Mystery, mystery, mystery

Trinity Sunday 2016

If you went to church today, chances are that you noticed that you homilist was struggling a bit with the homily, or else chose to speak about something other than Trinity. Fortunately for us, our homilist, Fr. Steven, gave a clear and well-organized homily, speaking about mainly how difficult it is to preach on Trinity Sunday.

It is difficult to preach about the Trinity. It’s difficult to speak about the Trinity. Sometimes it’s difficult to even think about the Trinity. I remember a story told to me when I was in grade school about St. Thomas Aquinas, the most brilliant theologian of them all, was walking on the beach on day thinking about the Trinity when he came upon a little boy who had dug a hole in the sand and kept filling it with water from the ocean. The Saint told the little boy that it would be impossible for him to fit the entire ocean into that little hole and the boy (who was actually an angel) turned to him and said, “I’ll get this done before you finish figuring out the Trinity.”

And yet, we live the Trinity all the time. Every time we bless ourselves entering or leaving the church or when a pitcher prepares to begin the ball game or when someone goes to take a dive off a high diving board. Parents trace the sign of the cross on their children’s foreheads (I borrowed this image from Fr. Steven). We pray to God the Father. We pray to God the Son, especially when we use the Jesus Prayer in our meditations. We pray for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and sometimes say that a particular homily or a particular piece of music by the choir was filled with the Holy Spirit. One God, three persons, and each of the three persons has a particular identity for us. And yet they are all one God. And I’m going to let my explanation stop right there.

The doctrine of the Trinity is the central mystery of our Christian faith. We accept it through faith but we don’t fully understand it. And if we were to study it carefully over the course of a lifetime we would never come to the end of understanding it.

That is the meaning of mystery when we speak about it in spiritual terms. Not a puzzle to be solved, but rather a glimpse into the realm of reality that goes beyond thought. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, so far beyond my understanding, the Psalmist exclaims, and we can all say the same thing.

It is good to live a life filled with mystery. It is good for our humility, to be sure, since we tackle something that is so much greater than we are with such a limited understanding. It is also good for our sense of self: our lives in faith are so much greater than a life lived without faith, a life where a person only accepts what can be figured out and neatly packaged into one pigeon-hole of another. It is good for our souls, which are themselves mysterious—as we peek through the clouds of understanding to catch even the briefest glimpse of something more wonderful than everyday life, more precious than anything that can be counted, tasted, see, heard or touched.

This is the way God created us to be. Consider this, also: isn’t it true that the people who are in our lives, including our closest friends and even spouses, are themselves mysteries. We run into great danger when we mistakenly believe that we have them all figured out. We rob them of the greatest part of their existence when we think there is nothing more to discover.

May God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit bless you this day and draw you closer to himself. Amen.

So far beyond my reach . . .

The prayer after communion on the 3^rd Sunday of Lent, Year C:

As we receive the pledge of things yet hidden in heaven

and are nourished while still on earth with the Bread that comes from on high,

we humbly entreat you, O Lord,

that what is being brought about in us in mystery

may come to true completion.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

A great mystery is taking place within us, and we are not yet ready to understand what it is. So we sit in hope and expectation, knowing that God is working things in us despite anything that might be in us, whether it be sin, or ignorance, or resistance, or cynicism, or doubt or fear. God is greater than any obstacle of our own making.  As is says in the psalm for the day: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.” (other translations have “steadfast love” or simply “love.”)

A great mystery is taking place within us: at all times we are a work in process. And the process is yet to be completed. And the process is yet to be revealed to us. And even if it were, our finite minds would not be able to comprehend it. We have to wait for the time to come.

This is excellent material for our meditation: we sit in silence and in hope, we open our hearts and minds and souls, and with rapt attention we contemplate the goodness of God at work in us, a work that can’t be put into words.

We can assume from the closing prayer that the key to this work is the Eucharist itself. It is the Eucharist that unites heaven and earth. There are things yet hidden in heaven (part of the process) and the Bread comes to us from on high and nourishes us while still on earth.

The Eucharist isn’t only the key; the Eucharist is part of the mystery. There is so much more contained in the Eucharist that we can possibly imagine. And the time for our thanksgiving after the Eucharist is so brief. I remember hearing it said that St. John Paul II would spend a long amount of time meditating after he receive the Eucharist at Mass. I think I can understand why.

