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  • The Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    The Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    Today’s readings

    Today I want to reflect on what I consider to be one of the most important principles of the spiritual life.  That principle is completely summed up in one short sentence: “It’s not about me.”

    Over the last couple of weeks, we have been able to take a look at the various people who have been called to ministry throughout history.  Last week, Ezekiel was told that whatever he did, his ministry would be mostly unsuccessful.  Paul, the great teacher of our faith, was afflicted with a “thorn in the flesh” – whatever that was – and no amount of prayer could make it go away.  In today’s first reading, Amos, who is told that he is not welcome to prophesy inIsrael, confesses that he is nothing but a simple shepherd and dresser of sycamores – completely ill-qualified for the role of a prophet, but nonetheless called to be one.  In today’s Gospel, the Twelve are sent out on mission to do the works that Christ himself did, and they were only to take with them the knowledge of Jesus’ teachings and their memory of what he had done among them.  They were simple men, called from their simple lives, not one of them qualified for the role they were to play, with the possible exception of Judas, and we know what happened to him, don’t we?

    The point is, when we are called by our God, – and we are all called by God – it’s not about who we are or who we know or how slick our presentation is.  It’s not about what we have in our bag of tricks, or how much stuff we have.  It’s not about how developed we may think our faith life is, or how much we’ve studied theology.  Because it’s not about us at all.

    I know many people, who when asked if they would become involved in some ministry or another, would say, “Oh, no, I could never do that.  I’m not qualified to do it.” There are people who always feel that others could do the job better than they can, and so others should do it and they should stay out of it.  But if we are to learn anything from the Scriptures today, we must hear that that kind of thinking is nothing but false humility.  And false humility is absolutely not virtuous!  I’m not saying we have to say “yes” to everything we’re asked to do, but I am saying that we must always prayerfully consider every opportunity, and then do what the Lord wants us to do.

    So in what ways have you been called? In today’s Gospel, Jesus sends his chosen Twelve out on mission.  They were chosen not for their spectacular abilities or any particular quality.  But they were chosen, called and gifted to do the work of God in the world.  So are we all.  Just as the Twelve were sent out to preach repentance, dispel demons, and cure the sick, we too are called to do those very same things.

    You may not think of yourself as a preacher.  But you are prophetic and a preacher of repentance when you forgive a hurt or wrong, when you confess your sins and make necessary changes in your life, when you become a member of a 12-step group to deal with an addiction, or when you leave a lucrative job with a company whose business practices make you feel uncomfortable.  You are a preacher of repentance when you correct poor behavior in your children rather than place the blame on the teacher or school.  You are a preacher of repentance when you accept constructive criticism in a spirit of humility and pray for the grace to change your life.  Preaching repentance very often does not involve words so much as actions, and we can all do that, even though it very often hurts a little bit.

    Who are you to drive out demons? How is that even possible? But I am here to tell you that volunteering as a catechist or a mentor in a school or a homework helper is a way to drive out the demons of ignorance.  Going to a Protecting God’s Children workshop so that children in our schools and religious educations programs will be safe is a way to drive out the demons of abuse.  When you speak out to protect the environment, you help to drive out the demons of neglect and waste.  Volunteering to be part of a pro-life group helps to drive out the demons of death and promote a culture of life, protecting the unborn and the aged and infirm.  Working at a soup kitchen or our food pantry drives out the demons of hunger and poverty.  Helping at shelters for battered families drives out the demons of violence and isolation.  The demons at work in our world are legion, and every one of us is called to drive them out, not like “The Exorcist,” but more by our simple time and talent according to our gifts.

    How is it possible for you to cure the sick?  Every act of care for the sick is part of the Church’s ministry of healing.  You heal the sick every time you remember them in prayer, or visit them in the hospital or at home.  You heal the sick when you volunteer as a minister of care.  You heal the sick when you bring a casserole to provide dinner for a family who are so busy with sick relatives that they have little time to prepare a meal.  You heal the sick when you drive an elderly friend or neighbor to a doctor’s appointment or to do the grocery shopping, or pick them up on the way to Mass.  Healing involves so much more than just making a disease or injury go away, and all of us can be a part of healing in so many everyday ways.

