The Root, the Shoot, and the Fruit

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

            One of my favorite classes at Sacred Heart Major Seminary was Theology of the Trinity. 

Bishop John Quinn,
Bishop of Winona, MN

Besides being a great subject to study (you can never go wrong learning more about God), I also enjoyed the class because of the professor, Bishop John Quinn, who was at the time an auxiliary bishop of Detroit, and is now Bishop of the Diocese of Winona, Minnesota.  He taught well, but also became a mentor to me, and a kind of friend, with whom I still keep in touch today with an occasional letter or email.  In that class we learned about the different images that were used to describe the Trinity: The Sun (s-u-n) Itself (God the Father), the Light of the Sun (Jesus), and the Warmth of the Sun’s Rays (God the Holy Spirit); the Root (God the Father), the Shoot (Jesus), and the Fruit (God the Holy Spirit); and many others.  But what was key to describing the Most Holy Trinity was the understanding that God was not simply a monad, but a Communion of Persons.

            Our belief in One God, yet Three Persons, distinguishes us from the other two major monotheistic religious of the world: Judaism and Islam.  They both hold, with us, that God is One, based upon the words of Deuteronomy: “Shema Yisrael: Adonai Elohim, Adonai Echad”: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One.”  And yet, throughout the Gospels, Jesus makes clear that He and the Father are One, not just in some metaphorical sense, but in the core of their Being, shown when Jesus forgives sins, something which only God could do.  That is why the Sanhedrin condemns Jesus for blasphemy, for claiming to be God.  And in today’s Gospel, Jesus affirms the role of the Holy Spirit, who is God, as continuing His work.

            But while we can talk until the end of time about the Trinity, seeking to understand more fully who God really is, we experience the Trinity in our everyday lives.  For, if God is a Communion of Persons, and we are created in the image and likeness of God, then we too are called to be a communion of persons.  And we know this from the beginning.  We know, as the Book of Genesis states, that it is not good for the man to be alone.  It is not good for us to lack communion.  We have, built within ourselves, a desire to know another and to be known by another, and to pour ourselves out for another, just as God is known in His fullness by the Trinity of Persons, and shares that knowledge with each Divine Person, and each Divine Person pours out all of who He is to each other.

            First and foremost, our desire for communion leads us to desire God.  St. Augustine rightly said in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  Each person, even the most hardened atheist, has a desire for communion with that Communion of Persons in the Trinity.  We want to be connected to the infinite.  And whether we are single, ordained, consecrated men and women, or married, there is an aspect of our desire for communion that can only be filled by God.  And when we try to fill that with someone else, even a best friend or a spouse, we are perpetually frustrated, because they are finite, and we desire communion with the infinite.

            But we do also desire communion with each other.  For many here, that life of communion is fulfilled in a special way through marriage, which is itself a symbol, something which points to another, of the communion of the Trinity: each spouse pours their life out to the other, which is always open to new life, just as the Father and Son pour themselves out to each other, in a love which is so strong that it spirates, or breathes forth, the Holy Spirit.  That is why Jesus, and therefore the Church, teaches that divorce cannot be a possibility, because marriage is called to make visible the invisible total union of God, which will never be divided or broken up.  My dear married couples, you are the way that we witness what the love of the Trinity is meant to look like.  What an exalted vocation!!  For those who promise celibacy or take a vow of chastity or virginity, that spousal union is lived out with God, which then allows us to share that infinite love of God with you, whom we are called to serve. 

Sts. Gregory (l) and Basil (r)

            But all of us, no matter what our vocation, are also blessed with the communion of friendship.  In that platonic union, we are also able to pour ourselves out to another, such that sometimes friends become like another self.  What a great blessing to be able to have a person who accepts us as we are, but also calls us to the heights of holiness and virtue, with whom we can be open and honest.  Two of Christianity’s greatest friends, Sts. Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, lived this out, though they had their very rough patches.  St. Gregory wrote on the anniversary of the death of St. Basil, “We seemed to be two bodies with a single spirit.  Though we cannot believe those who claim that ‘everything is contained in everything,’ yet you must believe that in our case each of us was in the other and with the other.”  We can each experience something akin to that in our trusted friends.

            What we celebrate today, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, is not some far-removed doctrine which has nothing to do with our life.  It is a defining part of who we are as Christians, and it is built into the very nature of our being.  May the Eucharist, though which we have communion with Jesus, and therefore communion with the entire Trinity, draw us each day deeper into the communion which is the basis for all others: the Communion of Divine Persons in the Most Holy Trinity.

