2) ASCENSION OF

JESUS INTO HEAVEN

What have been the most significant steps in your life?

What have been the steps in your life that were the greatest risk?

A small child crawls along the floor to the bottom of a flight of stairs. He looks up to the top and sees or hears his mother up there and realizes unconsciously, “I can’t make it up these stairs”. So he cries for “Help!” and his mother comes down and picks him up and takes him to the top of the stairs.

Sometimes a little child is scared when she’s picked up and lifted high up into the air – but then when she sees herself high above everyone and everything else, she smiles and laughs and feels mighty glorious.

The bread and the cup are lifted high at every Mass.

The best-man at a wedding lifts high his glass and toasts the bridegroom, his friend, and wishes him and his wife, “All the best and then some.”

And everyone at the wedding banquet does the same.

The athlete who wins the gold medal at the Olympics or the Special Olympics stands tall on the top box.

Statues are put on pedestals.

Our favorite pictures are framed and put on top of the television or on our book shelves or end tables.

Every sport and every school have their halls of fame.

Hospital employees, teachers, athletes, hard workers are acknowledge by being named “Teacher of the Month” “Athlete of The Week” or asked to stand up at a banquet and be acknowledged, appreciated, thanked, congratulated and applauded.

Life’s ascension moments are many.

Married couples celebrate their 25th and 50th anniversaries.

Bread rises.

The cream rises to the top.

In the first Rocky movie, Rocky Balboa climbs, ascends, to the top of the stairs outside the Philadelphia Art museum and raises his arms in triumph. The famous musical piece, “Gonna Fly Now”, composed and scored by Bill Conti, gets louder and louder and as he climbs the stairs till fills the theater. It presents to all the movie goers a preview of things to come.

Ascension….

A rising star….

At the stadium when a team scores a touchdown, a goal, a point, a homerun, a great basket, fans stand up, yell, and raise their arms in triumph as if they too made the play.

We are all connected.

We all want to ascend the stairs of greatness.

The Ascension is a feast of The More.

The Ascension is a feast that announces, “There’s much more to come.”

Jesus died.

That is not “The End”.

Jesus rose.

Jesus then promised The More – the Soaring More – an ascension into the next.
There’s always the next – the More.

Isn’t God wonderful?

Isn’t God mysterious?

Isn’t God always surprising us?
The banquet is never over!

Our mansion is waiting for us.

Ascension.

3) DESCENT

OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

When have you experienced the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Come Holy Spirit!

The Holy Spirit like a mighty wind shook the shutters of the Upper Room where the disciples of Jesus were down with fear.

It looked like everything was over!

They had heard from Jesus about resurrection – but they hadn’t really experienced it yet. They had forgotten about Jesus’ tears and screams that brought Lazarus back from the dead.

They had celebrated the old feast of Pentecost, but they hadn’t experienced the new feast of Pentecost yet.

Fear went out the window with the breath of fresh air that came in the window that first Easter night.

For 40 days the Risen Jesus was preparing them for the next, for The More.

He gave them the great promise of the Spirit – especially when he was lifted up, when he ascended into heaven.

And on the 50th day – there came a new moment in their lives – the bursting forth of the Great Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, and went forth to the whole world with Good News.

Come Holy Spirit to me.

Breathe into me new life – a new spirit.

We’ve all seen people who were down, people who had lost their spirit, lost their faith, become depressed, and then “after some time” rise out of their doom and shuttered lives, and begin breathing new life into our world.

We’ve all seen teams that had given up, had too many losing streaks, get a new coach or a few new key players, and things got turned around and they danced their way to championships.

We’ve all heard about Alcoholics Anonymous where men and women who were being destroyed by addiction to the spirits in alcoholic – get a second wind, a new life, and recovered and their lives became manageable. They met in basements and upper rooms and a new spirit was breathed into them – from the group – from the Higher Power of God.

We’ve all heard about a teenager who changed dramatically for the better because of a failure or a great teacher or a change of schools or he or she just came of age and they woke up one morning with a new Spirit.

The Spirit can descends on everyone – like a bird quietly flying down and landing on a branch – or like a gentle breeze on a hot humid day – or like tongues of fire than can inspire. Yet, each of us has the choice: to accept the Holy Spirit and begin to branch out into new life or shut the Spirit away by closing our shutters; to allow the wind of the Spirit to blow the sails of our boat out to the open sea as we head for new harbors or to stay stuck in the same old place; to keep the torch and fire of the Spirit burning within us or to smother its flames.