    We absolutely must get from today’s Scriptures that God calls everyday people to minister to others in everyday ways.  If people are to know about God’s Kingdom, we have to be the ones to proclaim it.  If people are to reform their lives, we have to be the ones to model repentance.  If people are to be released from their demons, we have to be the ones to drive them out.  And if people are to be healed from their infirmities, it is all of us who have to reach out to them with the healing power of Christ.  We who are called to live as disciples do not have the luxury of indulging ourselves in misplaced false humility.  If we and our families and our communities are to grow in faith, hope and love, we have to be the ones to show the way and encourage as many people as possible to walk in that way.

    Saint Paul makes our vocation very clear in today’s second reading:

    In him we were also chosen,
    destined in accord with the purpose of the One
    who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will,
    so that we might exist for the praise of his glory,
    we who first hoped in Christ.     

    It’s not about us.  We who first hoped in Christ exist for the praise of his glory.  Let it be then that we in the everyday-ness of our lives would have the courage to preach repentance, drive out demons and heal the sick.

  • Monday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I love the words of the Psalmist today: “The Lord is gracious and merciful.”

    These are words that are easy for us to pray when things are going well, but maybe not so much when we’re going through rough times.  At first glance today, it seems like the psalmist is going through some very good times indeed.  But we have no way of knowing that.  The only key to the great hymn of praise the psalmist is singing is that he is reflecting on the wonder of creation and the mighty deeds God does in the world.  Indeed, the psalmist sees wonders not just in his own place but everywhere.  He says, “The LORD is good to all and compassionate toward all his works.  Every part of creation has been blessed by God’s goodness.  Because of this, God is to be praised not just now, but “forever and ever” and by “generation after generation.”

    This fits in very nicely with Hosea’s prophecy in our first reading today.  Preaching to the Israelites in exile, he proclaims that God will change the relationship between Israel and the Lord, much as one would change the relationship with a fiancé when the two are married.  God will give Israel the ability to be faithful to God, and for His part, God will remember His faithfulness forever.  God’s great mercy and compassion are seen in the Gospel reading, which is Matthew’s version of the story we had from Mark a week ago Sunday.  Jesus rewards the faithfulness of Jairus and the woman with the hemorrhage with miraculous healings.  Key to all of these wonderful events, in all three readings, is that God who has created us is committed to re-creating us in His love and faithfulness.

    So as we approach the Eucharist today and reflect on all the mighty and wonderful things God does in our midst, may we too sing the Psalmist’s song.  May we all praise God’s name forever and ever, and proclaim his might to generation after generation.

  • The Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The story goes that one day, Saint Teresa of Avila was wheeling a cart across a bridge over the river. At one point along the bridge’s passage, a wheel of the cart got stuck in the planks, and Teresa had to wrestle the cart to get going again. In the struggle, the cart tipped over, and its entire contents spilled out and into the river. As she looked at all her stuff floating down the river, she said, “Well, God, if this is how you treat your friends, it’s no wonder you have so few of them!”

    I am guessing that we have all had at least one time in our lives when we have felt like Saint Teresa in that moment.  I confess that I have had a week like that: my mother was without power in her house from Sunday to late Thursday, my aunt has had to go to a nursing facility at least for a month, I have a friend of the family who is at the end of his life, we have had a number of funerals over the last couple of weeks, and the heat has certainly taken its toll on staff relations.  So I can just imagine how Saint Teresa felt with all her stuff floating down the river.

    Not that I’m Saint Teresa, mind you; I can only aspire to her level of holiness and her friendship with God that made such a conversation possible.  But I know how an accumulation of nastiness can drain one’s reserve of faith.  And it’s a great danger.  Last week’s Gospel showed how the faith of two people led to great healing: Jairus’s daughter was resuscitated from the dead, and the woman with a hemorrhage was cured after twelve long years.  But today’s Gospel shows us how a lack of faith prevented Jesus from doing much in the way of healing at all.

