Fortunately, Father’s Day this year happens to fall on Trinity Sunday. I say fortunately because it is much easier to give a homily about Father’s Day than it is about the Trinity.
The Trinity is a mystery. It is a mystery to be marveled at, meditated upon, and reflected on over and over. It is the mystery of three individual persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in one God.
The mystery is inaccessible to logic or reason. It is incomprehensible. We can only believe this mystery if we are willing to “believe without totally understanding.”
The Trinity is believable in faith alone. It can be a test of our faith. The mystery of the Trinity is not a problem to be solved, and it cannot be explained. It can only be embraced. And sometimes our fathers are like that as well.
I remember when I was six years old, I decided to make pancakes for our father on Father’s Day. I found a big bowl and a spoon. I pulled a chair up to the cabinet and took out the canister of flour, spilling some on the floor. Then I went to the refrigerator to get the milk and spilled a bit of the milk on the floor. Of course I had to have an egg. I ended up slipping on the floor because of the milk and flour and then I dropped a dozen eggs.
Just then our father walked into the kitchen and saw me about to cry as I was sitting in the mess with my pajamas all wet and sticky. Our father, rather than spanking or scolding me, simply sat down in the pancake flour/milk mess next to me, gave me a bear hug and told me how much he loved me. Then thanked me for trying to make him pancakes on Father’s Day.
I learned early in life that my dad loved me, and I believe that is the way God loves us. We try to do the right thing, sometimes we mess up, but God loves us anyway.
Our God is a mystery.
It is God the Father who creates. It is God the Son who redeems us through His death and resurrection. It is God the Spirit who sanctifies us by breathing on us, setting us on fire and leading us to the truth.
Each of us experiences the Trinity in our own unique way. The same is true of our experiences with our own father. In thinking of our fathers, some of us have joyful thoughts while for others, it is painful. If we are honest with ourselves, all parent-child relationships involve a mixture of joy and pain.
It was long ago when my sister, my brother and I would sit on our dad’s knees and beg him to tell us another story. He loved to tell stories and that is why I am a storyteller. Dad was a great storyteller, but sometimes he would try to repeat his stories. The three of us would chime in and say, “Not that same one Dad, you told us that one before; tell us a new one.” Dad would rub his chin, scratch his ear, and fabricate a story, always to teach us the truth.
It was not long before we were too big to sit on his lap and we didn’t have time to hear his stories. Now, he was teaching us how to read and write or teaching us what we liked the most, how to throw a ball or catch a football. We especially treasured when he put on his hockey skates and showed us to skate forward and backwards.
Soon, he and Ma would be at our high school, volunteering or cheering in the stadium, watching us play ball. But those days came to a quick end, as he and Ma watched us graduate from high school, my older brother and sister with honors, and myself well, I graduated. I had lots of fun in high school!
The love that our parents had for us reminds me of the relational love of The Trinity.
Right after I finished at the University of Minnesota, I decided to enter the seminary. I had thought about the priesthood throughout my college days but always kept it to myself until graduation. So, it was a “shocker” when I shared with Ma and Dad my decision. Dad was saddened as he had groomed me to take over his insurance agency business. I still remember his initial response, “If that is what you want, give it your best. I’ll keep the agency till you get ordained.” Dad sold the insurance business in 1968, the year I was ordained.
It was not long before he grew to appreciate my priestly vocational choice. He admitted to me, “Billy, you probably would have been a good insurance agent, but you have taken on a more difficult ministry, to sell Christ.” He was especially proud that I spent 25 years working in prisons, ministering to inmates. He wisely noted, “I’ll bet over half of those guys were locked up because they probably never experienced the gift of a loving and caring father.”
As I look back, it doesn’t seem so long ago that we sat on his lap. Dad was a great storyteller, but he was better at living out the moral values of all his stories. He made it clear to the three of us that there were no excuses for being lazy, irresponsible, especially morally irresponsible. He instilled in us the value of hard and honest work and living our faith. I was always impressed by how he treated his clients like his personal friends, every single one of them, without exception. But what made him a special Father to the three of us was his personal integrity and his stubborn, uncompromising moral voice.
Ma and Dad were great at getting us to appreciate the mysterious and unknown. I am still mystified by incredible sunrises, sunsets and star-filled skies. They taught us to believe; even without totally understanding.
They made sure we memorized the answers found in the Baltimore Catechism. So, when it came to the question of the Trinity, “What do you mean by the Holy Trinity?” The answer “By the Holy Trinity I mean one God in three persons.” That was it.
Memorizing answers worked in grade school, but as a high school student and a student at the University of Minnesota, and later as a young adult, I realized that memorizing answers to complex life experiences did not satisfy my curious mind. Dad understood my inner conflicts. To this day I struggle with the mystery of why some children are born with severe autism or crippling diseases, why some people commit suicide or others are killed when far too young. Like The Trinity, these are mysteries of life itself.
I remember the time we were on a family vacation at Pine Lake in New Richmond, Wisconsin and we were talking about God. Dad asked us to draw a picture of God. I got on it right away and started drawing my picture of God. My older brother and sister laughed said, “You cannot do that. No one knows what God looks like.” I jumped up and said, “Well, they will know what God looks like when they see my picture.”
We do not know what God looks like, and that is why Christianity has so many symbols which represent God. For example:
For me, the symbol that most clearly identifies The Trinity is the question mark. This might be true of our fathers as well.
The other day, while I was grocery shopping, I noticed a young Dad with his uncooperative three-year-old in the shopping cart. I heard him say, “Now Tommy this won’t take long.” The child insisted on having a candy bar, raising his voice several octaves. The father said: “Tommy, calm down, we will be out of here soon.” The child then began to scream uncontrollably, and in a faint voice, the father said, “Tommy, please settle down. We are checking out now and we will soon be in the car.”
I was right behind them and remarked to the father, “I couldn’t help but be impressed how well you managed little Tommy.” The father looked me and said, “Thanks,” as he pointed to his son and said, “But this my son Charlie. I’m Tommy; I was just talking to myself.”
The Trinity is a mystery of our faith. It can be appreciated, marveled at and meditated on, with gratitude for the love of our dad or ma, brothers, sisters, and the love that others have for us.
May each of us experience the love of God on this Trinity Sunday and Father’s Day weekend with gratitude in our hearts for the grace to believe without totally understanding.
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