Fr. Bill's Weekly Message for Trinity Sunday, 5/25/97

Dear Parishioners:

The mystery of the Trinity is at the very root of our faith as Catholics. It would behoove us to spend a few minutes meditating and studying this revelation of God.

We could not know that God is a Trinity, a Communion of Persons without revelation. Human reason would not have been able to discern this fact about God.

Our religion is a communitarian religion. We worship a community, a Trinity and the Church takes its nature from the founder, the Second Person of the Communion. There is the danger of imposing the idea of One upon the idea of three. Yet, they are Three. The Father sends the Son who sends the Paraclete.

God who is community itself cannot act against Himself or contrary to Himself. Thus we realize that we who are in the image and likeness of God, are in the image and likeness of community. The Paraclete Himself inspired the Church to teach us in the words of Vatican II, It has pleased God, however, to make men holy and save them not merely as individuals, without mutual bond; rather it has pleased him to make of them a People that acknowledges him in truth and serves him in holiness (Lumen Gentium 9).

Our religion recognizes that we, many though we are, form one body in the Lord. We are about the business of forming a community. We are not to be splendid individuals serving the Lord. Jesus Himself prayed that we be one even as He and the Father are one (Jn. 17:21). St. Paul reminds us that there is "One Lord, One faith, one baptism, One God" (Eph. 4:5).

Our morality is a communitarian law. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves (Lv. 19:18 & Mt. 22:39). We must avoid a morality that is too individualistic, too concerned with salvation of self without concern with charity towards onešs neighbor. God the Creator is directing all human affairs towards the eternal community in the fullness of heaven. Our life in the world to come will be the perfection of human community with the Communion of Persons, God.

One of the reasons the Church is weak today is because we have lost this sense of community. A businessman by oneself cannot change much; a teacher by oneself cannot change much; the list is the same for all. But when we have this communitarian perspective, we will have the ability to change much.

This does not mean that we are not individuals, but we are never just individuals. I am always more than myself, so to speak. Just as God is not more One than Three, or more Three than One, we must strive to be a perfect member of community as well as a perfect individual. In fact we must be both if we are to be whole. One is not more important than the other any more than the Father is more important than the Son, or the Holy Spirit.

We celebrate our core mystery about God today, Trinity Sunday, May 25. Let us all take a few minutes this week and visit the Adoration Chapel and spend time with Jesus while we listen to His words, ŗBe perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect, (Mt. 5:48). Let us be more like the Trinity.

God bless,

Fr. Bill




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