And yet for us, the time is short and we are quickly distracted. Maybe because such knowledge is too high for me, so far beyond my reach. (Psalm 139:6)

And yet, let us reach out for it, always in humility and always in thanksgiving.

God bless you.

The Law is a way of protecting us.

Continuing with O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, Verse 3:

O come, O come, great Lord of might,

Who to your tribes on Sinai’s height

In ancient times once gave the Law

In cloud and majesty and awe.

Rejoice!

In this verse we consider the awesome mighty and majestic Lord of all things, and it would be a good practice in prayer to humble ourselves before this God of great mystery and tremendous power. We don’t have enough transcendence and awe in our lives any more, when everything is being stripped down to the least common denominator and the only things to be worshipped are man-made gods of paper and stone and glass and computer chips. Muslims bow to the ground five times a day, every day, and we have nothing in our lives that can equal that gesture, and we are impoverished because of it. Can you possible create some kind of gesture in your own life, or at least, when you genuflect in the Church do so with greater heart-felt humility and fervor?

And so the awesome mighty God delivers the commandments of the Law to Moses from the mountain-top. Even in his most awesome state, he stoops down to us to give us something that is meant for our own well-being and protection.

Have you ever considered the 10 Commandments in this light? That they are there to protect us? I say this because the truth is that they contain the secret about how life actually works in this world. Those who break the commandments, even if they know nothing about them, end up getting hurt and hurting others in many ways. Actions have consequences. And our lives come with a set of instructions.

In all his awesomeness, our Lord looks upon us and cares for us, even if it has to be in ways that we struggle against from time to time.

Today would be a good day to reflect on the first three commandments and to see how they play themselves out in our lives.

Blessed Advent to you.

The next Reflection will be on Sunday, December 6.

Your heart's desire

Verses from Morning Prayer today:

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desire.

and again, Commit your life to the Lord and he will grant your heart’s desire.

What is this “heart’s desire” that he will grant us? It’s not what you might think, and most likely it is not something you would pray for. In fact, this “heart’s desire” is probably something you have never thought of before, have never anticipated, and at this point you might not even know it exists. We’re dealing here with the realm of grace, with the realm of mystery, and in terms of a supernatural process that is set in motion by the commitment itself.

I’m speaking from experience here. I remember the time I first read those words and took them to heart. And from that day forward, life changed in ways that I never would have predicted. What I was given was far more than anything I had ever asked or hoped for.

And, this gift to my heart is a gift that keeps on giving, some thirty-five or forty years later. It has never ceased to fill my life with good, even in the midst of trials and difficulties.

If you’ve already made that commitment, if you’ve already begun to realize that your greatest delight is with the things of God, then you know what I am talking about. If you haven’t yet done so, or if you aren’t really sure that your life could change so radically, then simply pray for the grace to realize and to live these words, in your time, at the right time, which is, after all, God’s time. And God’s time is the best time of all.

May your heart be filled, all the days of your life.

MYSTERY

From the writings of Charles Dickens:

"A wonderful fact to reflecct upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other." 

It's too bad so many of us (and probably all of us sometimes) forget that and fail to pay honor and reverence to the mystery of each other. And there are always some who think they have others "all figured out." What a travesty.

The quote, by the way, comes from "A Tale of Two Cities."

Life is a mystery. Faith is a mystery.

I just finished Frank Schaeffer's "Patience with God," which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to know more about the "new atheists" and also about fundamentalist/evangelicals. I would especially recommend you give the book to someone you might know who is considering becoming a "born again" Christian, or who tells you you are going to hell because you're a Catholic.

This a conclusion to a chapter on the mystery of life, and that life is not based merely on facts or certainties:

It's only regarding unimportant stuff, such as buying major appliances, that we can go online and found out the 'facts.' When it comes to the person we spend our lives with, or having babies, or careers we end up killing ourselves for, or life-altering snap judgments like volunteering for military service, let alone the friends we meet and make and keep, we shoot the rapids, take our chances, and improvise. We learn as we do, not as we think about doing. . . .  And that is true about how faith in God is too. The truth is also that we either experience God or we don't. And just as in a marriage, once we have experienced God, we either choose to work to maintain that relationship or let it fade. In that sense we can choose to believe, just as on days when I'd rather be sleeping with another woman, I choose to stay married. (p. 169-170)