Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time
The rather obvious and certainly oft-repeated application of today’s Gospel reading lies in the very literal interpretation of the word “talent.” So we have been given many talents, and it’s up to us to use them wisely for the benefit of the kingdom of God. Woe to the one who ignores his gifts and buries them out of fear. And that’s a wonderful message. I could go there. But it’s wrong – that’s not what Jesus meant, and I think we have to dig just a little bit deeper.
The word we have translated “talent” here does not mean what we think it means. When our English ears hear that word, we think gifts, we think of abilities, of things we can do. But that’s not what it means in the original Greek. “Talent” here does not mean gifts, a talent was a unit of money. It was actually rather a large sum of money, equal to something like one thousand days’ wages. So think about it, even the man who only received one talent actually received quite a bit – he received what the average person would earn in a little over three years! That’s a lot of money for anyone.
The next thing we have to look at is who it was that was receiving such a large sum of cash. On first glance, seeing what it is they have been given, we might think these are senior advisers to the master, people who would have been in charge of his estate and his business transactions. But that’s not what it says. It says he called in his “servants” – so we are talking here about slaves, slaves – not business advisers. And so these slaves are getting ten talents, five talents, and one talent – all of them are getting a considerable amount of money!
If we think of the master as God, and accept the talents simply as money, I think God comes off sounding rather harsh. The poor servants differed in their ability; that’s pointed out in the story and certainly the master would have known that. So why would God be so horribly harsh when a simple slave with limited giftedness does nothing with his gifts? It makes us bristle, I think, to imagine God treating someone like that so poorly. And maybe that’s as it should be. Because I think our bristling tells us that we still have to dig deeper into this very interesting parable.
So I think this raises a few questions for us. Who is the master? What do the talents represent? Why would the master entrust such a large sum of money to common slaves? Who are the slaves? And what on earth was that third slave thinking when he buried such a wonderful gift in the sand?
Well, first off, I do think the master is God here – God the Father. Now the talents, they’re not abilities or gifts, and they aren’t simply money. And I think it’s our first reading that gives us a clue as to what’s really at stake here. That first reading speaks of the worthy wife whose value is far beyond that of fine pearls. So this first reading is teaching us to value not someTHING, but someONE. What, or rather who, could be that valuable? And I think the answer here is that it’s Christ himself. Those talents represent Christ, the Gospel he proclaimed, and the Kingdom he came to make manifest. The Gospel says the Master called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. What we have translated “entrusted” here means, in the original Greek, something more like “handed over.” In just the same way, God the Father “handed over” his only Son to us, for the salvation of the whole world. What could possibly be worth more than that?
Now the slaves of course are the disciples, they’re you and me, people of every time and place who Christ has come to save. We are slaves to sin, and we need a redeemer. Some are more open to redemption and to the work of Christ and the call of the Gospel. They might get five talents or ten, or maybe even a million – the riches of Christ can never be exhausted! These go forth into the world, pouring out those riches of Christ into a world that desperately needs salvation, healing and hope. As that message goes forth, proclaimed and lived by disciples ready to embrace it, they are able to earn five more, or ten more, or even a million for the kingdom.
But some are not as open to Christ’s life and work and Gospel. There’s too much at stake. They worry about what might happen if our world totally embraced Jesus’ teaching. They can’t get past what discipleship might personally cost them. They are represented, of course, by Judas, the apostle who was so overwhelmed by Jesus that he gave in to despair. And in Matthew’s Gospel, this is the cardinal sin, because in at least a dozen places, Jesus says “do not be afraid” in one form or another. That was Jesus’ message in Matthew’s Gospel, and so this third servant, who was afraid of what the Master might be like, buried his treasure out of fear. And the parable points out that that fear wasn’t even reasonable, since he dealt so wonderfully with the other two servants, rewarding their work by calling them to share in his joy.
So today’s Gospel is a summary of the whole Gospel of Matthew that we’ve been reading with the Church this year. We are told that the greatest gift is Christ, that we are called to live the Gospel, that we must take up the task before us without being afraid, that we are called to go out and invest Christ’s presence into a world that always needs to be renewed. As we come here on this second-to-last Sunday of the Church year, we are brought to a summary of all that in order that we might look back and see how we’ve done that this year. Have we treasured Christ as the greatest of all that we have been given? Have we taken on the mission without being afraid, knowing that the gift we have been given in Christ can make up for anything that we ourselves may lack? Have we accepted that wonderful gift and invested it in the world, proclaiming the Gospel by the way that we live, challenging the corner of the world we live in to take it up also, so that we might bring back another five or ten or a million talents?