Come Holy Spirit.

Come Dove of Peace.

Come Breeze of God.

Come Fire – Passionate Spirit of God.

4) ASSUMPTION OF MARY

INTO HEAVEN

When have you experienced the Catholic understanding of Mary – and her place in the Christian life?

When have you experienced being frustrated when non-Catholics don’t understand or even criticize the place of Mary in the Christian life?

The Assumption of Mary into heaven has two great message of hope for all human beings on earth: there is life after death; there is resurrection of our body.

It would be a safe assumption that most of us don’t worry about the resurrection of our body, just as long as there is life after death. In fact, it’s also a safe assumption that most of us will die because our bodies will be sick and tired and finally give out.

We don’t know what life after death is like. Religions which teach that there is life after death, often use images of mansions, green meadows, and enormous wedding banquets – all of which call for us to have a body.

What it will be like is mystery.

Obviously, we don’t have any scientific proof for any of this. For the Christian, life after death is a great act of faith. This faith is based on the words of Jesus before and after his death.

After his resurrection, Jesus showed his disciples – especially Thomas – the wounds in his hands and his side. He embraced Mary of Magdala at the empty tomb. He ate fish at the Lake of Galilee.

Jesus disciples saw and believed. Jesus said words to Thomas that were aimed at us: “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe.”

Christians believe in that Jesus rose from the dead.

“My Lord and my God!”

Christians believe in the resurrection of the body – starting with the body of the Risen Lord Jesus.

There is no grave in Jerusalem marked, “Jesus!”

Catholics also belief there is no grave in Jerusalem or Ephesus or anywhere marked, “Mary.”

But for most of the rest of us, there will be a gravestone with our name and dates on it. And there our remains will be buried.

So don’t we have to wait till the end of time for the resurrection of our bodies?

Yes – because if a grave is opened there will be a skeleton or the ashes of a person, if they were cremated and buried there. So obviously our dead bodies or our ashes remain and in time dissolve into earth. Drive down any local road for 25 miles and you’ll go by a graveyard.

No – in the sense of whatever the Christian teaching of “resurrection of the body” means. When we enter into eternity we are out of time – and so we come into eternity – however one enters eternity.

Mary, follows Christ – and they lead the way for the rest of us.

Of course, this is all mystery. We have to die to find out.

In the meanwhile we make the great act of faith every Sunday from the Nicean Creed: We look for the in resurrection of the dead.

The Assumption of Mary into heaven puts flesh onto the statement in the Apostles creed: “I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.”

It’s mystery. It’s faith. It’s trust. It’s hope. It’s the unknown.

Death also moves out of time and into eternity.

We’ve all had wonderful glimpses of being outside of time – in prayer, in marriage, on vacation, with friends, when time is totally forgotten and all is bliss.

We’ve also had negative glimpses of being outside of time – when stuck in traffic, while waiting for doctors, while worrying about children – when we are in interminable pain.

The assumption of Mary into heaven tells the follower of Jesus what is in store for every human being who enters into the glorious mystery of Christ.

Mary is changed in death into the mystery of Risen Christ.

Mary is changed like water into wine at Cana for the eternal wedding banquet of heaven.

Christians believe in the resurrection of the body. This mystery of the Assumption of Mary gives hope for all who fear knocking on the door of death.

When we are invited to a banquet we look our best – we dress our best – we go to the gathering ready to celebrate, to feast, to dance, to sing.

Mary enters into the eternal dance wearing the white garment of immortality. She leads the 144 thousand into the holy city, into the harmony, into the eternal bliss, into the eternal banquet, into the eternal fields, into the eternal light, into the Father’s house, into the Father’s presence, into the Father’s embrace.

5) CROWING OF MARY

QUEEN OF HEAVEN

Does every life have a crowning moment?

When have been your crowning moments?

What about those folks who feel like they have been miserable failures all their life?

Do we all spend a lot of our time rehashing or rethinking the moments of our life – the decisions, the what if’s, the choices, the things we thought were fair and unfair.

Do we all spend time trying to figure out the motivations of others from the moments of others?

Every funeral has people – especially family – trying to figure out the life of the one who has just died.

We stand there in the funeral parlor talking to each other about the person whose funeral it is.

Every life has defining moments – and if we look deep enough and talk to each other enough – we’ll be able to figure some of the meanings of each other’s life.