    And so today, maybe we can take away two role models for having faith when it seems hard to do.  Saint Paul struggled with a “thorn in the flesh” – whatever it was for him – and remained faithful.  Saint Teresa grappled with the frustrations of daily living and remained a very holy woman.  May they be our intercessors when our reserve of faith is waning and the heat of the day is overwhelming.  And as the Psalmist models for us: may we be those who keep our eyes fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy.

  • Monday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The immediacy of discipleship is of paramount importance.  The call of our baptism is more urgent than anything else in our lives.  Or, at least, that’s how it should be.  Just like anything else in life that requires something from us, discipleship can take a back seat to other things that come along.  Whether it’s the kids’ soccer game at one point in our lives, or lack of energy at another point, or so many life issues that come along, we can be derailed rather quickly from following God’s call the way we should be.

    That’s how it was for the scribe in Jesus’ day.  There was no way he could ever tear himself away from the things that tethered him to this world.  Even assuming that his offer was genuine, it’s unlikely that he ever could have made good on his promise to follow Jesus wherever he went.  Jesus wasn’t letting any grass grow under his feet; he had to go where people needed healing, where people needed to hear the Gospel.

    We can too easily be tied to the things in this world that are dead.  But our call is to live the life of the Gospel.  May we all hear God’s word today and follow him with urgency.

  • The Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I spent a good bit of time visiting people I know in the hospital this week.  My godmother had some serious surgery, which she came through quite well, praise God, but it looks like she will be recovering in the hospital a bit longer than she would like.  I also visited with one of our family’s long-time neighbors who has contracted a disease that the doctors aren’t sure how he got and don’t quite know what to do about.  And so as I hear about the miraculous healings of Jairus’s daughter and the woman with the hemorrhages, I find myself thinking, “how nice for them.”

    And I’m sure many of us have similar reactions.  How often have we had to watch a loved one suffer, and think, why can’t God heal him or her?  The very first words of today’s Liturgy of the Word reach out and grab us: “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.”  And perhaps we already knew that.  Perhaps we know that God does not intend our death or our suffering, but the really hard thing for us is that he permits it.  Why is that?  Why would God permit his beloved ones to suffer so much here on earth?

    That’s a question for which I would love to have an answer.  I think maybe it’s one of those things we will finally understand when we get to heaven and see the big picture.  But for now, it can be a real stumbling block.  I would suggest that today’s readings are offered to us not to make us feel bad when we don’t experience immediate healing on our terms and timetable, but instead to remind us of the many ways God does heal us.

    I’d like to take a minute to talk about some of the things that unite the two stories that we have in the Gospel.  First, we have the story of Jairus.  And I’m struck by how impatient I would be if I were him.  The story tells us that Jesus had just returned from the other side of the lake where he was for a time ministering to the Gentiles that lived there.  I’m thinking that Jairus had to be waiting for him to return the whole time, watching his daughter get sicker and sicker.  Then, while he and Jesus are rushing to his daughter’s side, they are detained by the whole incident of the woman with the multiple hemorrhages.  If I were Jairus, I’m pretty sure my head would have exploded.  But it turns out that Jesus has time enough to heal them both, and probably even Jairus as well in some ways.

    So again, I think there are some aspects of the two stories that link them together.  The first, perhaps strangely, is the number twelve.  The woman with the hemorrhages suffered for twelve years, and Jairus’s daughter was twelve years old.  This is not coincidental.  The number twelve has biblical significance.  When we hear twelve in Scripture, we might think of the twelve tribes of Israel, or even of the Twelve Apostles.  Matthew’s account of the feeding of the multitudes mentions that there were twelve baskets of leftovers.  In these contexts, the number twelve stands for a kind of universality, encompassing all people or the whole known world.  The twelve tribes took up residence all over the holy land, which was the whole world for the ancients.  The Twelve Apostles were meant to bring the Gospel to the whole world, and the twelve baskets were meant to feed everyone in the world.  So the number twelve in the contexts of these two healings alert us to the fact that Jesus intends healing for everyone in the whole world.  That’s what he came for, and that’s why he was out expelling demons at the other side of the lake, in Gentile territory, in the Gospel passages preceding today’s reading.