Or have we been afraid, thinking that the Master is demanding beyond reason, afraid to make a mistake, afraid of what living the Gospel would mean for us, afraid of what it might cost us? Because if we have lived this way, we have failed the mission. Everything we have will be taken from us. There will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Here at the end of this Church year, we can renew our commitment, make a new year’s resolution, if you will, to live the Gospel and proclaim the kingdom in the year ahead. It doesn’t have to be huge. It doesn’t cost us anything, because everything that we need has been given to us. Maybe proclaiming the Gospel means doing some kind of service for us. Reaching out at a homeless shelter like Hesed House or at a soup kitchen or Loaves and Fishes. Maybe it means leading a small Christian Community so others will hear the Gospel. Maybe we’ll help teach a religious education class, or sing in the choir, or become a lector. Maybe we’ll make an effort every day to put prayer in the course of our work day, and try to be people of integrity in our business lives. On this Donor Sabbath Sunday, maybe we’ll register for organ donation so that lives will be saved even after we’ve gone home to our reward. Maybe we’ll read the Scriptures each day before we go to bed, even just a few verses, so that the Lord can change our lives and hearts. Throughout this Church year, we have received the greatest gift we’ll ever get – Jesus Christ the Lord himself. Now it is up to us to bring back the gift with interest, taking a world of watching people with us. The Psalmist sings of our reward today: “For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork; blessed shall you be, and favored.” Come, share your Master’s joy!
Sphere: Related ContentMay Crowning
Today's Readings: Acts 1:12-14, John 19:25-27
[Mass for the school children.]
There is a prayer, the “Hail Mary” that we say all the time. How many of you know it, boys and girls? Since we are crowning Mary today, I thought it might be a good thing to talk about that wonderful prayer and what it means, because just like every familiar prayer, we can sometimes forget what it means when we say it so often.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”
Mary never thought she was great all by herself. She always knew that it was because the Lord had chosen her and that the Lord had given her his grace, his help, that she could live a holy life and be the mother of Jesus.
“blessed art thou among women…”
Because Mary was holy, she is able to help all women to lead a holy life. When they follow her as mothers or even as women of faith, they have a wonderful role model. She was the first of all the apostles, the queen of the apostles, and that was because of her faith. She is an example for all women, and really all people of faith.
“and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
Mary was the first earthly temple that Jesus was to be in. Because of God’s grace and her faith, she was the perfect home for Jesus to be born in. And she said yes to that, even though she wasn’t sure how it would happen or what it would mean. She was faithful to God by saying “yes.”
“Holy Mary, Mother of God…”
It almost seems weird for us to say that Mary could ever be the mother of God. But Jesus was just as much a human as he was God. Every human has a mother, and so Mary is the human mother of Jesus who is God and man.
“pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”
This is what makes us celebrate Mary today. She is not just the mother of Jesus. She is also the mother of John, the “favorite disciple” in our Gospel reading today. And she is also the mother of you and me, Jesus’ “favorite disciples” today. Just like every other good mother, Mary prays for all of her children, including you and me, all the time – now and at the hour of our death.
Sometimes we forget how important familiar prayers are. They say a lot, though, about what we believe. The “Hail Mary” says everything about why we crown Mary as Queen of the Apostles, Queen of the Church, and Queen of Heaven and Earth today. She was faithful, she said yes to God’s will, she prays for us all the time. Mary is the mother of all of us, and as we come close to Mother’s Day, it is so appropriate that we give Mary the gift of our love and devotion today.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Annunciation of the Lord
Fear keeps us from doing all sorts of things the Lord wants for us. If we would truly let go of our fear and cling to our God, just imagine what he could do in us and through us. Ahaz was King of Israel, a mighty commander, but yet was so afraid of God and what God might do that he refused to ask for a sign. He would prefer to cut himself off from God rather than give himself over to the amazing power of God's presence in his life. Because of that perhaps, he never lived to see the greatness of God's glory.
