May 26, 2024 at Saint Peter & Saint William Churches in Naples, FL
Deuteronomy 4: 32-34, 39-40 + Psalm 33 + Romans 8: 14-17 + Matthew 28: 16-20
Back in the day, Sister used to tell us in class that the Holy Trinity was a mystery which, I think now, was her way of telling children to stop asking questions. That idea worked for a while mostly because it was time for recess. But a mystery is not something you can’t understand. It is a kind of teasing challenge to keep going until the end. You know how a good mystery novel or movie works. Little clues get dropped along the way to keep you going, and then at the end there is either a surprise because you got it wrong or satisfaction that you figured it out.
In my case, I’m still working with the clues and hope that I will be surprised at the end. Someone like Thomas Aquinas in the past or Bishop Baron, if you are one of his fans, are very satisfied having figured it all out. I think we have the Feast of the Holy Trinity every year just after Pentecost to keep us going. The clues I’m working with come, not from this Gospel and the instructions on how to baptize, but from the opening verses of John’s Gospel which says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” Then a few verses later he says: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”
At this point, I get the clue. From the beginning, if there ever was one, there are two, God and the Word. John tells us that they are one. The Word was God. That One God in the person of the Word became flesh and lived among us for one reason. When we examine all he said and did, the reason for the Word to become flesh was love, which is the only way to describe the relationship between God and Word. Love is what makes them one and keeps them from breaking apart.
Anyone who has known love knows very well that real love needs and desires unity. When you love someone, you can’t stand to be apart. Where there is love, there unity and peace.
That love looks upon us, broken and distant, far from the divine life-giver, and it drives God to send out the Word, God’s only Son, to gather us all up together and restore the unity that love demands. “He so loved the world,” John tells us, “that he sent his only Son.” Why? Because, love can’t stand to be apart.
I find another clue from the very first words of John’s Gospel. “In the beginning.” John is reminding us how God’s love work – what it does. It creates, it generates, it brings life just like two people in love generate and participate in God’s creative love giving birth to a child. The Book of Genesis, the Book of the Beginning tells us that God’s very breath brought forth life.
I once heard Bishop Sheen, that great evangelist, describe the Holy Spirit as the “Sigh” of love. That great breath that so often expresses the joy and peace of love. With that breath, that sigh of love, the Word, the Son, gathers us up in the Spirit to return to God, the father. Once we know and believe that God is love, then there must be a lover, the beloved Son. What we call the Holy Spirit is the love they share.