Trinity Sunday

When you were born into the Christian community, you were baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  When your body is laid to the ground, you will likewise be blessed.  We began our Mass in the same way, and we will end with a blessing in the name of the Trinity.  Every prayer within the Mass is Trinitarian in structure.  You began your Providence College career in the move-in Mass in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  The final prayer tomorrow will likewise invoke the Trinity.  Our faith lives, our Eucharist, and our Providence College careers begin and end in the name of the Trinity.  It is the central and defining tenet of our Christian faith.

Yet I dare say that most of us do not see our lives as centered on the Trinity.  We are more focused on the one God than the three persons.  If we focus on the persons at all, it is usually to one of them rather than to their triunity.  As Karl Rahner once famously noted, if people were to read in the paper that a fourth person had been discovered in God, it would probably cause little stir.   When is the last time, besides last year's Trinity Sunday, that you heard a homily about the Trinity? 

Why is something so central seemingly so irrelevant?  My guess is because it seems too hard to understand: How can God be both one and three?  One of the reasons I became a philosopher rather than a theologian is so that I would not have to try to figure out the Trinity.  It just seems too complicated to wrap our minds around.

To remedy this, many people have tried to find some kind of fresh image of the Trinity to make it more accessible.  St. Patrick famously used the shamrock to try to explain how God can be both one and three.  Based on what I have seen in the Concannon Fitness Center, some of you like that image enough that you have it tattooed on you; in order, I am sure, to reflect continually on the Trinity.  I once heard a homily on the Trinity while I was an undergraduate here that I have never forgotten.  Fr. Walter Heath, long-time Director of Residence Life and noted for his vivid metaphors in preaching, said that the Trinity was like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich: The Father is the peanut butter, the Son is the jelly, and the Holy Spirit is the bread holding them together. Think about that.

I would like to suggest to you today, however, another image of the Trinity from a different Dominican source: St. Catherine of Siena.  It is likewise food-centered:

You, eternal Father, are the table that offers us as food the Lamb, your only begotten Son.  He is the most exquisite of foods for us, both in his teaching which nourishes us in your will, and in the sacrament that we receive in holy communion, which feeds and strengthens us while we are pilgrim travelers in this life.  And the Holy Spirit is indeed a waiter for us, for he serves us this teaching by enlightening our mind's eye with it and inspiring us to follow it.

So, fittingly enough in Providence, the Trinity is like an Italian restaurant, where the Father is the table, the Son is the food, and the Spirit is like a waiter beckoning us in to come and eat the food that is on the table. 

What does this tell us about God?  That the heart of God's life is love, giving, generosity, that flows out to invite us in.  God is not a static solitary monolith, but an overflowing community of persons that invites us to share in God's own life of knowing and loving, giving and receiving.  We have been made in the image of the Trinity to share its life.  And God continually invites us in to taste of it.

Nowhere is that clearer than when we celebrate the Eucharist.  The Holy Spirit has invited us in, a rich food is being served of the word of God and the Eucharistic bread of life, and the table is prepared.  We are inside the community of the Trinity, inside eternal life.  God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son, so that everyone who believes might not perish but have eternal life.  That life has already begun. 

As you go forth now from Providence College, my deepest hope and prayer for you is that you continue to live in the Trinity.  It is what you were ultimately made for.  It is God's gift of eternal life to you.  When you are hungry and tired and thirsty in life, know that the Holy Spirit is always ready to bring you inside God, to serve you the Son by the gift of the Father.  The door is never closed, the food never runs out, and you do not need a reservation.  It will always be there for you in your pilgrimage through life.  If there is one thing alone that you have learned at Providence College, I hope it is this: you were made by the Triune God to share the life of the Father, through the Son, and in the Spirit.

As we go our separate ways in life, our deepest bond and ongoing community lies in the Trinity.  If we live inside of its embrace, we can never really be parted from one another or from God.  If we dine inside the restaurant of the Trinity now, we know that one day we shall share together in the great feast that will never end in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.