But that did not disrupt the promise. In the fullness of time, God's messenger came to a young woman named Mary and proposed to accomplish in her life the sign that Ahaz was too afraid to ask for. She too was initially afraid, pondering what sort of greeting this was. She was also confused, not knowing how what the angel proclaimed could possibly take place in her life.
The difference, though, was that she heeded the initial words of the angel that have resounded through Salvation history ever since: "Be not afraid." And, thanks be to God, Mary abandoned her fear and instead sang her fiat, her great "yes" to God's plan for her, and for all of us. "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word." These words are reminiscent of what the Psalmist sings today: "Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will."
And we know what happened from there. Mary certainly wasn't confident that any of that could be accomplished through her own efforts, but she absolutely knew that God could do whatever he undertook. Nothing would be impossible for God, and she trusted in that, and because of that, we have the great hope of our salvation. We owe so much to Mary's cooperation with God's plan for our salvation.
And so the promise comes to us. We have the great sign that Ahaz was afraid of but Mary rejoiced in. We too are told that God can accomplish much in our own lives, if we would abandon our fears and cling to the hope of God's presence in our lives. Can we too be the handmaids of the Lord? Are we bold enough to say, "Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will?" All we have to remember is the first thing the angel said to Mary: "Be not afraid."
Sphere: Related ContentThe Presentation of the Lord II
Today’s Readings
Back in the time that Jesus lived, it was a law that every first-born male in a family was presented to God, given to God to do God’s will. They would come on the fortieth day of the child’s life and present the child, along with a sacrificial offering and they would receive a blessing from one of the priests. It hardly seems possible, but it’s already been forty days since Christmas, since the day Jesus was born! How time flies for us!
Of course, you have to love the irony in the story here because, in the case of Jesus, his parents were presenting a child to God who came in a special way from God himself. They were giving back to God the child that God only gave them to take care of for a while. Just as every first-born son was presented to God in order to do something special with his life, this first, and only born Son of God and son of Mary and Joseph had the most special thing ever to do with his life, and that was to lay his life down for all of us.
On this feast day every year, we bless candles to light the Church and light people’s homes. We do that because we remember that on this day, Jesus, who is the Light of the World, was presented to the wise old Simeon, who recognized that Jesus was the Light that was to come into the world. God’s Spirit had promised that he would never die until he saw that Light, and now he knew that he could die in peace.
Simeon was at peace because he knew that God was lighting the world and taking care of his people who used to dwell in darkness. The same is true for all of us. Sometimes the world can be a dark place because of war or violence or hatred, or many other evils. It can be hard to see where our world is going in times like that, and oftentimes we ourselves fall into temptation or into sin. We need light to show us the way out of all that darkness.
And, of course, we have that light. Jesus is the one who came into the world and lit up the world and lights up our lives. He lit up the lives of Mary, and Joseph, and Simeon and now he lights up our lives and shows us the way out of the darkness. Even if we do fall here and there, Jesus’ light helps us to get back up and get going on the path once again.
The Lord is our light and our salvation. Whom should we fear?
The Presentation of the Lord I
Today’s readings (Used a “vigil” of this feast for the school children to close Catholic Schools Week.)
Back in the time that Jesus lived, it was a law that every first-born male in a family was presented to God, given to God to do God’s will. They would come on the fortieth day of the child’s life and present the child, along with a sacrificial offering and they would receive a blessing from one of the priests. It hardly seems possible, but it’s already been forty days since Christmas, since the day Jesus was born! How time flies for us!
What’s really interesting is that, in the case of Jesus, his parents were presenting a child to God who came in a special way from God himself. They were giving back to God the child that God only gave them to take care of. Just as every first-born son was presented to God in order to do something special with his life, this first, and only born Son of God and son of Mary and Joseph had the most special thing to do with his life, and that was to lay his life down for all of us.
On this feast day every year, we bless candles to light the Church and light people’s homes. We do that because we remember that on this day, Jesus, who is the Light of the World, was presented to the wise old Simeon, who recognized that Jesus was the Light that was to come into the world. God’s Spirit had promised he would never die until he saw that Light, and now he knew that he could die in peace.
