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_{Solemnity of the Holy Trinity
June 7, 2009} 

          Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, a day in which we worship and give glory to our triune God who has been revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And the meaning of this day cannot be exhausted in one homily or one thousand.  I wouldn't even dare try.  It would be impossible!  Usually on this Sunday I preach about the Trinity revealing to us that God's very essence is one of communion and relationship, and how we, as images of the divine, are called to reflect those same truths and attributes in our lives.  All of that seems important, meaningful, and necessary.  It’s certainly good for us to be reminded of that this day.

          But this time, as I thought, prayed, and prepared this homily, I was struck by something else, something modern and current in its phrasing, but timeless in its meaning.  Today the one thing that stuck in my mind is this:  We can't put God in a box!  We can't reduce Him to one thing or one attribute or one category or even one name.  There are no limits on God.  There is always something more.  Oh, we try.  We do try.  We fashion and form and manipulate our image of God to meet our needs, to give us the justification to do just about anything.

          God is mercy when we need mercy and He's the one confronting the money-changers in the Temple when we want to show our anger towards something or someone we don’t like.  He is the "eye for an eye" person when we want revenge, and yet He's the one who saves the woman caught in adultery when we want and need to be forgiven.  He is justice when we want the law to come down hard on someone and He's the one who said "turn the other cheek" when we've harmed someone.  He is close when we want a favor and distant when we want him to leave us alone.  And He is truth when we want to be right, and understanding when we want to sin.

          Yes, we do try to put God in a box, to reduce him to whatever conveniently fits our needs and wants.  Yet, in faith, we know that God is so much more.  We would never have known about the Trinity had God chosen not to reveal it to us.  We could never have deduced it simply through reason or by studying the created world. 

No, God revealed the Trinity to us so that we could get a glimpse into the very life of God, to understand in a small way, just how beyond our wildest comprehension God is.

We want certitude in faith.  We want complete understanding.  We want everything to be explainable...to fit into our understanding of how things should be.  We want a black and white world.  We want everything to fit nice and neat into its little box! 

Well, I'm sorry to say, we’re not going to get it.  Today is a reminder of that.  Today we come before our God and are confronted with the realization that there is lots of gray area, there is so much we don't know, so much more to understand!

And that is a good thing, for our faith is not static.  It is dynamic!  It is a living part of who we are.  And that means that there must be room in our hearts and minds for real growth, real curiosity, real transformation.  Our faith must always be open-ended, open to new possibilities and new understandings.  The minute we're certain we have a definitive picture of God in our minds, we can be certain that we're not even close!  That is a beautiful aspect of God and a beautiful aspect of our faith journey.  The truly wise person is the one who knows that he or she doesn't really know!

So let us be wise this day.  Let's approach the altar with hearts that are humble, hearts willing to admit that we don’t have all the answers.  Let’s allow our Triune God...Father, Son, and Holy Spirit...to continue the growth of faith within us, drawing each of us closer and closer to Himself, day by day.  Understanding God, the Holy Trinity, takes a lifetime, actually more; it takes an eternity.  Let’s never forget that!

And so, as we give glory to God today as the Trinity...Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let's stop trying to put God in a box.  Let's stop making God what we want Him to be.  Rather let's open our hearts to let Him tell us who He is, and by doing so, let God reveal to us who He wants us to be!