People are fond of quoting Andy Warhol’s famous comment, “In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” This statement appeared in the Catalogue of his Stockholm photo exhibition in 1968. Andy Warhol certainly had his fifteen minutes of fame.

How about each of us?

Mary of Nazareth has had her moments of fame. She has had her picture on the front cover of more magazines than any woman in history – and based on the number of pictures of her, she is the most pictured woman in history.

If the Annunciation was the defining moment in her life, then the crowning moment was her “arrival” in heaven. This crowning moment flowed out of the moment in time when Mary said “Yes” at the Annunciation.

“Hail Mary full of grace.”

Obviously, it’s difficult to picture what life after death is like. We’re dealing with a great mystery.

However, when we use the image of “crowning” pictures come to mind and our imagination.

We’ve all seen kings and queens crowned in movies.

We’ve all seen people honored at banquets.

We’ve seen athletes or teams being crowned as winners – winning the World Series in baseball or the Super Bowl in football or the Stanley Cup in hockey.

A couple of times a year we see advertisements on television to watch the Miss USA or Miss World beauty contests.

So obviously, our imagination can picture God crowning Mary, the spotless one, the one who brought Jesus into the world.

But God is not the only one who has crowned Mary. Christians, but especially Catholics, have honored her right from the beginning.

The words of Elizabeth in the Magnificat have certainly leapt in the womb of human consciousness: pictures and statues of Mary are everywhere – and often she is crowned.

Go into any famous art museum and you’ll find paintings of Mary – by some of history’s greatest artists: Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Peter Paul Rubens, El Greco, and on and on.

Go into Catholic homes – especially those of the poor – and you’ll spot an honored picture or statue of Mary on top of a bureau or on the wall.

· Our Mother of Perpetual Help,
· Our Lady of Guadalupe,
· Our Lady of Czestochowa,
· Our Lady of Lourdes,
· Our Lady of Fatima,
· Our Lady of Knock,
· Our Lady of Aparecida
· The Pieta,
· The Immaculate Heart,
· The Immaculate Conception,
· Our Lady of Chartres
· Our Lady of Mount Carmel
· Our Lady of Africa
· Our Lady of Medjugoria

“Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you.”

And the message of the crowning is simple and basic. It is known by everyone: “No cross, no crown.”

Why God chose Mary? Now that’s mystery.

Why God created us? Now that’s mystery.

God calls us to say “Yes” to life as Mary did. Bring Jesus to our world, as Mary did. Then when we march into heaven, we too will realize our life has been royal. We have helped make, “Thy kingdom come!” we will realize that was the crowning moment of our life.

“Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you.”

The angel Gabriel is not the only one who has greeted Mary with those words. We do over and over again when we say the Rosary – and God says it in the crowning of Mary – the favored one from Nazareth.

I’M HUNGRY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “I’m Hungry.”

“I’m Hungry.”

Some thoughts for this feast we celebrate this Sunday – the Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ – Corpus Christi.

If I asked you, “Why are you here?” at Mass right now, what would you answer?

I think down deep most of us would answer, “Because I’m hungry.”

50 years ago, people might have answered: “To fulfill my Sunday obligation” or “To avoid mortal sin” – but I’m not sure if that is true. Making these kinds of statements plead for or cede to research. Sunday Mass attendance has certainly gone down. Would the people who come to Mass today say they have moved from have to, to want to – from obligation to appreciation? Would most people, if they sat back and thought about why they are here at Mass answer, “I’m here, because I’m hungry”?

I’m hungry for God. I’m hungry for inspiration – for a word, for a prayer, for a song, for an insight that will help me this week. I’m here to deepen my faith. I’m hungry for the Bread of Life, communion with Jesus, who brings me to the Father. I’m hungry to be with others who have these same hungers. I’m like the crowd in today’s gospel, listening, questioning, hearing Jesus again at this moment. He’s saying to me, as he said to them, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

There are many reasons for coming to Mass.

There are many reasons, why we do, what we do.

There are many hungers in the human heart?

Is the hunger to live forever, the deepest hunger?

Today's gospel certainly triggers that question.

I’m hungry for assurance – that my life will not have an end. The second number on my tombstone – my death year – is just for the stone and the obituary column and the death card. I want to go on forever. There, I said something, I don’t say to myself enough. I hunger to live forever. Is that one of the biggest reasons for coming to Mass? Is that what Jesus is promising in the last 7 words from today’s gospel: “… whoever eats this bread will live forever”?