Simeon was at peace because he knew that God was lighting the world and taking care of his people who used to dwell in darkness. The same is true for all of us. The darkness can be pretty scary, can’t it? Certainly when we wake up in the middle of the night and can’t see anything, it’s scary because we could fall over something. That’s a lot like how life in this world can be sometimes. Sometimes the world is dark because of war or violence or people hating one another. It can be hard to see where our world is going in times like that, and oftentimes we fall into temptation or into sin. We need light to show us the way out of all that darkness.
Who is that light? Well, of course we know that light is Jesus. Jesus is the one who came into the world and lit up the world and lights up our lives. He lit up the lives of Mary, and Joseph, and Simeon and lots of people when he was living on earth. Now that he has died for us and is risen from the dead, Jesus lights up our life and shows us the way out of the darkness. Even if we do fall here and there, Jesus’ light helps us to get back up and get going on the path once again.
So as we come to the end of Catholic Schools Week this year, it’s a perfect feast for us to celebrate. The theme for our week has been “Catholic Schools Light the Way.” It’s only fitting to have that theme when we end up on this feast of Jesus, the Light of the World. If this week has taught us anything, it certainly must be that we receive the light from Jesus, that Light comes in a special way through Jesus’ presence in our school, and now we are called to be light for others.
Our school is a place of the Light when we reach out to each other and help those who are in need, whether they need help with their studies, or just need a friend. Our school is a place of the Light when we reach out as one to help those who are poor and needy. Our school is a place of the light when teachers give of themselves, guiding our young people with wisdom; and when students are open to what they are being taught; and when parents make the Light known at home. When we all share the light that we have been given, when we are light for others, that light can light some of the really dark places of our world. Maybe we won’t get rid of all that darkness today or all at once. But little by little, the light we bring by doing God’s will in our lives will brighten our world one heart and mind at a time.
The Lord is our light and our salvation. Whom should we fear?
(UPDATE: I never gave this homily, because the kids had a snow day. So I just preached on the readings of the day, homily below.)
Sphere: Related ContentOur Lord Jesus Christ the King
I have to admit that this solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King is a funny feast with which to end our Church year. First of all, we Americans don’t get the whole king thing. The monarchical top-down method of government is not what we have had as our heritage for over two centuries, so the idea of kingship is pretty foreign to us. Secondly, and I’m speaking objectively here, even if we had a king, the king we are presented with in the Liturgy of the Word today, and over the last couple of Sundays has not really been the kind of king we might want to follow. Over the last couple of Sundays, Jesus has warned us that we will have suffering in the world, so we know we cannot rely on our king to make that suffering go away. And today, here is our king, hanging on a cross between two hardened criminals. That one of them thinks to ask Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom is almost laughable, but, well, there it is. There is our king. This feast leaves us on the very last Sunday of the Church year with more questions than it can ever possibly answer.
But only if we’ve been napping this entire liturgical year. Because Jesus has been very clear from the beginning as to what kind of king he would be and what his kingdom might look like.
A king who has been pre-ordained from birth would arrive with great fanfare and be born amidst opulence. But to the casual observer that wasn’t true of Jesus. Oh, we know that he was foretold by an angel and that kings bowed down to worship him and shower him with gifts. We know all the prophecies that pointed to his birth. We know of Herod’s jealousy that led to the slaughter of the innocents. We know that stuff. But to the average person in first century Palestine, well, his birth went pretty much unnoticed.
And even when people started noticing his ministry when he came of age, they were pretty disappointed. “Who do you say that I am?” is the question Jesus asks Peter. Peter acknowledges that he is the anointed one, the Christ. But right on the heels of that very revelation, Jesus emphasizes that the Anointed One must suffer and die in order to bring his kingship to birth. Peter’s reaction is predictable. Oh no, Lord, that can’t be right. Don’t even say such a thing! But Jesus is the one who came not to be served but to serve, and identifies himself right from the beginning as the Suffering Servant of which Isaiah speaks.
This wasn’t the kind of thing the Jews were expecting, of course. They had long been expecting an Anointed One, but never one like this. Their whole picture of a Messiah had been one of political greatness and military strength, one who would restore the sovereignty of Israel and reestablish Jerusalem as the great political and religious city that it had once been. That was the Messiah they were looking for, but what they got was one who was so much of a suffering servant that he ended up on a cross. Pilate’s inscription, “This is the king of the Jews” was sarcastic and completely offensive to them, which of course is exactly what he intended.
