemplating the
Trinity prepares us to see God present when we recognize our sin.
While we may believe God is absent, the simple fact is that the
Trinitarian God is present ready to recreate, to redeem, and to
sanctify us.
- Contemplating the Trinity prepares
us to see God present when
parents bury a child. Where others would see nothing more than
tragedy, God is not absent. No, the Trinitarian God is present
in the tragedy, ready to recreate, to redeem, and to sanctify the
lives of those parents.
- Contemplating the Trinity prepares us to see
God present when as young people we fall in love and consider whether to make a
life-long commitment in the Sacrament of Marriage to another human
being. While a young person may believe God is absent, the simple
fact is that the Trinitarian God is very much present and ready to
recreate, to redeem, and to sanctify human love. In the
Sacrament of Marriage, the love of God for his creatures, a
husband’s love for his wife, and a wife’s love for her husband
become bound in one thing, divine love, where the gift of new life
and a new family—such wonderful blessings (although it might not
seem like it each day)—are recreated, redeemed, and sanctified.
- Contemplating the Trinity prepares us to see God present when
our hearts are crushed by a host of evils: an addicted child, family estrangement,
or marital infidelity. In the midst of these evils where
everything seems hopeless, the Trinitarian God is present to
recreate, to redeem, and to sanctify the chaos caused by evil.
- Contemplating the Trinity prepares us to see God
present as we watch a spouse succumb to a terminal disease.
Watching on as “the love of one’s life” gradually becomes weaker and
weaker, causes pain, induces fear, and raises doubts because of
one’s powerlessness. Yet, the Trinitarian God is present to
recreate, to redeem, and to sanctify these moments—moments of
grace—so that, even in the face of the death of one’s spouse, one
experiences gratitude for the gift as well as the Giver of the gift.
That is why St.
Paul was able to write, “...we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions.” And,
“knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven
character, and proven character, hope...,” we experience God’s presence
in the hope we have even when we are in pain and suffering, when tragedy
visits us, or we believe God is absent. “Hope does not
disappoint,” St. Paul wrote to the Romans, because the love of God has
been poured out into our hearts through the Holy spirit that has been
given to us [in Christ Jesus].”
Do you feel God
is distant and far away from the meat and potatoes of your life and
experience? Are the mysteries of our Catholic
faith, like that of the Trinity, boring to you?
If the answer to
either of these two questions is “Yes,” that response says nothing about
God. Instead, it says everything about our self-chosen distance from
God, those ways we choose make God distant from and irrelevant to the
meat and potatoes of our daily lives and experience. We have no
hope because we haven’t the character of a disciple. We haven’t
the character of a disciple because we haven’t endured. We haven’t
endured because we don’t see the Trinitarian God present in our
affliction. And, to top it all off, that explains why we are so
disappointed in our daily lives and experience.
The mystery of
the Trinity reveals the true nature of diversity, yet it also challenges
us to grasp our need for unity—in our lives, in our marriages, in our
families and homes, in the nation, and in the world as well. Wouldn’t
all of these be better off were we to act...but always out of love and
respect for as well as in concert with one another?
The mystery of
the Trinity also reveals our fundamental rootedness in God—the Creator
who made us, the Redeemer who saves us, and the Sanctifier who makes us
holy—but only as we draw near to this mystery and open ourselves to it
in the meat and potatoes of our daily lives and experience. Wouldn’t we
all lead better lives full of greater happiness were we to recognize the
divine Source of our lives, not fear asking for and accepting
forgiveness, and to love God and neighbor as we love ourselves?
Like St.
Augustine, I could go on for hours about the mystery of the Trinity.
But, I won’t. Let it suffice to say that I’ve barely scratched the
surface. The Trinity is a mystery of our Catholic faith describing in
human terms God’s nature as best as we can. But, when it’s all said and
done, the Trinity remains a “fuzzy” mystery—One God in three Persons,
not three co-equal gods but One God with three distinct relations within
the Godhead. These three persons touch our lives and experience
directly—from the moment of conception and, if we open ourselves to the
mystery of the Holy Trinity in the meat and potatoes of our daily lives
and experience—throughout all eternity.
That’s why the answer to Kelly’s question to God that I related at the
beginning of today’s homily, “Does wasting my time damage eternity?”, is
a definite “Yes.” When we don’t see the Trinity present in the meat and
potatoes of our daily lives and experience—that is, we think it boring
and that God distant from what we make truly important in our daily
lives and experience—eternity is very much damaged. Why so? Because
the person God—Father, Son, and Spirit forming the Trinity—loves so very
much and invites to eternal life will be absent. Eternity is damaged
when the beloved doesn’t accept the invitation to show up for the party
that will have no end, the Paschal Feast of Heaven.
|