An Optimistic Nation

Ascension of the Lord

            When it comes to the feelings of parishioners, there are very few, if any across-the-board statistics that apply to every individual.  It is dangerous to make assumptions for people, especially in a homily, because it might not be true, and you can lose that person’s attention for the rest of the homily.  But, I feel very safe in saying that every person here wants to go to heaven.  Good.  No one got up and left.  No one is offended to be in a group of people that want to enter paradise.

            What we celebrate today is the fact that it’s possible.  Yes, Jesus opened the pearly gates when He rose from the dead, but Jesus today takes His seat at the right hand of the Father, and what gives us hope is that, if we are members of His Body, then we, too, will be there some day.  While it’s a bit dated, a 2005 poll by ABC News stated that 89% of Americans believe in heaven, and of those who believe in heaven, 85% of them think they will be going there.  We certainly cannot be condemned as a pessimistic nation. 

            But it’s much easier to take the position of the disciples that we heard about in the first reading.  It’s much easier to gawk up in the sky and think, “Wow!!  That was really cool!!” and just remain there.  It took an angel to get the disciples to go back to the Upper Room and pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit which would empower them to do what Jesus commanded: “‘be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’”  While I may not be a perfect angel, allow me to communicate a similar message: pray for the gift of the Spirit!!

            Because the only way to go where Jesus has gone before, is to pattern our life on His.  Yes, we all want to get to heaven, but do we know how to get there?  The way is quite simple: Jesus.  Jesus didn’t say, “‘I am the way,’” to give bumper sticker manufacturers a job.  He said it because it was true: the only way to heaven, to the Father, is through Jesus.  If we truly want to go to heaven, then we must pattern our lives on His.  What does that look like?  Jesus tells us in our Gospel: suffering, death, and resurrection; and preaching of repentance.

            If we want to go to heaven, then our life is meant to be full of sufferings, deaths, and resurrections.  These are the times where we say, “It’s not about me,” and we do something that we know we should want to do, and then we actually find we enjoy it.  Imagine that: doing what we should do often comes with a feeling of accomplishment.  Huh.  Fr. Michal Judge probably had some trepidation about going into the Twin Towers on 9/11.  But, as the building collapsed, I’m quite sure he didn’t think, “I wish I would have concentrated more on myself.”  And standing before the judgment seat of God, I’m very sure he didn’t think that.  Or the volunteers who give of their time and talent to bring food to the hungry, while it may be painful sometimes, I’m quite sure they don’t regret living out the corporal work of mercy to feed the hungry.  We have to die to thinking of ourselves as the most important, which is painful, and then rise to new life where it is God, Others, Me.  After all, Jesus called His disciples to be His witnesses, which, in Greek, could also be translated His martyrs.

            If we want to go to heaven, then our life is meant to be a witness to repentance.  Now, in our culture, we don’t like to use the word repentance, because if you are repenting, it means you did something wrong, and no one does anything wrong in our culture.  But, the life of Jesus was a life of preaching repentance.  Jesus didn’t say, “You’re great, just keep up the good work!”  He said, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel!”  When we preach repentance, we preach to ourselves, to remind ourselves that we need to be formed constantly into disciples, and at the same time we preach to others that same message.  We don’t preach, “You’re doing pretty well,” because that’s not the message of Jesus.  Jesus didn’t preach mediocrity; He preached perfection, the fulfillment of who we are as human persons created in the image and likeness of God.  We preach new life, not old life with a few alterations.  But new life makes demands, and that’s where we get squeamish.  Who are we to make demands?  We, of ourselves, can demand nothing.  But Jesus demands that we model our life on His in totality, not just for one hour on Sundays.  And, out of love for others, and wanting to see ourselves and them in heaven, we, by the grace of God, change our lives, and ask others to do the same.  Mercy is only sweet when someone has done something wrong.  Mercy means nothing if there is nothing wrong.  So if we wish to receive mercy and be merciful, we have to acknowledge the evil that we do, and then do our best to begin a new life, and call others to the same.

