Holy Trinity Homily June 7, 2020

HOMILY NOTES

FR. TERRY RYAN, CSP

MOST HOLY TRINITY SUNDAY

JUNE 7, 2020

JOHN 20: 19-23, EXODUS 34: 4B-6, 8-9, COR.2,13: 11-13

Welcome to all you out there in Zoom land who are connecting to this mass on cyberspace.  The idea of you out there and us here in the monastery reminds me of the image of God I received growing up in the Bronx at my Catholic Church.  I understood God to be somewhere else, in heaven or the sky, and prayer/worship was to connect God to me, much like cyberspace connects you to me now.  But God was not always with me in any intimate ongoing way.  And if I was a really bad person, mortal sin, then God would leave me until I went to confession.  So the relationship was touch and go.  

In the Book of Exodus, God in fact does come down to Moses from the sky, which corresponds to my childhood idea of God.  But then something new happens.  Now Moses is a good guy so it fits that God would stand next to Moses.  What happens next surprised my young faith.  Moses says the people are stiff-necked and wicked.  He asks God to pardon them, which does not make them any less stiff-necked.  Then would God be in our company and make us his own? Yes. Though the people are still imperfect, God forgives and abides with them intimately.  

Why?  Because God is Triune, that is, God is always relational.  That is what the Trinity signifies for me.  God is always in relationship of love and intimacy even before the Big Bang or Genesis.  God is Three in One.  God wants to be with the people, with each of not, not because we are perfect, worthy, or earned anything.  God is Love, the verb, that does not wait for us to be worthy.  Love loves.  One way this shows is in the

Gospel when it says that God “gives” the Son.  God gives God’s very self in self-emptying without waiting for our permission.  Love is self-giving.

The Gospel says that if we believe we will not be condemned.  But belief is not in a creed, but in following Jesus who spent little time asking for his disciples to believe that he was Divine, the Second Person in the Trinity.  No.  Jesus said, “Come, follow me.”  That is do what I do and say.  One can believe in a creed, but still be racist, judging others on skin color, ethnicity, language, or economic status.  One can believe in a creed but be a neoliberal, saying leave me alone to make all the money I can and the heck with how it affects others.  None of this makes one a Christian.  Paul, in the second reading from Corinthians says we should live in peace, and be agreeable to one another.  Greet one another with a holy kiss, socially distant now.  This is the faith Paul is talking about.  

Jesus on the cross did not long to return to how things used to be before he was crucified, as many of us long to return to the way things used to be before Covid-19.  Jesus did not whine and complain on the cross, though he certainly was socially distant from others.  He is part of this loving Trinity.  He forgave people.  What is our attitude in our socially distant mode?  Complaining?  Why not reach out to others through letters in the mail or phone calls.  Be self-emptying.  We have the gift of the Spirit from our Baptism.  We have the spiritual DNA to live like the Triune God, not trying to get back to a past but becoming open to the eternal life offered to us by the Triune God of Love and Intimacy.  Use the time we have now in this pandemic to work on changing our lives for the better, so that we can be more open and accepting of one another in all our multiple differences and uniqueness.  We are all God’s Children.