By Father Anthony F. Raso
MANY YEARS AGO, during my seminary years, I saw a short film – one of the “Insight” series, which were used at that time in religious education programs – that attempted to “illustrate” the Holy Trinity.
Up there in Heaven, the Father was depicted as a late-middle-age man, an “old professor” type, who had two children. One of them was a white, young man, very handsome and very “cool,” and the other was a young African-American woman, very pretty and equally “cool.” Only the young woman seemed to have a name and it was Grace. Well, the Father was looking out the window through his half-glasses, down at the world and he was disturbed at what he saw.
The son, shaggy-haired and wearing bell-bottoms (It was the ’60s) asked the father what was bothering him. He told the son that the world was a real mess and he couldn’t figure out what to do about it. Grace put in a few words too and it was finally decided that the son would go on down there and remind people of what to do.
If, at the end of his mission, some icing needed to be added to the cake, Grace would follow him.
“Grace,” said the young man to his sister, “You’re simply amazing!”
At the end, the son took off and the father and Grace waved him off and wished him luck. Thus, the Holy Trinity…
Brave Attempt
Just because I’m a cranky old man now doesn’t mean that, looking back, I don’t admit that this short film was a brave attempt at explaining the ultimate hard-to-understand subject. I remember it as kind of silly but it took a good swing at the ball. If it wasn’t a home run, it certainly was a solid single. After all, the last course we took at the seminary in fourth theology was “The Trinity.” I got an “A” in the final exam when I summed up by saying that, when all is said and done, the Trinity will always be a mystery, which after eight years of study was the right answer. It’s the right answer this weekend too. Nevertheless, the best way to get a handle on this greatest of all mysteries is to understand what that old film was – if awkwardly – aiming at.
Moses is saying to the people in our first reading today that they should, so to speak, wake up and smell the coffee – something that, all too often, they did not do. He’s telling them that their God is a Father Who loves them and has intervened in their history, Who didn’t let them remain in the power of Pharaoh but brought them out into the desert to receive the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. He is not some far away judge, but a loving Father. Do you want to understand Him? Well, He loves you just like a Father because He is a Father.
As St. Paul says in the second reading, if we allow ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit, we will become the daughters and sons of God ourselves, just like Jesus, Our Lord. It was the point of His teaching to tell us that our compassionate, understanding and forgiving Father sent Him into the world to unite us as a family. Through believing in Him and in following the call of the Spirit, that is what we will become.
Perhaps there will be suffering involved on the way to the Kingdom of God in Heaven. This was certainly true for the early Church, and it will be true for us too. But in the end, we’ll be glorified with Him. This is what the Father wants because, as Moses understood all those centuries before, He’s our Father and He loves us.
In the Gospel today, the Resurrected Jesus calls His 11 Apostles to the mountain in Galilee. In one last command before His Ascension, He tells them to go out into the world and make brothers and sisters of everyone, baptizing them in the name of the Holy Trinity and uniting them in the love that was always there, just waiting for them — since Pentecost, since the Resurrection, since the Nativity, since the time of Moses, since the beginning of the world. With this unity, the loving Father has always been with us since the beginning of the ages and always be with us “until the end of the age.”
Greatest Wish
That is the message of Christianity and it certainly is the message of today’s holy feast day. The Holy Trinity can be understood best as a Family united in love, a love that is on one hand unbreakable, and on the other hand is a home which has its door opened wide to let us in.
After all, letting us in was always the Father’s greatest wish; it was the heart of the teaching of His Divine Son; and it is the wind and fire that the Holy Spirit is still sending to us. The Holy Trinity is a mystery in many ways (and if you know that, you will get an “A” on the final exam).
However, one thing is no mystery at all: As that filmmaker long ago realized, the Father is always at the window, looking down on us; the Son is always with us in His Real Presence; and the Holy Spirit is always ready with grace to aid us in our journey to Heaven. And that grace will always be, well, simply amazing.
Readings for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Deuteronomy 4: 32-34, 39-40
Psalm 33: 4-5, 6, 9, 18-19, 20, 22
Romans 8: 14-17
Matthew 28: 16-20
Father Anthony F. Raso is the parochial vicar at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Dyker Heights.