    The stories are also linked by desperation.  I’ve already spoken of how long Jairus was waiting for the healing of his daughter, and how he had to watch her get sicker and sicker.  But the same was true of the woman with the hemorrhages – that’s plural by the way, not just one hemorrhage – because she had suffered for twelve long years at the hands of many doctors.  For both of them, those with power have been unable to do anything, and the time for healing is now or never.

    Another way the stories are linked are by un-touchability.  The woman with the hemorrhages was someone that could not be touched, or the person touching her would have been ritually impure: unable to worship with the community and an outcast, just as she was.  Jairus’s daughter became untouchable when she died.  Anyone who touched a dead person would be similarly ritually unclean.  But Jesus touches them both, because nothing can be an obstacle to his love.

    The final thing that links them is faith.  We might say that what brought Jairus and the woman to Jesus was desperation, as I’ve outlined earlier.  But Jesus recognized their faith, and if it weren’t for faith, no miracles would have happened.  That occurred in Jesus’ hometown: no miracles could be accomplished because of their lack of faith.  But that’s clearly not an issue here.

    And this is perhaps the most salient point of today’s Liturgy of the Word.  I’ve known so many people who have been through a lot: either medically, or emotionally, or these days especially financially.  And the ones who have survived have credited it to their faith.  Maybe things didn’t turn out exactly the way they would have preferred.  Perhaps real healing took way longer than they would have liked.  But all of them would tell you that their faith made them positive that God was present with them, and helped them to know that, however things turned out, they would be okay.

    I am struck by the Eucharistic imagery at the end of today’s Gospel.  Jesus comes to the home of Jairus and finds his daughter asleep in death.  He reaches out to her, touches her, and raises her up.  Then he instructs those around her to give her something to eat.  We gather for this Eucharistic banquet today and Jesus comes to us, finding us asleep in the death of our sins.  Because we are dead in our sins, we can hardly reach out to touch our Lord, but he reaches out to us.  He takes our hands, raises us up, and gives us something to eat.

    We come to the Eucharist today with our lives in various stages of grace and various stages of death.  At the Table of the Lord, we offer our lives and our suffering and our pain.  We bring our faith, wherever we are on the journey, and reach out in that faith to touch the body of our Lord, taking him into our hands.  We approach the Cup of Life, and whatever emptiness is in us is filled up with grace and healing love, poured out in the blood of Christ.  As we go forth to glorify the Lord by our lives this day, all of our problems may very well stay with us, remaining unresolved at least to our satisfaction.  But in our faith, perhaps they can be transformed, or at least maybe we can be transformed so that we can move through that suffering and pain with dignity and peace.  And as we go forth into the week ahead, perhaps we can hear our Lord saying to us the same words he said to the woman with the hemorrhage: “go in peace, your faith has saved you.”

  • Monday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Pride is, perhaps, the most insidious of the sins with which we have to deal.  And I say “we” because yes, we all have to deal with it at some level at some point in our lives.  Pride keeps us from seeing that we’re headed down the wrong path.  Pride also keeps us from asking for help, or even from accepting help, when we’re in trouble.  Pride, as the saying goes, goes before the fall, and it can land us in some serious difficulty if we don’t work hard to eradicate it from our lives.

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus clearly wanted to make sure his disciples were not bogged down with pride.  Perhaps he was trying to keep them from following the behavior of the Pharisees, or maybe he even saw traces of pride at work in them as a group.  Whatever the case, he warns them clearly that pride has no place in the life of the disciple.

