2019-06-15 Trinity Sunday

Today is one of those days when the secular holiday we're celebrating matches up pretty darn well with the feast we're celebrating.  This weekend, we celebrate Father's Day… and in our Church, we celebrate Trinity Sunday.  Fathers are a pretty amazing thing.  For most of us, it's from our Father that we learn independence.  Moms are usually right there, but a Father is the one who teaches by example, who provides the environment, who offers challenges, and yet, is the loving support behind it all.  It's a father who offers unconditional love, who models what a man is to be like.  It's a father that sets boundaries, and it's a father that gives us the space to grow…allowing us to make our own decisions, and yet picking us up when we fall.   I think my favorite dad story was my brother.  He called his dad, and said…can you pick me up.  I can't get the car to start…I think I flooded it.   So Dad, worried, came down to get him.  When he got there, he discovered why the car was flooded.   It was sitting at the bottom of a creek.   Dad looked at him and said.  Are you ok?  Yeah, I'm ok.   Did you learn your lesson?   Yeah, I learned my lesson.  Then let's get you home and cleaned up.

As I was looking though all the cute father stories, trying to come up with one to start with today, I realized something.  They were all the same basic story.  The kid had just done something really dumb.  They realized they were in trouble, They knew their dad would take care of them no matter what…so they called him and he did.   That's not a bad model of what a Father is like.  A good father would willingly endure any kind of suffering for their child, because they deeply love that child.  Yet, more than anything they want that child to grow to be strong themselves, in body and soul.

That very love, a love that's willing to sacrifice anything, that isn't concerned with ourselves, only with that other, is exactly what we celebrate today.

Today, we also celebrate Trinity Sunday.  To just talk about the trinity is one of the most confusing parts of our faith, We have one God in three persons, three co-equal, co-eternal persons, in one essence.  Father, Son, and Spirt, one God.  It's the way that Jesus has revealed himself to us.  It's the way God really is, so it shouldn't be surprising that the God who created everything, is difficult for us to comprehend.

Yet, there is one word we have that describes who God is, in a trinity.  God is Love itself.  Our God exists in the very act of relationship. God the Father is only a Father, because he has a son.  He exists in the very act of loving and creation.  Sure he loves us, but he loves us like a Father, in the very act of being who he is.   His whole reason for being Father, is because of Jesus Christ the Son.   He exists in loving his son.   Then, Jesus, the Son, shows that in the Gospel when he says "Everything that the father has is mine."  Jesus loves his Father perfectly, he becomes the obedient son.  I think that any of us who have had a good, holy father, or known good holy men to look up to, have had the experience of the kid who wants to be just like his dad.  I don't think I've ever seen it expressed more clearly than the dad who takes his boy fishing.  He's watched his dad reel in the fish many times.  Now though, Dad hands his reel to his boy, and says…you know what to do, you've watched me do it, I'm right here with you.   Then, that boy, excitedly reels in the fish, given the chance to be like his Dad.   A Good son wants to imitate a good father.   Then, With God, the love between them is so great, that the love itself becomes a whole other person, the one we call the Holy Spirit.    God exists in the very act of loving.  

So as he creates us, in his image and likeness, he calls us to do the same.   To the fathers present with us, I think my favorite example is St. Therese of the Little Flower.  When she was a little first grader, her teacher at school asked if she knew what a saint was?  Little Therese said, "I've seen one."   The teacher, surprised, looked at her and said.  "Really, where did you see a saint praying?"   Therese said, "You can see him too!  Just come over to our house in the evening."   The teacher, intrigued, looked at her and said "What do you mean."  Little Therese said.  "Every night you can see my dad on his knees in his room with his arms outstretched praying for us, his children, every day."    Do we realize, that father, simply by getting down on his knees every night and praying for his children, was teaching his daughter how to pray, helping her become a saint?   If that's not the goal of every father, I'm not sure what is.  

Of course, we're not perfect.  We don't have to be.  We can and do mess up, but as we celebrate the feast of the Trinity this Weekend, as we celebrate how God exists himself, eternally in loving the son, with the son loving and being obedient to the father, and the Holy Spirit coming into being through their love.  We realize….he's the example we're meant to follow.  We have a father in heaven who loves us unconditionally.  We can and will mess up.  But when we do, as long as we turn around, ask forgiveness, and keep trying.  He will walk with us every step of the way.  He'll teach us every step of the way, he'll help us grow.

We are all God's children, and like any child of a good father, we love our Father in heaven with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our strength.  Do we realize that.  Do we work to get to know our father better?  Are we really willing to try to be that good child, to act as we should, to be what our God is calling us to be?