So it’s easy to see why the Jews might not have noticed that this one was their king. It’s easy enough to even see why they would have chosen to ignore his kingship. But we can’t miss it: we have heard the Word proclaimed all year long and we know that this is the way that God chose to save the world. There are times, of course, when we could do with a bit more opulence and certainly a lot less suffering. But Jesus is the king of our reality, not of our fantasy, and so he is not ashamed to herald the cross as the gateway to the kingdom and the instrument of our salvation.
Because we are a people who need a king like this. We might want a king to give us greatness and rest from our enemies, but that’s not real. What’s real is our suffering, whether it’s illness, or grief, or job dissatisfaction, or personal troubles, or family strife, or broken relationships, or any other calamity. Suffering happens, and that’s why Jesus chose the image of the Suffering Servant as the motif of his kingship. St. Paul says today in our second reading from his letter to the Colossians that “in him all things hold together.” Even when the world seems to be falling apart for us, we can trust in the Suffering Servant to walk with us and hold everything together.
And he holds it all together with a strength we could not possibly imagine, opening the way to a kingdom that goes beyond all our imaginings. I want you to listen very closely to the preface to the Eucharistic Prayer today because it describes a kingdom we all have to be hungry for: “a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.” That’s a kingdom of mind-boggling greatness, brothers and sisters in Christ, a kingdom no other ruler could ever hope to promise you.
On our baptism day, we were anointed with the sacred Chrism oil, an oil that has almost the same name as Christ, which means “Anointed One.” If you’ve been to a baptism or Confirmation recently, you’ll know that the Chrism oil is the only one of the three holy oils to have a fragrance, because it is intended to be the fragrance of Christ. Just as Christ himself was anointed priest, prophet and king, so we too were anointed in that same way. What this means for us today is that just as Christ had to suffer, so we too will have to suffer in this life. But just as Christ was intended for the glory of the Kingdom, so we too have that same destiny, if we but join our lives to his and follow his way.
That means, of course, we have to go down the ugly way, through the gateway of the cross. In this Kingdom there is no glory without passing through the way of suffering. There is no cheap and easy grace. But there is grace, a grace that walks with us through the hard times and leads us to the joy of the kingdom of truth and life, the kingdom of holiness and grace, the kingdom of justice, love and peace. Our home here on earth is but a temporary dwelling. Our true home is in that kingdom.
The religious leaders in Jesus day never figured this out. They couldn’t, or perhaps wouldn’t fathom it. But the good thief realized all of this at the very last minute, practically as he was taking his dying breath. His last words of prayer might be our very own words today. “Jesus remember me,” he says, “when you come into your kingdom.”
Sphere: Related ContentSaturday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Sin is exhausting. Anyone who has struggled with sin, or a pattern of sin, in their lives can tell you that. Those who have been dragged down by any kind of addiction or who have tried to work on a character flaw or striven to expel any kind of vice from their lives often relate how exhausting the sin can be. Sin saps our spiritual energy, weakens our resolve to do good, and causes us to turn away in shame from family, friends, and all those whose spiritual companionship we need in order to grow as Christian men and women and flourish in the world. That goes all the way back to Adam and Eve, who suddenly became aware of and ashamed of their nakedness in the Garden of Eden, and to St. Paul who prayed over and over to get rid of his “thorn in the flesh.” So when we are exhausted by sin, we should not be surprised. That’s just the way sin works.
But we don’t have to be content with that either. The good news that St. Paul brings us in the first reading today from his letter to the Romans is that sin doesn’t get the last word. Those who did not know Christ had to live according to the law, with all of its precepts and principles and technicalities. But the law doesn’t sanctify a person, it only makes them more aware of their guilt and unworthiness. That’s why God sent his only Son into our world. It is only through our relationship with Jesus Christ that we can ever be cleansed, only through his sacrifice on the Cross that we can ever be reunited with our God.