    Now, to be clear, he is not telling them that they can never pass judgment on anyone.  Judging is a part of law and order, without which no society can survive.  Also, he knows full well that rightly-disposed believers can and should stop others from heading down an erroneous or dangerous path.  What he is saying, though, is that the rod we use to measure the other is the same measure that will be used on us, so it would be well to make sure that our motives are pure in all cases.

    It’s a chilling prediction, I think.  I shudder to think of the measure I use on others being used to measure me.  But if I measure with love and charity and genuine concern, I know that I can accept that same measure on myself.  It’s a good thing that’s the kind of measure God wants to use on all of us.  And he will, if we lay down our pride.

  • Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

    Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate a feast that is a bit unusual for us.  First of all, it’s a saint’s feast day, and saints’ days don’t usually take precedence over a Sunday celebration.  Secondly, whenever we do celebrate a saint’s day, it is usually celebrated on the feast of their death, not their birth.  But today we do gather to celebrate the birth of a saint, Saint John the Baptist, and the fact that we’re celebrating his birth and his day at all on this Sunday points to the fact that St. John the Baptist had a very special role to play in the life of Christ.  In fact, the only other saint for whom we celebrate a birthday is the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that tells us something about how important John the Baptist is.

    Just as for Jesus, we don’t know the precise day John the Baptist was born.  So the feast of their Nativities – their births – was a tradition developed by the early Church. The dates the Church selected are significant.  Jesus’ birthday was placed around the time of the winter solstice, mostly to counteract pagan festivals of the coming of winter.  John the Baptist’s birthday was then placed around the time of the summer solstice for similar reasons.  But there’s more to it even than that.  In the Gospel of John, there is a passage where John the Baptist says of himself and Jesus, “I must decrease, he must increase.”  So John’s birthday is placed at the time when the days start to become shorter, and Jesus’ birthday is placed at the time when the days start to become longer.  John the Baptist must decrease, Jesus must increase.

    Today’s readings have a lot to do with who the prophet is.  St. John the Baptist was the last prophet of the old order, and his mission was to herald the coming of Jesus Christ who is himself the new order.  Tradition holds that prophets were created for their mission, that their purpose was laid out while they were yet to be born.  Isaiah, one of the great prophets of the old order, tells us of his commissioning in our first reading today.  He says, “The LORD called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.”  The rest of the reading tells us of his mission, a mission of hardship, but one of being compelled to speak the word of god as a sharp-edged sword.  His calling began as a call to preach to his own people, but by the end of the reading, it is clear that that commission became a call to preach to every nation on earth.

    Isaiah says that he was given his name while in his mother’s womb.  The same was true of St. John the Baptist, whose name was given to Zechariah and Elizabeth by the Angel Gabriel.  There’s a dubious story in my own family’s history that my mother had my name picked out from the time she was twelve.  But it’s pretty hard for me to believe that a young Italian woman would have picked the name Patrick Michael for her son.  But that’s how the story goes.  Names have meaning.  Maybe you know what your name means.  I looked mine up this week and found that Patrick means “nobleman,” so if you feel like bowing when you see me, it seems like that would be appropriate!  But far more significant are the names of the prophets we encounter in today’s Liturgy of the Word.  Isaiah means “Yahweh is salvation,” which pretty much encompassed the meaning of Isaiah’s mission, proclaiming salvation to the Israelites who were oppressed in exile.  The name given to the Baptist, John, means “God has shown favor.”  And that was in fact the message of his life.  He came to pave the way for Jesus Christ, who was the favor of God shown to the whole human race.

    The point is, these men were created for their prophetic calling.  That’s true for us too.  All of us who have been baptized have a prophetic calling that came before we were ever born.  God created us for something special.  He created us to be with him, he created us to follow him, he created us to draw other people to him.  This means that, according to our abilities, our vocation and station in life, we were meant to serve God in some way that God might be glorified and that others may come to know him.

