HOMILY – FEAST OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA CHURCH & FURMAN UNIVERSITY

MAY 18, 2008 – 8, 10, 12 & 6:30PM

May our God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit give us peace.

A major mountain top message, recalculating,  Muslim trouble.

A major mountain top message.  Moses goes up Mount Sinai as asked.  God speaks about God’s self.  I am merciful, gracious, slow to anger, rich in kindness and faithfulness.  Moses asks God to come along with his people if He finds favor with them.  “Receive us as your own.” he says.

You don’t need someone to interpret for you who God is.  God tells us.

God speaks!  God gives His mountain top message.  We have clarity!

But we do have a need to interpret our response.  Ok God, so I hear you are slow to anger.  Shouldn’t you speed it up about the government of Myanmar province refusing the aid of other countries for their already 128,000 now feared dead?  Ok God, I hear you say you are rich in kindness, can you help me regarding the death of my best friend’s baby?

How kind is that?  Our interpretation can get funky, ill, off, selfish.

For example, if God really does have a plan to welcome all people to Himself, what’s wrong with welcoming 128,000 at one time?  Perhaps God was kind to my best friend in allowing him to know an innocent child where no teen rejection was experienced, when my friend would have otherwise not conceived.  Ah perspective, the only thing we know for sure is what God says about Himself.  Mercy from the mountain top, not anger, kindness, faithfulness, graciousness.  

Recalculating.  I never would have begun this section of the homily before GPS, but ever make a wrong turn with the GPS on?  “Recalculating!”

You enter a destination, and when things go wrong you hear it.  “Recalculating!”  Well, recalculating is just what St. Paul is doing in the 2^nd reading.  Paul greets the Corinthians in a way that gets them where they want to go.  “The grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God the Father, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

This orients us all to life, and God’s blessing us.

Grace – freely given, unmerited favor be with you.  Peace – confidence and trust in Jesus, the gifts from God – colors, flavors, music, picnics, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit – radical companionship from within, be with you all.  Well my friends, that’ll do it for me.  Any other life needs “recalculating.”

Muslim trouble.  You must know that thought we share a profound belief in the God of Abraham and Issac, Moses and Elijah, a sharing we must capitalize on and enjoy, we differ essentially in God expressing God’s self as a Trinity of persons processing out – Father Son and Holy Spirit.

Muslims believe that God is one.  Father alone.  No other persons.

Catholic Christians believe God has communicated from the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.  We have proof in creation, redemption and the animation of our souls within.

The real Muslim trouble though comes from our not living from the graces of the Trinity.  Not being grateful for creation, not being willing to enter into redemptive suffering of our own, and squashing the Holy Spirit with the wet blankets of television, internet, video games, idle chat, selfish pursuits.  Muslims see our religion is not real, not good, not true as we fail.  Give the Muslim people, all people, real trouble.  Let them find our love irresistible as we walk blessed, redeemed, full of it.

Welcome to the Feast of the Holy Trinity.  Our God is community.  So are we who follow God.  Let it be witnessed everywhere that we offer our lives in gratitude for God’s blessed life shared with us.  (It is cause for the most welcoming, nourishing, fun filled picnic dance this neighborhood can imagine.)  Let it be known who you are – blessed, redeemed, full of it.