topleft05.jpg (18208 bytes)HOMILY
Pentecost Sunday (C)
03 June 07


 

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.

 

 

 

mail2.gif (2917 bytes)      Does today’s homily raise any question(s) that you would like
                   me to respond to? Mail your question(s) by double clicking on
               
    the mailbox. I will respond to your question(s) at my first
                   available opportunity.


   Double click on this button to return to the homily
                                         webpage.