    During these couple of weeks, we have been asked to observe a fortnight of religious freedom.  As our nation’s bishops point out, religious freedom is one of our first and most cherished freedoms.  It was largely in pursuit of religious freedom that our nation’s forefathers came to this great land, and in defense of that freedom that they fought and died.  But now, many issues have put that freedom in danger.  The so-called HHS mandate is kind of the banner issue on the religious freedom front.  The HHS mandate requires all employers to pay for birth control regardless of whether it is against their moral teachings, as it is for us.

    But this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Another sad assault on religious freedom has been the requirement of any adoption placement agency to place children for adoption with people in same-sex unions.  Since our religion forbids this practice, we have been unable to comply, and so we have been pushed out of the adoption process, something that has been an extension of our acts of charity since this country began.

    The essence of the issue is that freedom of religion is now being defined in a very narrow way, which amounts to freedom of worship.  One is free to worship in any way one chooses, but must obey the law in all other things.  Let’s bracket for the moment the obvious objection that such a narrow definition was never intended by our founding fathers.  More important is that, for us, worship is not something we can separate from our daily living.  When we are sent out to “go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life,” we are just beginning to worship.  What we do in our daily life is our real worship, not just the hour we’re here on Sunday.

    So our worship of God may indeed call us to speak against issues of the day, or to take in an adoptive or foster child to share God’s love, or any number of charitable acts, and our Church should have the freedom to pursue those according to our moral teachings.  That’s the essence of religious freedom, and that is what we are seeking to defend.  The prophetic call in all of us absolutely must speak up for what we believe as a Church and preach the Gospel by the way that we live our lives.

    We live in a society that is all about protecting and promoting ourselves.  Saint John the Baptist would have us promote Jesus instead.  That’s what he was about.  As it was for him, so it is for us: we must decrease, Jesus must increase.

  • Saint Barnabas, Apostle

    Saint Barnabas, Apostle

    Today’s readings

    “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”

    Barnabas, a Jew of Cyprus, comes as close as anyone outside the Twelve to being a full-fledged apostle.  He was closely associated with St. Paul (he introduced Paul to Peter and the other apostles) and served as a kind of mediator between Paul, formerly a persecutor of Christians, and the still suspicious Jewish Christians.

    When a Christian community developed at Antioch, Barnabas was sent as the official representative of the Church of Jerusalem to incorporate them into the fold.  He and Paul taught in Antioch for a year, after which they took relief contributions to Jerusalem.

    We see in today’s first reading that Paul and Barnabas had become accepted in the community as charismatic leaders who led many to convert to Christianity.  The Holy Spirit set them apart for Apostolic work and blessed their efforts with great success.

    Above all, these men hungered and thirsted for righteousness, a righteousness not based on the law or any merely human precept, but instead on a right relationship with God.  This is a righteousness that could never be disputed and the relationship could never be broken.  Just as they led many people then to that kind of relationship with God, so they call us to follow that same kind of right relationship today.

    As we celebrate the Eucharist today, we might follow their call to righteousness by examining our lives in light of the Beatitudes.  How willing are we to enter into poverty of spirit, work for peace and justice and pursue righteousness?  Blessed are we who follow the example of St. Barnabas and blessed are we who benefit from his intercession.

  • Monday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it,
    dug a wine press, and built a tower.
    Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey.

    Today’s Gospel reading is one of those parables that we hear often, but I think we can be puzzled by it and so just put it aside, spiritually speaking.  One of the details that I often miss is this little introduction: the surprising part is the action and mayhem that takes place in the body of the parable, so this detail is hardly even noticed.

    But look what it gives us.  A man plants a vineyard.  The “man” of course is God, who has planted a vineyard for us to grow in and thrive and work.  We are the “tenant farmers” to whom he leases the vineyard.  With the vineyard, he puts a hedge around it, digs a wine press and builds a tower.  Everything we need for the work of the vineyard to be accomplished is given to us.  The question before us is how industrious will we be, what will we accomplish to give God glory?

    We could be those who ignore the messengers and not give God his due.  Or we could even go so far as to kill the heir, as the religious leaders of Jesus’ time certainly did.  But we disciples aren’t like that, instead, we need to tend to the hedge, press the grapes and bring the harvest to the tower for God’s glory.

