(Listen to this homily here).
In January 2011 I had the privilege of studying in the Holy
Land with my seminarian classmates.
As part of our travels we visited the Jordan River at the location of
the Baptism of Jesus.
Try
to picture what this place looked like.
I had expected a wide stream of crystal clear water and lush vegetation
on its banks. When we arrived, I
was a bit disappointed. The Jordan
River looked like a ditch in northern Minnesota! There was some trash strewn about. Four pillars once stood over the site of John’s work; now
they were crumbling.
Yet
it was at this place that God manifested Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit
for the first time in all of history.
God the Father spoke from heaven, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am
well pleased”. It was God the
Son—Jesus Christ—who was being baptized.
God the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove.
I
remember thinking—this is so God. This fantastic revelation took place in
a human place. Indeed, God
transcends us, yet is ever close to us.
He takes the natural and does the supernatural.
For
today, remember that we believe God is one God with three Persons. This is the foundation of our
faith. It is also a paradox. If you want to delve into the
metaphysics or philosophy of the Trinity, sign up for a graduate level course
like I did. (At the end of the
semester, our professor gave us one sheet of paper and said, “If you know this,
you’ll be fine.” The paper had
hundreds of words in size six font and over thirty arrows!)
If
you are like me, it may be challenging to picture a relationship with God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It
comes more naturally for me to pray to God the Father, or imagine talking with
Jesus, my friend. But the Three in
One? That can challenge our
brains.
The
reality, though, is we offer such prayer all the time. This morning I’d like to survey some of
the ways in which we pray to our Triune God.
The
first way is the most basic staple of Catholic prayer. How do we begin and end every
prayer? In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. How many times do we make the Sign of
the Cross? Yet think of what we
are doing when we connect our prayer to God Himself.
Next,
consider how every person is Baptized.
Straight from our Gospel today, Jesus commanded: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit…” To this
day, this action—baptism in the name of the Trinity—is how every soul enters
the Christian faith.
Or
what about Confession? After
confessing our sins, the priest, standing in the person of Christ, proclaims, “I absolve you from your sins in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Are
you seeing a pattern?
Right
now, at Mass, we are entering into our relationship with God. Here’s a fun fact—did you know that I
am addressing God the Father at Mass?
As I do so, I offer God the Son in Jesus’ Body and Blood. I do so through the Holy Spirit. Which, by the way, is why there is a
dove in the apse of our Church—as a sign that what we offer here on earth
(Jesus’ Body and Blood) gets to God the Father through the Spirit.
We
will also proclaim our belief in the Triune God in the Creed. Listen to what we proclaim as we
profess our faith.
Here’s
another cool example of our connection to the Trinity that comes in a
wedding. Remember, husbands and
wives, what you said when you exchanged rings? “Take this ring as a
sign of my love and fidelity, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit.” In so doing,
you were allowing your marriage to be caught up in the love of God.
Our
faith as Catholic Christians begins and ends with the Trinity. Our prayers, music, worship and
sacraments are saturated with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. While this will always remain a mystery
to our human minds, it founds our very lives.
May
we be caught up in God’s love—the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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