We had Confirmation six weeks ago or so and there was a rehearsal on Friday afternoon.  After the rehearsal, one of the young confirmation students came over to the rectory’s backyard.  I was sitting there praying, actually.  It’s not that often that you catch me praying and he said, “Father, do you have a few minutes?  Can you help me understand the Trinity?”  I don’t know what I said.  We visited for about an hour or so.  I guess I said, “If I had a few lifetimes I don’t think I could be too much help to you in understanding the mystery of the Trinity.”
 
Of course, on this Trinity Sunday, the challenge of every preacher is to try to preach on this great mystery that we can articulate but we can’t understand.  We know the Trinity tells us there is only one God.  We know that logically that there is one God, the “Prime Mover”, “the first cause, uncaused”, whatever we call that divine power we know must be one and unified.  But then we know through Christ’s teaching, and I may say we know through our experience that this God as three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each uniquely and fully God and yet there is only one God.  We go to the Catechism and the Catechism tells us this:
 
 
Is that clear?  I don’t understand that.  I understand every word but I do believe it.  It’s funny how we believe more than we know.  “. . . And to he who believes no proof is necessary, to he who does not believe no proof is possible.”  Of course, though we have a mind and we want to use our mind to seek understanding, the saints help us.  St. Patrick of course used the symbol of the shamrock, the three-leaf shamrock to teach the pagan Irish this notion of the Trinity that there are three separate branches of that but only one plant.  St Thomas Aquinas taught using fire.  He pointed out that if you watch closely in fire you’ll see colors.  You can see the colors blue, red, and yellow in a fire, distinct but yet there is only one fire.  I like Augustine’s explanation the best.  St. Augustine said, “God is love and love must have an object.”  If you love, you must love someone, right, or something?  God is love, the perfect reflection of the Father’s love is the Son, and the commerce or the electricity, if you will, of that relationship is the Holy Spirit.” 
 
All of that helps but still we don’t understand.  Of course, the problem we have is we do not have the tool that we need to understand or perhaps, we use the wrong tool.  What we use is our minds and they are not that sharp.  Did you hear that?  You know we are created in God’s image and likeness but not here.  God doesn’t think like us.  We do not think like Him.  We are not capable.  Actually, God does not think.  I have some friends that are like that but in a different way.  I met with a fellow who was thinking about coming into the Church and I said God doesn’t think, because God is.  He does not have any need to think, He is.  “I am who am, Yahweh.”  But God does feel like us.  I know this: God laughs, God cries and that is where we are like God, not in our minds but in our hearts, in our feelings, in our empathy, in our ability to love and in our ability to suffer.  Animals feel pain but they don’t suffer.  Only the human person suffers.  In that regard, we are built like God.
 
I believe we’ve experienced this Trinity and we understand it more than we know we understand it.  First, as I said in the beginning of Mass, we are surrounded by the mystery and little by little, that gets to our soul.  All these outward things we do.  This fellow who was thinking of joining the Church said, “Would it be okay for me to bless myself although I’m not Catholic?”  There’s no restrictions on blessing, none.  However, this Trinity surrounds us: this Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 
 
I’ll tell you a story.  In the past when I was newly ordained, I visited a hospital.  This guy was in a coma.  They said he was in a coma and I said, “In the name of the Father…” and his hand moves.  It was my first miracle.  You know for a moment there I said, “You know I could go on TV and make some money.”  Instead I end up here with you, eight bucks an hour.
 
We have experienced God.  You have experienced God as Father, in nature.  You know children learn of God as Father, creator.  Kids as soon as they start to think will say, “Who made this? Where did this come from?”  You know you’ve heard the questions.  And the questions go on and on and on.  Where did this come from?  I was in Hawaii a couple of months ago in Kauai. Anybody been to Kauai, Hawaii?  Beautiful.  It’s the western island.  I took a helicopter trip with some friends and this guy could really fly this helicopter.  Of course, we had these Bose headsets on and you could not even hear the motor.  He was just drifting in and out of these canyons.  It was just surrealistic.  It was beautiful.  And a thought came across me.  You know, I said, “Well, thank you Lord for Kauai.”  I just can’t believe there was nothing at one time and then there was a big bang and then Boom: Kauai.
 
