Our readings for Trinity Sunday are here.
These are the poems, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homilies from the
- June 16, 2019 10AM Mass / Father’s Day, and
- May 22, 2016, 8:30AM Mass, and
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The poems Fr Dennis references in these years are:
- 2019 homily — Fatherhood hits a man by Robyn Sarah
- 2016 homily — Psalms Chapter 8 and Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2
Across all years … and many celebrants, the constant acknowledgment is that the Trinity is a wondrous ministry but doesn’t package up into a homily very well!
One of the reasons for this homiletic challenge is that we have the Mass which celebrates the Trinity, but “the Trinity” is not mentioned directly in the Bible. There are a couple “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” references in the Christian Scriptures and the Jewish ruadh occasionally referenced in the Hebrew Scriptures, but no author of any of the books writes “the Trinity.” So the Trinity, our Triune God, is a derived theological understanding derived from personal and general revelation about and through God, that became captured in tradition of the Church. It is one of our few conversations with God that isn’t centered in the Bible.
In 2019, we reflected on —
Alas, I do not have my notes but I recall the poem was offered for Father’s Day, unsurprisingly, but in keeping with the mystery of Love present in the Trinity.
In 2016, we reflected on —
- In Psalm 8,
- the focus is on God at the beginning (8:2-4) but then the rest is about us humans (8:5-9) and returns to praise of God (8:10).
- Fr Dennis used it as a gentle reminder that glorifying God in our daily lives (praise) is one way into the Trinity; the Glory of God is a human being fully alive.
- Also, too, owning that our extraordinariness is somehow an expression of God is a path into the mystery of the Trinity.
- The second, the Shakespeare excerpt, is a poem that’s not a poem. From Hamlet, like most of Shakespeare’s plays is written in meter. BUT, this passage is text/prose and sounds like Psalm 8 — starts with praise of creation (including humans) and then focuses on human misery (Hamlet’s to be exact).
- We can rejoice to be one of God’s creations, and because of God’s Love we can also rejoice in the world and Glory of God.
With this, I’ll offer a brief homily cameo from Fr Michael Rozier, SJ, PhD, who was then completing his PhD from the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health. He spoke that relationship is fundamental to understanding God, beyond knowing or believing. The heart of the Trinity is relational, being Three in One, One in Three. He also offered the reminder, taken from the Proverbs reading, that part of our relationship is “taking delight” in one another.
This idea of being a community of unity, a dynamic relationship … a dance, if you will captures the sense of the Trinity, of Love Loving. And, as I enrich my relationship, the love of the mystery and abiding in it is more and more attractive than the study or the explanation of it. Taking delight in the Trinity as much as the Trinity takes delight in us seems a most marvelous way to pass an eternity together.
The Surest Sign 