            But none of this is possible without prayer.  Just as the disciples prayed for nine days in the Upper Room (the first novena), so we should be praying, not just for nine days, but every day, for the gift of the Holy Spirit who gives us courage to suffer, die, and rise, who forms us according to the mind of God, who gives us the words to use when we preach Christ and not ourselves.  Take these days until Pentecost and pray for an increase of the Spirit.  If you are open, God will not disappoint.  And then, by the grace of God, living a life after the pattern of Jesus, you will have firm hope, not just a flimsy wish, that in Christ, you can be seated at the right hand of the Father.  

Continued Presence

Sixth Sunday of Easter

"I have been, and always will be, your friend."
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

            It’s interesting the effects that friends have in our lives.  They can open us up to new experiences, which we can then make our own.  For example, when I was in elementary school, my best friend got me interested in Star Trek.  And once I had been exposed to it, I couldn’t get enough.  I loved the Original Series, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine.  I’ve seen all the movies.  One memorable scene is from “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”  Be warned, this is a spoiler alert.  Towards the end of the movie, in order to get clear of an impending explosion, Spock has to enter a radioactive room to get the warp drive working again.  But before he does so, he merges his mind with “Bones” McCoy, the ship’s doctor, which becomes important in the next movie, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.” 

            While there is no merging of minds, Jesus, in the Gospel we heard today, promises to send an Advocate who “‘will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.’”  This promise, made during the Last Supper, is fulfilled at Pentecost.  But because of the greatness of this gift, the Church, two weeks earlier, starts focusing on the Person of the Holy Spirit.

            The Holy Spirit is the continued presence of Jesus, after He ascends into heaven, which we, in this diocese, will celebrate next Sunday.  He is the continuation of Jesus’ work on earth among the disciples.  He instructs, leads, and protects the Church.  The Spirit ensures that the apostles and their successors will continue to preach Jesus’ words, and not their own.  The Holy Spirit as Advocate, the one who speaks for another, is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to St. Peter, that the gates of the netherworld would not prevail over the Church, so that she would never teach as part of the faith nor as part of Christian living what was contrary to the will of God.  Sure, there have been individuals who have been grade A sinners in Church leadership, but, by the grace of God, they never taught anything major, probably because they were so concerned with their own, sinful lives.

            We need a guide to help us understand Jesus’ words.  The Word of God needs unpacking.  One of the great error of Protestantism is that the Scriptures are clear, and that any person can understand them simply by opening up and reading.  Reading Scripture is a beautiful and necessary thing, but we need a guide.  Because sometimes Jesus is literal, like when He says, “This is my body.”  Other times he uses figurative language, like when He says, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.”  We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the guidance that was promised through the Church, to understand what God is making known through His word.  Otherwise, we end up straying from Jesus and just creating our own thing, which sometimes can be very weird.  Origen, a late second-, early third-century Catholic scholar, went to a weird place when he interpreted Jesus’ words to cut off the part of you that causes you to sin (he struggled with sexual sins, to give you some idea).  This was a theologian who knew Scripture, but he veered away from the right understanding of it, which causes some irreversible damage.

            We see the early Church dealing with understanding properly the Word of God in our first reading.  The big controversy, even at first among the apostles of Jesus, the ones He had ordained to govern His Church, was whether or not Gentiles has to become Jewish first to become Christians.  Did Gentiles have to be circumcised?  Did they need to wear Jewish clothing?  Did they need to keep the dietary law?  The very men who had walked with Jesus for 3 years and listened to all He said in public and private were not sure.  But, gathering together, in prayer and discussion, they decided that Gentiles did not have to become Jewish, but did have to follow some basic rules with their roots in Judaism.  And they make it clear that they needed guidance: “‘It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities.’”  This was the basis for the 21 Ecumenical Councils that would follow later: the bishops convene in prayer and discussion to be open to the Holy Spirit to continue Jesus’ work in the world.

            So how open are we to the Holy Spirit’s work in the Church today, which includes both the hierarchy and the lay faithful.  We say the Prayer to the Holy Spirit each Sunday, but do we mean it?  Do we really want the Holy Spirit to be active in our lives?  Are we like wet clay that can be formed by the Holy Spirit, or are we hardened so that our lives are not open to formation by the Divine Potter?  If we are open to the Spirit, then the Gospel will spread like wildfire, as it did in the early Church, to whoever is open to the need for a Savior.  If we are not open to the Holy Spirit, then we become obstacles to God’s truth and God’s love in the world.  May we truly mean what we say as we make our Prayer to the Holy Spirit: “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.  Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.”