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“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
The doctrinal image of the Trinity is a difficult concept to understand. In fact, one might recall being taught that the Trinity is a mystery.
The best way to approach this mystery might be to consider the experience of God. There is no denying that we indeed have a continued experience of God. St. Francis de Sales refers to the experience of the Trinity as an example of God’s continual dialogue with us. For Francis de Sales, we continually experience this Triune God, because he never stops communicating with us through the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. St. Paul said it best in his greeting to the Corinthians which we hear every time we gather for the liturgy: “May the grace and peace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you always.”
This notion of three persons and one God is a concept that is difficult to understand. Maybe that is why St. Augustine was one of the first to refer to the dogma as a mystery and why St. Patrick is often depicted as trying to explain the Trinitarian mystery through the use of the three-leafed clover. The notion of a triune God will always be difficult to explain and understand. And maybe that explanation - or the attempt at explanation - is best left to the theologians.
Today is one of the few Sundays of the year when we celebrate a dogma. On this Sunday, Trinity Sunday, we celebrate the mystery of three persons, one God. What we contemplate is the ongoing experience of the Triune God, a God who constantly reveals to us something of what it means to be divine – and by extension, therefore, something of what it means to be human.
Every time we bless ourselves with the sign of the Cross, or when we baptize, or begin Mass, we always do so in the name of the Triune God. There simply is no way to avoid it. On Trinity Sunday and on every Sunday that we gather, we can celebrate the Triune Godhead in a variety of ways, including spending time with the theological concepts of what it means to be Three Persons, One God. Today in particular, that reflection would mean spending time with the notion of a Triune God. Also, one could celebrate today by taking advantage of the offer for continued dialogue with our God as Father…Son…and Spirit.
As we heard in today’s first reading taken the Book of Deuteronomy, God continues to reveal himself to his people. What might this triune God be revealing to us today about not only about what it means to be divine, but also what is also means to be human?
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“You may have to suffer through various trials…”
While there is so much more to life than suffering, suffering is indeed an unavoidable part of life. Francis de Sales was keenly aware of this lived reality. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, we read:
“Our Savior himself has declared, ‘By your patience you will win your souls.’ It is a man’s great happiness to possess his own soul, and the more perfect our patience the more completely we possess our souls. We must often recall that our Lord has saved us by his suffering and endurance and that we must work out our salvation by sufferings and afflictions, enduring with all possible meekness the injuries, denials and discomforts we meet.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 3, p. 128)
That said, Francis de Sales was quite clear: we should not go out of our way looking for trials or afflictions. Life being what it is, trials and sufferings have a nasty habit of looking for - and finding - us! When tough times and situations do come our way, Francis cautions us to avoid getting all worked up by trying to go around, over or under them. We need to walk straight through them as patiently and calmly as we can.
Look at the day ahead. What trials – large or little – might be headed your way? How do you plan to deal with them?
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“Gird up the loins of your mind; live soberly.” Sobriety is the state of being sober. The Merriam-Webster dictionary offers the following definitions of sober:
- Sparing in the use of food and drink; abstemious: not addicted to intoxicating drink; not drunk;
- Marked by sedate or gravely or earnestly thoughtful character or demeanor;
- Unhurried, calm;
- Marked by temperance, moderation, or seriousness;
- Subdued in tone or color;
- Showing no excessive or extreme qualities of fancy, emotion, or prejudice.
Sobriety is the best remedy for what many people in recovery often refer to as “stinkin’ thinkin’”. People who are intoxicated don’t think clearly; people who are intoxicated suffer from impaired judgment; people who are intoxicated aren’t very realistic.
We can be intoxicated by any number of things, even by things that – on the face of it – appear to be very good! In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales named one such thing that can intoxicate and debilitate us if we are not careful - desire!
“Do not desire things that endanger your soul…Desire neither honors and offices and neither visions nor ecstasies. There is a great danger, self-deceit and vanity in such things. Do not desire faraway things, that is, things that cannot happen for a long time – as many people do – and by so doing wear out and waste their hearts to no purpose and expose themselves to the danger of becoming very discontented. If a young man greatly desires to be established in some position before the proper time, what help, I ask you, does this desire bring him? If a married woman wants to be a nun, to what purpose is it? If I want to buy my neighbor’s property before he is ready to sell it, don’t I waste my time by such desires?” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 37, pp. 217-218)
Lack of sobriety with regards to desires, plans, hopes and dreams can result in our simply spinning our wheels. Not only does “Stinkin’ thinkin’” frustrate us with desires that aren’t healthy or realistic, but it also prevents us from pursuing those desires that are appropriate and achievable! The remedy? Francis wrote:
“A variety of foods – especially if a large amount is eaten – overburdens the stomach and ruins it if it is weak. Don’t overburden your souls with many dreams or desires, neither with worldly ones – which may completely corrupt you – nor with spiritual ones, for they may cause you difficulty. When our soul has been purged and feels free from evil passions. Like a famished person, it longs for many different kinds of pious practices, mortifications, penance, humility, charity and prayer. To have so keen an appetite is a good thing, but you must consider whether you can properly digest all that you want to eat. From among all the desires choose those that you can practice and fulfill at present. Turn them to your best advantage, and this done, God will send you others that you can practice in due time. In this way you will never waste time with useless desires….I give this advice not only to spiritually-minded but to worldly people as well. Without it we will live only in anxiety and confusion.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 37, p. 219)
Do you want to avoid “anxiety and confusion” in the midst of life’s dreams and demands? Then gird up the loins of your mind and live soberly. St. Francis de Sales observed: ‘Do not desire means of serving God that you presently lack; rather, diligently use the means you actually have!’ One day at a time.
