Homily for May 22

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Homily for Trinity Sunday
(Scriptures for today's Mass)

Audio for homily

To be noticed, as one special among all the others...

to be recognized, for who you are... to be known, by your own name...

to be accepted, with open arms...   to be forgiven, fully and freely...

to be embraced, warmly...   to be loved, unconditionally...

Who among us doesn’t desire all of these things?

In different ways, sometimes obvious but usually more subtle,

we all desire and seek these things, thirst for them,  drink them in,

and savor and treasure them when they come our way,

always seeking more of the same, again and again,

searching for the one whose arms will hold us always

and never let us go...

But even the strongest embrace of a faithful friend or a longed-for lover

knows moments of weakness, forgetfulness  -- even letting go --

all, except  the embrace of the One whose strength never tires,

whose love knows no end, who never forgets us,

whose love is more than we can dream or desire:

the embrace of God’s love for us.

Every healing embrace our aching hearts know

is but a shadow of the love we seek again and again

until finally we fall into the arms of the One who will hold us forever

in the deepest of all embraces:      

God’s embrace of our lives, our hearts and our desire.

Or as St. Augustine put it:

Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in you...

It’s Trinity Sunday,

a day to celebrate how we believe about God,

God, for whom our restless hearts are always longing:

one God in three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We don’t understand all of that – it’s a mystery.

Because we can’t fully understand who God is

we might sometimes begin to think that God is beyond our reach

and end up leaving God in the margins of our lives and awareness,

calling on the divine only at holiday times

or when we really need something.

But God keeps no such distance from you and me.

God is here and not just vaguely all around us.

God is here

and not just because we happen to be in church at the moment.

God is here, God is within you, living deep within your humanity.

God was in you as you slept last night

and God was in you when you woke this morning

and God will be in you all day long.

In fact, you might say that we are hard-wired,

hard-wired for God, for relationship with God.

Everything about us as human beings

(our bodies and souls, our minds, intellects, and imaginations,

our urges, desires, drives, appetites and longings,

our needs, joys and sorrows):

everything about us as human beings is given to us

precisely to draw us more deeply into the mystery of God.

God, in whose image, in whose likeness you and I were created:

each of us, a unique mirror of our Maker.

• I have been given a mind:

that I might come to know and understand

God who loves me.

• I have been given imagination:

that I might see more than my eyes can behold,

that I might see even as God sees: seeing what is not yet – but can be.

• All my desires and appetites serve to remind me

that I thirst and hunger always for a life and for love

deeper, greater and more faithful

than any love I might now know -  or hope to have.

• All of my physical and emotional yearning to be with someone,

to be one with another, my very desire to make love --

is my body and soul showing me from the inside out

that I am made for love, for union,

we are made for sharing all we are with a beloved 

-and ultimately, with God who desires us,

who wants to be with us, who wants to be one with us,

who wants to draw us into the depths of his own heart.

So much in our world, our culture, our politics and our art

would have us believe that human experience is an end in itself

-and is, thus, its own authority.

That is the definition of godlessness.

And there’s a lot of that around.

To celebrate Trinity Sunday is to remember

that God himself is a union of relationships,

a triune of intimate personal relationships:

Father, Son and Spirit,

and to remember

that God is not only the source of all human desire and experience,

but is also its sustenance - and its ultimate fulfillment.

And yet  another relationship draws many of you here today:

your relationship with the boys and girls

receiving First Communion.

These children were born of you and your love,

even as all of us are born of God and his love.

You have nurtured these children with your love

as God nurtures each of us with his.

And today you lead these children

to the Table of the Trinity where,

in the power of the Holy Spirit, we give thanks to God the Father

and are fed with the Body and Blood of Christ, our Lord,

God’s Son, our Brother.

And so today these children, as young as they are,

enter more deeply into the mystery of God

and they join us in our life-long restless searching for

love that does not leave us, love that does not perish,

love that never fails us.

Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in you…

 

   
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