//TRINITY: MORE THAN A CLOVER

TRINITY: MORE THAN A CLOVER

While it’s not a secret that in recent years and decades, there’s been a decline in the number of people practicing their Judeo-Christian faith – whether that’s in fewer people attending Church or synagogue – or even in belonging, registering to a particular congregation at all, – for a long time the vast majority would still profess faith, belief in God.  This is what made this headline a couple of weeks ago so startling.  Very bluntly it said: “Survey: 43% of Millennials don’t know, care or believe God exists.”

Thanks so much for stopping by to read this, my homily for THE MOST HOLY TRINITY – May 30, 2021, for sharing it on your social media posts and your feedback and comments! For the audio version you can get them at SOUNDCLOUD click HERE or from ITUNES as a podcast HERE. Thanks again… I hope you and yours experience all of God’s blessings today and always! In Christ – Father Jim

Don’t know – don’t care – don’t believe.  The dismissive-ness to the question, the indifference, and apathy of it – while in some ways isn’t exactly surprising, but just reading it in black and white like that was hard to shake or forget.  I probably have read the article a half dozen times already. Along with that headline, research of this generation’s behaviors and beliefs were very different from other generations with a sizable number who promoted getting even with others who wronged you (as opposed to what had been the norm of the goal of “treating others as you wish to be treated”); accepting censoring specific viewpoints or policies.

That should be alarming on a lot of different levels.  Because when a sizable number of people don’t know, don’t care, don’t believe in God, the center of the universe becomes – oneself.  We think we can become “gods” who think we are self-sufficient, concepts like community and family are fluid and on my own terms.

There’s a lot of reasons for all of this.  I can think of a pretty substantial list of areas where we as Catholics have failed which has left people hurt, angry, confused, or all the above – and in a perfect storm of events – the devil has been hard at work offering alternatives to replace our love and worship of the one true God with a variety of alternatives: the worship of oneself (thank you Twitter, Facebook, Instagram); the gods of devices and gadgets; the pursuits of materialism; etc…    And all of those discussions and reflections are important…

But part of the reason we’ve seen a decline in people claiming to be Christian is tied to what we celebrate today – the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. Usually  when we come to this feast day – there’s been this kind of acceptance, even among priests that “it’s just a mystery” that we struggle to explain, we try to simplify it as best we can – bring out shamrocks and say “God is like this three leaves but one clover” and “let us stand for the creed.”  So in our struggle to find the adequate words to express or explain this important, essential aspect of our faith; in our reluctance or fear of being asked to share our understanding of the trinity – we ourselves can contribute to this unknowing or forgetting of who God is.

God blessed us with the brains to wrestle with the complexity of who He is and with the hearts, souls (and bodies) which were made by Him and for Him in His Image.  Understanding the Trinity isn’t just a matter of getting some doctrinal statement correct, but our understanding of who we are as well.

Because unlike those of Islamic faith who view God as a Master they are subject to…

Unlike those of pagan beliefs who view their gods as powerful, supernatural beings prone to arbitrary acts that can be appeased by the feeble offerings of mere human mortals…

Unlike our Jewish ancestors, the elder brothers and sisters of the covenant who first heard the voice of God but continue to await the fullness of redemption…

In Jesus Christ, we have seen God… we know God… we receive God into our very bodies and souls.  Jesus as God’s own Son leaves Heaven, becomes one of us and one with us, and has revealed to us the profound depth of love which is this One God in three persons.

-God the Father, the creator of the Universe, the source of the plans and predictability of the Universe in which He created all things… the amazing splendor of a world that has the ability to continue to grow, expand, evolve, and progress…

-Jesus Christ, his only Son who came and continues to come to set us free – free from the limitations we as humans impose upon ourselves – especially in the delusion of freedom where we follow the example and error of Adam and Eve and feel we can go it alone, do it better following our own way rather following what God has created in his perfectly created universe.  Jesus comes to free us from our self-enslavement to things, to the world, to the flesh, the devil… And he frees us over and over and over again offering us His forgiveness, His Mercy which enables us to become His Brothers and Sisters and in a perfect relationship once again with our Loving Father.

– The Holy Spirit – the Third Person, He who continues to transform, to renew the face of the earth… who awaits our openness, our invitation to convert us into those sons and daughters of that Trinity… who equips and enables us to use our best selves, our truest selves, the people we were created to be to help in that amazing work of transforming the world around us – most especially in bringing God’s very presence to the people we encounter

If we don’t just accept – but embrace – this mystery as much as we embrace other mysterious aspects of ourselves (for example, try focusing on how is it that our circulatory system works and tell me that’s not a mystery as well – which is something we readily accept and are grateful for) – then we can begin to turn the tide of those who say they don’t know, don’t care or don’t believe in God.

They will see Him,

they will experience Him through us Christians… when we act like Christians in the truest sense:

by creating new life–wherever we go, at work, at play, in our marriages, our families–a world with fewer self-delusions, fewer lies, fewer walking dead…

by redeeming everyone we can– seducing them by our joy away from the smaller lives so many are willing to settle for, redeeming them from the hollow fake sophistication that walls us off from being open, vulnerable, children of God.

by transforming- renewing, enriching the face of the earth and each and every life we come in contact with.

May God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bless us on our missions to discover, to value, to draw out the amazing image of Himself waiting to be surfaced, released, and shared with the world He has created…