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“We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you…”
We witness a pretty bold – perhaps, even presumptuous – move on the part James and John in today’s Gospel. The two brothers attempt to wrest from Jesus the promise of granting an open-ended request: “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you”. Wow! Talk about chutzpah!
Yet, haven’t we been guilty of the same thing? Haven’t we asked Jesus at times for things with the expectation that our request must be granted? Haven’t we prayed at times for our hearts’ desires with little or no consideration that God might have other thoughts or plans? Haven’t there been times when we simply wanted God to give us a blank check? Talk about chutzpah! In a sermon on prayer, Francis de Sales observed:
“Between meditation and contemplation there is the prayer of petition which is made when – after having considered the goodness of our Lord, His infinite love and His omnipotence we become confident enough to ask for and entreat Him to give us what we desire…True prayer of petition is made by grace, that is, when we ask for something which is not due to us at all and when we ask it of someone who is far superior to us, as God is…The point is absolutely clear: we can – and ought – to ask God for both our temporal and spiritual needs.” (Living Jesus, p. 304)
You know the old adage: “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” However, as James and John learned in a very hard way in a very public forum, just because you ask for something doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get! When it comes to prayers of petition, we should (1) have the courage to ask for whatever we want, and (2) we should have the courage to accept whatever God ultimately grants – or doesn’t grant – us.
Are you looking for a prayer of petition to start today and every day? How about this variation on the request of James and John: “We want to do for you whatever you ask of us”. Amen!
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“Master, I want to see…”
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales offered wrote:
“God is in all things and places. There is no place or thing in this world in which God is not truly present. Everyone knows this truth in theory, but not everyone puts this knowledge to good effect. Blind men do not see a prince who is present among them, and therefore do not show him the respect they do after being informed of his presence. However, because they do not actually see the prince, they easily forget he is there, and once they forget this fact, they still more easily lose the respect and reverence owed to him. Unfortunately, we frequently lose sight of the God who is with us. Although faith assures us of his presence, we forget about him and behave as if God were a long way off because we do not see him with our eyes. While we may tell ourselves and others that God is present in all things, we often act as if this were not true because we fail to remind ourselves of God’s presence.” (IDL, Part II, Chapter 2, p.84)
Even though the blind man in today’s Gospel could not actually see Jesus, it is crystal clear that he showed Jesus respect and reverence. What is the moral of the story? Even when we lose sight of how Jesus acts in our lives and in the eyes of other people day in and day out, it is always within our power to show him the respect and reverence by acting as Jesus did in showing respect and reverence for others.
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- “Anticipate one another in showing honor. Do not grow slack in zeal…”
No sooner had Mary received the announcement from the Angel Gabriel that she would be the mother of the Messiah than she “set out and traveled to the hill country in haste” where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. (Recall that in the context of the Annunciation, Mary had learned that her cousin was pregnant.) As if Mary didn’t have enough on her plate already, she dropped whatever she was doing in order to offer assistance to Elizabeth for “about three months”. Mary didn’t wait for the request; Mary anticipated the need.
One of the hallmarks of the Salesian tradition (and as embodied in the Sisters of the Visitation, founded by Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal) is this notion of “anticipating the need of our neighbor”. This quality invites us to be “on the lookout” for opportunities to do good for others. Simple things like:
- holding open a door for another
- offering to help carry someone’s groceries
- assisting someone who may have dropped something on the floor
- checking in on someone who’s under the weather
- being the first to greet someone or to call someone by name
- asking how someone is doing today.
These are ordinary, everyday ways of honoring others by simply acknowledging their presence and by recognizing that they exist.
Here is where Paul’s admonition in his Letter to the Romans comes into play. Insofar as each day is loaded with countless opportunities to honor people by anticipating their needs – by “looking out” for their interests – such efforts could understandably become wearisome over time. In the Salesian tradition, we need to approach each new day as yet another God-given gift: the invitation to offer to do good things for others rather than waiting for others to ask us to do good things for them.
Mary embodied the virtue of anticipating the need of another in her decision to offer her cousin Elizabeth assistance without waiting to be asked. In so honoring her cousin, she brought honor to herself.
Today, how might we honor Mary by following her example through our willingness to anticipate the needs of one another?
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“By what authority are you doing these things…?”
We see in today’s Gospel a typical tactic employed by those who take umbrage with others. If they can’t refute what others do, they’ll attempt to refute their authority for doing so.
Jesus didn’t ask permission to do good things. He simply did them, regardless of the consequences. Tragic, indeed, that his enemies attempted to use his good deeds as evidence of wrongdoing!
We’ve all heard the expression: “No good deed goes unpunished”. Today’s Gospel reminds us that in a perfect world, doing good should be applauded and rewarded. However, insofar as we do not live in a perfect world, we shouldn’t be shocked that doing good may sometime bring its share of resistance and hostility.
By any means – by all means – do good things. Just be certain that you are doing that good for God’s glory, and not your own glory.