MOONSTRUCK

Some scenes, in some movies, for some reason, stick to us. Think of the movies and the scenes and the lines you remember. Talk to each other about your favorite movies and favorite scenes. Write them out on a piece of paper. They are your scriptures. Do an inner homily or sermon to yourself on them – and you will receive an insight – a revelation about yourself and about life.

I often think of the 1987 movie, “Moonstruck”. The part that I remember the most is Rose Castorini’s Question. Rose is played by Olympia Dukakis – who received an Oscar for best Supporting Actress for her part in that movie. She keeps asking why husbands cheat – why her husband is having an affair.

The Internet is great. I typed into the Google search box, “Moonstruck” and got the scene and the lines I was looking for. It’s a conversation between Rose and a guy named Johnny Cammerari, played by Danny Aiello. He is to marry Rose’s daughter, Loretta, played by Cher - who received the Oscar for Best Actress of 1987 for her part in this movie.

The scene:

Rose: Why do men chase women?

Johnny: Well, there's a Bible story... God... God took a rib from Adam and made Eve. Now maybe men chase women to get the rib back. When God took the rib, he left a big hole there, where there used to be something. And the women have that. Now maybe, just maybe, a man isn't complete as a man without a woman.

Rose: [frustrated] But why would a man need more than one woman?

Johnny: I don't know. Maybe because he fears death. [Rose looks up, eyes wide, suspicions confirmed]

Rose: That's it! That's the reason!

Johnny: I don't know...

Rose: No! That's it! Thank you! Thank you for answering my question!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Two more scenes. I also found two more scenes.

Rose is with her husband Cosmo Castorini, played by Vincent Gardenia.

Rose: I just want you to know no matter what you do, you're gonna die, just like everybody else.

Cosmo: Thank you, Rose.

The next scene – once more Rose is talking to her husband Cosmo ….

Rose: Have I been a good wife?

Cosmo: Yeah.

Rose: I want you to stop seeing her.

[Cosmo rises, slams the table once, and sits down again]

Cosmo: Okay.

Rose: [pauses] And go to confession.

As priest, when dealing with people who are going through affairs and marriage struggles – when I keep reading about how men can become addicted to pornography – having image and imaginary affairs with women – women who are unnamed, unreal, unknown, unmet, objects, that message from “Moonstruck,” keeps hitting me. Why? Why do men get themselves into these addictive traps. Is the answer, the answer that Rose Castorini came up with: “He’s afraid to die.”?

I don’t know.

And sometimes they don’t know.

Why? What’s behind the scene with lust? Is it hunger for recognition – to prove to himself that he exists – he’s still alive, that he is here? Is it the hunger to be loved, appreciated, wanted?

Why do people try to satisfy their hungers in ways that makes them more hungry?

Addictions: scratch them. Visit their basements. Open up their bottom drawers – and you’ll see hunger as a bottom line. Listen! You'll hear, "Feed me!"

Addictions: food, shopping, stuff, on and on and on. We’re hungry – so we stuff ourselves.

I remember hearing an alcoholic say, “There’s an old saying in AA: ‘I was looking for God at the bottom of a bottle.’”

I’m hungry. I’m thirsty. Feed me! Give me to drink.

These are basic human feelings, sounds, needs, we make every day.

The title of my homily is, “I’m Hungry.”

Hear, chew on, digest the Scriptures with these mutterings in mind.

TODAY’S READINGS

Today’s readings are placed on the table for us to bite into.

The first reading from Deuteronomy has Moses talking about the Israelite desert experience of hunger and thirst in the desert. God supplies water from the rock. God provides manna, “a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

The second reading from The First Letter to the Corinthians talks about the Eucharist – the Mass – the Early Christian community celebration of the cup of blessing that we bless, and the bread that we break. It’s a participation of all of us together – as one – the one body of Christ. We are a gigantic loaf of bread here in this church this afternoon. We are blessed and consecrated, and then we go out and let people as Mother Teresa used to say to her nuns, “Let the people eat you up.”

At Mass, when I say as priest, “This is my body…. this is my blood …. most of the time – unless I’m spaced out – I’m saying this not only over the bread and the wine – but over all of you – all of us.