  • The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    Today’s readings

    I don’t see many movies, but one that I saw recently and liked very much was “The Avengers.”  One of my favorite theological moments in this film is when the Black Widow character is describing Thor and his dark-side brother Loki to Captain America and she says, “They’re like gods.”  Captain America won’t have any of that and says, “There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that!”  Indeed, God doesn’t dress like Thor or Loki or any superhero, because of course, he dwarfs all of them.  But we disciples do know that God what God looks like because we have been privileged to see him time and time again.  I’ll come back to that in a minute.

    First, I want to stress that I don’t think any of us is going to leave this holy place understanding the Trinity in all God’s divine completeness today.  Or if we do, it’s certainly not going to be because of my inadequate words, but rather the doing of the Holy Spirit who is the One who helps us to enter into the mystery of God.  A story about Saint Augustine illustrates the mystery: The story goes that Saint Augustine was walking along the beach, trying to figure out the nature of the Holy Trinity.  As he walked along, he came across a little boy who had dug a hole in the sand right next to the shore.  With his little hands he was carrying water from the ocean and was dumping it in the little hole.  St. Augustine asked, “What are you doing, my child?”  The child replied, “I want to put all of the water of the ocean into this hole.”  So St. Augustine asked him, “But is it possible for all of the water of this great ocean to be contained in that little hole you’re digging ?” And the child asked him in return, “If the water of the ocean cannot be contained in this little hole, then how can the Infinite Trinitarian God be contained in your mind?”   With that the child disappeared.

    Now, having said that, I do still think we can know something about God.  Indeed coming to know God and to appreciate the mystery that is God is one of the great projects of our lives.  So many of the Saints have pondered the meaning of the Most Holy Trinity.  Saint Patrick attempted to describe the Trinity by using the shamrock as an icon.  The three leaves represented the three Divine Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each separate and distinct, but each part of each other on the same shamrock.

    Saint Augustine gets another mention today in his description of the Holy Trinity.  He speaks of the Father as the lover and the Son as the beloved and the love between them – a love so complete, so perfect that it can only be embodied in a Divine Person – as the Holy Spirit.  And this, I think, is where we get an icon of the Blessed Trinity.  We know very well this union of love when we look around at the relationships that we have that work.

    Strong families of a mother, a father and children mirror God’s love in their love and nurturing of one another.  A parish can be an icon of God’s love when we come together and reach out to others, healing the broken, feeding the hungry and proclaiming the Word.  Even a business can be an icon of this love when it treats its employees with respect and dignity, fosters family life, is socially responsible, and conducts its affairs with honesty and integrity.  When we look around and see real love in action, we get to have a little glimpse of God, I think.

    Some days God will look like the Father: a loving parent who corrects our faults, nurtures our growth, and tends to our woundedness.  Some days God will look like the Son: a brother who walks with us and is the path to our salvation.  Some days God will look like the Holy Spirit: reminding us that this body of ours is not as good as it gets, helping us to long for spiritual perfection, leading us to repentance and to seek reconciliation with God and others, and inspiring us to do the really good things that we’re not capable of all on our own.

    I think God comes to us as Trinity because one face of God is not sufficient to be God for us creatures who are constantly changing, and constantly struggling.  One day we need the Father, tomorrow we may need the Son and down the road the Holy Spirit.  The point is that we know what God looks like and whatever we need, God is there.  Always was, always will be.  That’s the real joy of this mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.

    Because we have seen God, or as Captain America would say, we know how he dresses, we also know that the goal of all our lives is to return to him one day.  God created us for heaven, God accomplished our redemption to make it possible for us to go there, and God continually inspires us so that every day we would yearn for our heavenly inheritance more and more.  God gives us our families, our communities, and our parish because God himself is, in a way, a community.  And that being the case, God can only be truly experienced when we enter into community.  And so as Saint Benedict once wrote, may God bring us all together to life everlasting!