As the Psalmist says today, we are the people who long to see God’s face. Because nothing else will heal us. Even if our sin makes us want to turn away and hide, we cannot hide from our God - indeed we dare not hide from our God if we ever want to be unburdened of the exhausting weight of our sinfulness. At this Eucharist, we celebrate our Lord who cares enough about us to bring us back unstained to the banquet of the Kingdom. We open ourselves to his mercy, revealing our brokenness, our sinfulness, our shame and our unworthiness. He opens himself to us in love, binding up that brokenness, erasing the sinfulness, healing our shame and lifting up whatever in us is unworthy. Jesus Christ is our salvation and our redemption. Our sins do not have to weigh us down, and we who receive him in the Eucharist today do not ever have to settle for being exhausted by our sins.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Transfiguration of the Lord
How do you picture Jesus? We’ve never seen him face to face, but we have seen artwork depicting him. That artwork can be very inspiring. But that artwork can also give us a false, overly-familiar look at Jesus our God. Maybe the picture you have is from Jesus of Nazareth or the Passion of the Christ. Or maybe you have that picture of the kind of studly-looking Jesus who may as well have walked off a Hollywood movie set. Or you may even have in mind that picture of the laughing Jesus. All of these are okay, but they can give us a false picture of our Jesus, who is definitely immanent and present to us, but who is also transcendent and higher than the heavens. I tend to think Peter, James and John also had a kind of familiar picture of their Jesus. Over the time they had spent with him thus far, they had become close to him and saw him as a friend, a companion on the journey, and a great teacher. But they were always having trouble with his connection to God.
Today’s feast changes all of that for Peter, James and John, and for us as well. If there was any doubt about who Jesus was, it’s gone now. That voice from the cloud is absolutely specific: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” Jesus is the Son of God and his divinity must be regarded just as much as his humanity. While it can be comfortable for us to have a picture of Jesus that is absolutely human, we must always keep in mind the Transfigured Christ, dazzling white, radiating glory, the lamp shining in a dark place. He is the Son of Man of whom Daniel speaks, and to him belongs dominion, glory, and kingship. If Jesus were only human, we would have no Savior, we would have no chance of touching divinity ourselves, that divinity for which we were created.
On the way to the mountain, the disciples came to know Jesus in his humanity, and on the way down, they came to know Jesus in his divinity. That trip down from the mountain took him to Calvary, and ultimately to the Resurrection, the glory of all glories. Christ is both human and divine, without any kind of division or separation. We must be ready to see both natures of him, so that we humans can transfigure our world with justice, compassion and mercy, in the divine image of our beautiful Savior. No matter what challenges may confront us or what obstacles may appear along the way, we must be encouraged to press on with the words of the Psalmist: “The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.”
Sphere: Related ContentThe Most Holy Trinity
I don't think it would come as too much of a shock for me to tell you that not one of us here in this place, not one of us here on this earth, will ever come to understand the Holy Trinity in this life. We've all been told that the Trinity is a mystery, and that's not just a church cop-out, it is in fact, truth. What we hear in today's Liturgy of the Word is that all of the truth about the Trinity is there, for the taking, in the person of the Holy Spirit. But we still don't get it, do we? And Jesus said as much: "I have much more to tell you," Jesus says, "but you cannot bear it now." We cannot bear it now because we are earthly creatures, corporeal and temporal - that is, material and bound to this time - and so our minds necessarily do not conform to God who is heavenly, ethereal and eternal. The long and short of it is, we'll never fully understand the nature of the Holy Trinity this side of the Kingdom of God.
St. Augustine found out as much. The story goes that he 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 was digging 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." Once more St. Augustine asked, "But is it possible for all of the water of this great ocean to be contained in this little hole?" 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?" And the child disappeared. No wonder Jesus says to us, "I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now."
But even this is not meant to discourage us from trying to find out more about our God. As St. Augustine says in another place, we are made for God, and "our hearts are restless until they rest in thee." And so it is with hearts and minds filled with expectation that we gather on this Trinity Sunday, yearning to know the One true God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
This is Trinity Sunday and so it is perhaps appropriate to approach things in threes. And so, if you will, a third idea from St. Augustine. If you heard me preach on the feast of Pentecost last Sunday, you know that he said of the Trinity that the Father is the Lover, the Son is the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit is the Love between the Father and the Son. Now, as I also said last week, this is but a tiny scratch in the surface of who God is. With this little caricature, we come to understand a tiny bit about the Trinity, but it is a very important tiny bit, I think. Because from this description of the Trinity we get two very important facts about God. The first is one that we know quite well, that God is love. And the second is one that makes sense if we think about it, and that is that God is a relationship.
