Homily: Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity – Cycle B
Friends,
this weekend, our first weekend back in Ordinary Time after our long, fruitful
journey through Lent and Easter, it is fitting that what we celebrate
today—that is, who God is in himself—falls also on Memorial Day weekend here in
the United States. I say this because
our liturgy today invites us to remember. We celebrate Memorial Day in order to
remember—that is, keep always in our minds—the men and women of our armed
services who died in service to our country.
This remembrance is a moment of honor, of course, but it also helps us
never to take for granted what they sacrificed for us. As men and women who continue to live in this
country, we are intrinsically linked to those men and women whom we remember:
and our remembrance helps solidify our bond with each other into the future.
Again,
all of this is a fitting coincidence to our liturgy this weekend because as we
celebrate God, who is three Divine Persons in one God, we are called to
remember: remember who God is and what he has done for us, who we are in
relation to him, and the mission to which he has called us.
In
our first reading from the book of Deuteronomy, which is Moses’ last speech and
instruction to the Israelites before they enter into the Promised Land, we hear
him exhorting the Israelites to remember God and all that he had done for them
to lead them to this point. Let’s look
at it again. There Moses said: “Ask now
of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created man upon the
earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever
happen before? Was it ever heard of? Did a people ever hear the voice of God
speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live? Or did any god venture
to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by
testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with strong hand and outstretched arm,
and by great terrors, all of which the LORD, your God, did for you in Egypt
before your very eyes?”
Moses
knew that they would encounter pagan cultures with false gods when they entered
the land that God was giving to them and he wanted to be as sure as possible
that they wouldn’t be swayed to follow those false gods, and so he exhorted
them to remember that God did way more for them and worked way more powerful signs
than any of the false gods of the pagans could ever and would ever do. Multiple times Moses had intervened before
God to prevent God from wiping out the Israelites when they rebelled against
God during their 40 years of wandering through the desert. Moses wouldn’t accompany them into the land,
however, so he had to exhort them as strongly as possible. “This is why you must fix in your heart,” Moses said, “that the Lord is God in the
heavens above and on the earth below, and that there is no other”. To fail
to remember, and, thus, to follow God and his commandments, would mean disaster
for the Israelites. To remember God,
and, therefore, to follow him and observe his commands, would mean a “long life
on the land which the Lord…” had given them.
As
we celebrate who God is in himself, we remember also how this all-powerful God,
who is complete in himself and has no need of us, created us so that we might
share for all eternity in his divine happiness.
We are called to remember how he has worked in our own lives over the
years so that we never take his graciousness for granted, but rather rededicate
ourselves to remain faithful to him by observing his commandments. “Never forgetting” what he has done for us,
we will live in gratitude and in strength to resist the temptations to follow
the false gods presented to us by the world.
This,
of course, leads us to our second remembrance: that of who we are in relation
to God. In our second reading, St. Paul
reminds us that the relationship to which God has called us is not some distant
benevolence: like a rich man sending support to poor peasants who grovelingly
honor him. No, the relationship to which
God has called us is a filial relationship: that is, to be as close to him as a
son or daughter is to his/her father.
Let’s read that again. St. Paul
wrote, “for those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did
not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a
spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’” He continues to write, “The Spirit himself
bears witness with our spirit that we are children
of God…”
This
is so important for us to remember because it reminds us that, when we “suffer
with Christ” (as St. Paul indicates we must do in order to accept our
inheritance), we are not like the poor peasants who have little recourse to the
distant rich man, but rather that we are sons and daughters, who have a right
to go directly to our Father to seek help in our need. When we remember to turn to our Father, and
pray in the Spirit of adoption that we have been given, we find the strength
and grace that we need to remain faithful to him and to observe his
commandments. If we fail to remember who
we are in relationship to God, however, we may drift from faithfulness and fall
into the destructive ways of the world: the gossip, rancor, and divisiveness
that separates peoples, keeping them far from each other and therefore from
God.
This
leads us to our final remembrance: our remembrance of the mission to which God
has called us. In our Gospel reading, we
recall the resurrection appearance of Jesus to his Apostles in which he
commissions them to “go and make disciples of all nations… teaching them to
observe all that he commanded them…” As
God had called them and had done great signs and wonders to lead them to
freedom in the Spirit, and as he poured his Spirit of adoption on them to make
them his sons and coheirs with Christ, so he gave them a mission to proclaim
this message to the world and to work to incorporate the peoples of all nations
into this same adoption. As descendants
of these first Apostles, we must remember that we too are called to that same
mission: the mission to witness to the joy of being sons and daughters of God
and to lead others to that same adoption, teaching them to follow God and to
observe his commands so that they too might “have long life in the land” to
which the Lord has called them: the land which is eternal life with God in
heaven.
My
friends, what a blessing from God it is to know him and to be counted as his
sons and daughters! As we honor God this
Sunday, and as remember with joy these graces that he has bestowed on us, let
us strive to cooperate with each other, with our pastors, and with everyone of
good will to make this good news known to all, so that God’s Church may grow
again and gather, as we gather today, to worship him in this great act of
thanksgiving that we call the Eucharist.
May the strength that we receive from this altar bring this good work to
fulfillment.
Given at Sts. Peter and Paul parish: Goodland, IN &
St. Augustine parish: Rensselear, IN – May 30th,
2021
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