We experience God in nature.  If you’re a parent you’ve experienced God as creator when you had a child.  You remember that moment.  I don’t know how anyone can have that baby and not believe in God.  You know you created the baby, you did, but God did too.  You’re co-creator with God.  You shared the Father’s power in that marvelous act of birth. 
 
We have experienced God as Father and as Son.  Of course, we think of God that way.  As Christians, we think of Jesus primarily and we can visualize him.  He was like us in all things but sin.  He was just like us.  When we think of Jesus suffering, we can understand that and we can feel like God feels.  The second reading today reminds us that unless we suffer with him we will not be glorified with him.  I think that helps explain this reality, this mystery of suffering which is inevitable.  It happens.  It will happen.  It will continue to happen.  Instead of cursing the suffering the Christian like Christ embraces it and somehow this mystery of suffering which itself is not a good thing, the pain, somehow makes us holy, doesn’t it?  Do you know what I am talking about?  We experience God in Jesus Christ through suffering.
 
We also experience God through Jesus Christ as savior because at some point in our lives, we wake up and realize we need a savior.  There’s a priest, Father David Phillipson who is the pastor in Roy and Mescaro in Wagon Mount whose mother was agnostic Catholic and his father was agnostic Jewish.  His family had some means and after his college and graduate work, David traveled and tried out various philosophies and religions within India, spent some time with Buddhist monks and practiced Zen and he didn’t feel like he was progressing that much.  One day he woke up and he said, “You know what I’m lacking?  I need a savior and only Christ offers salvation”.  So, he went to Mother Teresa because she is the Catholic of India and he worked there awhile and he found Christ in the suffering in the poor. 
 
We need a savior.  If you haven’t had that moment yet when you woke up and looked in the mirror and said, “You sir, are a mess,” then I hope you get it soon because you are a mess.  You know there was a book years ago, “I’m Okay, You’re Okay”.  I didn’t read the book but the title’s nonsense.  The Christian book would say, “You’re not okay.  I’m not okay.  But because of Christ Jesus, it’s okay.”  That is called Salvation in Christ. 
 
We attribute all this stuff to the psyche when it’s the soul we’re talking about not the psyche.  You have experienced God as Holy Spirit.  I’ll bet you on that.  You may not realize it but you experience God as the Holy Spirit.  You’ve heard that voice in your conscience?  “Don’t do that.  That’s a sin.  Don’t look at that.” You thought it was the voice of your mother but she’s a secret agent of the Holy Spirit.  We have a conscience.  Does a dog have a conscience?  Does a horse have a conscience?  Only a human person has a conscience.  That’s the voice of the Spirit.  Have you ever spoken the words of God?  Have you ever said to someone exactly what they needed to hear when they needed to hear it and you knew that was what they needed?  When you thought about it, you didn’t even know where you got it.  Did that ever happen to you?  That is the Holy Spirit, certainly.  Have you ever cried because you loved, perhaps loved and lost, the death of a loved one?  Maybe someone you loved hurt you and you cried.  We do not know how to pray, as we ought to; the Spirit expresses himself within us through crying and supplication.  That’s the spirit of God.
 
We are very close to the Trinity and although we cannot articulate this mystery, we live it.  We’re involved in it and it’s really then a great mystery of God’s love for us.  One thing’s for sure, and I tell this to people and sometimes they look at me like I’m crazy.  The more that they are hurting, the more I ask them to try this: To stop thinking about themselves for a moment and start to praise God.  Just give God glory and praise in whatever way you choose and suddenly things are better because you’re one with God.
 
The Trinity:  How blessed we are to know God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Pray with me now from your heart and souls:  

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