(Homily for Trinity Sunday-Me, Dante and the Trinity)
Recently, I had a birthday, where my wife surprised me with “real” surprise. She was returning from grocery shopping with my daughter. In her hands was a classic circular glass fish bowl. What is this I asked? It is for your new responsibility as she pointed to another container that my daughter was holding in her hands-a dark blue betta. Immediately, I chose a name (obviously from my current reading material)…your name shall be Dante.
Dante has been with me for a few weeks now and I am no longer alone in my man cave. Since it is in this place, I pray, contemplate and read…I have come to realize that Dante and I have a lot in common.
1. Neither of us are an angel.
I know that Dante is not an angelfish. Nor do I think I am an angel. As humans, we know that we are not angels either. We know that we lack the vision and the understanding of angels. As Catholics, we know we do not have all the answers, and we know with some certainty that we need fixing.
2. Both of us are immersed in the world.
Yes, we are immersed in the drama of life. We can see the beauty of creation in all of its drama, whether it is the explosion of beauty that we have witnessed in our spring, or the drama of the lava beds heating up on the island of Hawaii. Dante is immersed in water…we are immersed in air and grounded on this planet called earth. Just as I maintain, Dante’s world, our maker is holding our world in existence.
3. We are both swimming in circles and are dependent on something greater then ourselves for survival.
As I watch Dante swim in circles, there is an elegance to his dance. At times, if I am looking just right, the fish bowl appears to be empty…and out of nowhere, Dante re-appears. The gulf between Dante and me is vast. Through the glass, he knows that my presence will usually mean that it is feeding time. For some reason, just being in the room with him, causes him to circle around the glass sphere and dance. On occasion, he seems to just float in one spot and stare at me.Starring back at Dante I have an “aha” moment and a Thomas Merton quote says it best.
“A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be-it is obeying [God]. It “consents,” so to speak, to [God's] creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree”
Okay, Dante is giving glory to God by just being a betta fish. This is where there is profound difference between Dante and me. I know that you and I-are created in the image of God...but I am certain that because I have free will...I have drifted from that image.
Now this freedom does come with an awesome responsibility to learn what it means for me to “be created” for what I was “created to be”. When I am striving to be what God created me to be…I am participating in the Trinity whether I am aware of this or not. We think we can hide as Dante seems too…but I see him. Unlike Dante, we have a spiritual instinct-a restlessness in the heart- as St. Augustine would say.
However, because I have the Church and an ongoing relationship with Jesus-and an abundance of grace, I can identify certain and “literal” connections with the mysterious Trinity. My clearest connection is when I was baptized; in the Name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. To understand, as Catholics, that we are participating, through the acceptance of our baptism, in the glorious event of salvation history…we participate with the Trinity in the unfolding of God’s Kingdom…here and now.
There are the daily connections we make when we read scripture. For example, our awareness that God loves us so much “that he emptied himself and became one with us.” Before such a statement, how can we wrap our minds around such a revealed reality? This embrace includes past, the present and the future. A love that reaches into the bowels of Hell and up towards heaven. This embrace was for all of us…as revealed in Christs’ birth, life, death and climaxes in the event of the resurrection-which is our most glorious connection to the Trinity.
We hear the tune and we dance. As a passage from Psalm 48 states,
“Deep is calling on deep,
In the roar of waters:
By night I will sing to him,
Praise the God of my life.”
Yes, just as Dante, wiggles to the surface because it is feeding time, we respond, by instinct to a spiritual call…to feed and nourish us.
Conclusion
In our Gospel reading we are given a striking image of how we are invited to participate with the Trinity when Jesus says…”Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all I have commanded you…I am with you always, until the end of the age.” As baptized members of his Church, we are commissioned to invite others to this dance we call building the Kingdom of God on the earth.
On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and exclaimed, “Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water* will flow from within him.’” He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive. (John 7:37-38)
We now turn to the one who feeds us.
-rc