This notion of God as a relationship is fundamental to Catholic thinking. It forms the basis for so much of our theology and our experience as a Church. For example, many of our protestant brothers and sisters emphasize a personal relationship with Jesus Christ above all else. While we do not necessarily reject this notion, and while we do think it's important for all people to come to know Christ, we believe that a person comes to know God in community because God is a community. So that's why we think it's important to come to Church for worship and reject the idea that one can worship God best by looking at a tree or focusing on a crystal. God made us to know him and gives us other people in our lives so that we can come to know him better. Indeed we see God's love for us poured out in the way others love and serve us. And so gathering as a community is fundamental to our faith and expresses our true belief in the Triune God.
Today's readings underscore this notion of God as relationship. The mysterious figure of Wisdom in our first reading from Proverbs was with God in the beginning. The relationship between the two of them brought forth the heavens, the earth, the skies, the waters, and everything that is in them. It has been said that Wisdom here is the personification of the Word of God, which we often identify with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. But whoever it is, it makes clear the fact that the creation of the world took place in the context of relationship. Sure, God could have created everything himself, but that's not who God is. God is relationship, so his creating action is one of relationship as well.
The second reading mentions all three Persons of the Trinity. We have peace with God (the Father) through our Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. Peace, too, can only be experienced in community. Sometimes we think we'd be better off without some of the people around us, but we can never experience the peace of God apart from the community. Peace, true peace, the peace that God gives, is a peace that comes from the love experienced in the Community of the Trinity and bestowed upon all those who believe. We experience peace when we relate to one another as God intended, we have peace when we exercise our vocation and our calling as God intended, we have peace when we love and serve others as God intended. St. Paul is not naïve here, though. He does not claim that knowing the Triune God will give us a life devoid of tribulation. No, we will definitely experience affliction, but instead of being crushed and dejected by our afflictions, we can instead boast about them, because we know that through them we come to know endurance, proven character, and a hope that can never be taken away from us. God is relationship, so he does not leave us alone in our afflictions, lost and broken, but instead, stretches out his arms on the cross and endures them with us, giving us hope and peace.
The idea of God as a relationship is helpful to us, I think, because we know what relationships are. But it's also difficult, in a way, because none of us experiences their relationships perfectly. If God is a relationship and our own relationships are broken and fragile, then our understanding of the Triune God remains at least partially shrouded in mystery. What truly stands in our way on the quest to coming to know God and comprehend the mystery of the Trinity is that we are sinful people, and always will be so this side of the Kingdom. And so it is most likely that it is only on that great day when Christ will have destroyed sin and death itself, when all that is hidden will be revealed, it is only on that day that we will truly understand who God is. Until then, we can at least scratch the surface by experiencing the love of God in relationships, perfecting them as best we can. And on that great day, we believe that we will see our God as he truly is and will cry out with the Psalmist, "O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!"
Sphere: Related ContentSolemnity of the Annunciation
Today's Readings | Today's Feast
"Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word."
Today, we celebrate one of the most critical feasts in all of Christian history. In fact, it might be the critical feast. Without the Annunciation, there could never have been a Christmas. Without the Annunciation, there never could have been a Good Friday or an Easter. The faithfulness of Mary, even as a very young girl, is such an inspirational event. Nobody had ever given birth to God before, so she obviously had no frame of reference, yet, she is very firm in her fiat - her decision to exercise her faith: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word."
We too are called to that same kind of faith, because surely the glory of God is aching to be born in all of us. We are called to bring Christ's presence to every corner of our world, every place where we are. The prospects of that can be scary, because we too don't know what the implications of God's work in us will be. We may be called upon to feed the hungry, or clothe the naked, or visit the sick, or shelter the homeless, or any of the other corporal works of mercy. But do we have those resources? Maybe not, but we are called to be Christ in those situations anyway. We might respond as Mary did at first: "How can this be?" But ultimately, we must respond that we are the Lord's handmaids an accept the call with great faith.
Mary is our patron whenever we feel overwhelmed by the task. May we rely on her intercession to guide us through the dark pathways of the unknown. May we look to her for an example of faith. May we follow her great example and let the Lord be born in us too, so that our Incarnate Lord can be made manifest in our world yet again. May we, like Mary, cry out in faith, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word."
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