When we have baptisms in our newer church building, St. John Neumann, the baptisms are in the back – in the vestibule or narthex. When the baptisms are at our older church building, St. Mary’s, the baptisms are done in the front of the church. Well, somewhere along the line, it hit me when doing baptisms at St. Mary’s, with the altar right there, why not after the baptismal ceremony is over, ask the parents to come around to the front of the altar and place their newly baptized baby on the altar. Place the child right there where we place the bread and the cup. Then I ask the parents to repeat after me holding their baby: “This is my body. This is my blood. We’re giving our life to you.”

I’m trying to connect all of this and all of life to the Eucharist.

This must be a bit novel – because families then want to take a picture of the baby sitting there on the altar with their parents propping them up.

At first, this got me nervous – because someone might not like this and turn me in for doing something that doesn't seem kosher. And they have a picture to prove it. Then it struck me – maybe 25 years from then, they will be showing a picture of a priest as a baby sitting right there on the altar. Now wouldn’t that be a great scene?

Hopefully, we understand today’s Gospel. If we grasp some of this, we won’t be saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

In fact, there’s the reason why we keep coming back for more – the reason why we come to Mass every Sunday. We want more life – here and hereafter. Or as Jesus puts it here: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”

We are Jesus struck. The priest holds high up the Eucharist in prayer. We see the round beautiful bread. It can be like seeing a surprise bright full moon in the monstrance of dark night. We hear the powerful proclamation: “Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.” And we all sing, “Amen!

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is: “I’m Hungry.”

What are we hungry for? We human beings are hungry for food, for love, for recognition, for affirmation, for relationships, for family, for fun, for meaning, for a good job. We are hungry for peace, happiness, joy, a wonderful Memorial Day weekend – an end to hassle. We want lower gas prices, less stupidity, less greed, more honesty, integrity, a better political process – but most of all, we want to live now and forever. Amen.

OH MY GOD!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for today is, “Oh My God!”

Today, Trinity Sunday, the call is to say something about God.

Everyone, even atheists, experience God.

Everyone says many times in their life, “Oh my God.”

It’s instinctual.

We see an accident. We watch a television news report about an earthquake, a cyclone, a hurricane, a crash, people killed, property ruined, and we automatically blurt out, “Oh my God!” We hear this from church goers and non-church goers alike.

We do the same on mountaintops – at the ocean – at the birth of a baby – on seeing a rainbow. I’m just back from 13 days in Ireland. We saw breathtaking scenes like the Cliffs of Moher – some 700 feet above the Atlantic ocean crashing into the rocks below. I stepped back at these spots. I listened. I watched. I studied faces and mouths as different folks slowly inched closer and closer to the edge of the cliff – for better and better, closer and closer views. Looking out and looking down, I could hear them saying, “Oh my God, how beautiful! Wow!”

POSITIVE & NEGATIVE MOMENTS

So people say, “Oh my God!” in both positive and negative moments.

If someone challenged me on that, I’d say, “Okay. No problem. But step back and check it out for yourself. In fact, listen to yourself. I guarantee you, you too say, ‘Oh my God,’ like everyone else.’”

Some people think when they are say, “Oh my God,” they are taking the name of the Lord our God in vain. I would say it’s prayer – a prayer from out of out depths of our heart so many times.

At my sister’s 70th birthday party in February, “Oh my God, my sister Peggy is 70, and I’ll be there in less that two years. Oooooh!”, well, my grandnephew made the sign of the cross when I did the grace at the meal. Then I busted him afterwards, “I thought you announced you were an atheist.” He’s in his second year of college. Smile.

I also heard him saying, “Oh my God” a few times when playing Wii. I didn’t bust him the second time – but I was tempted.

“Oh my God.” It’s a primitive – gut reaction – we all say, when we experience both beauty and fear – crisis and wonder.

Just listen, just watch, and you’ll hear, “Oh my God” from everyone.

“Phew! Oh my God, that car just missed being hit by that truck. Woooh! Wow!”

“Oh my God, what’s a beautiful baby!”

“Oh my God, did you see that shot he just took. Wow.”

“”Oh my God, what a beautiful morning.”

GOD: CAUSE AND EFFECT

“Oh my God” is a normal announcement, that there is a God.

Some theologians would say: that’s the God of reason – more than the God of revelation.

C.G. Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst, was quoted as saying, “I don’t believe in God. I know there is a God.”

Cause and effect. See me, see my parents. See a car, you know there is a car maker. See bacon and eggs, and you know there are pigs and chickens, fire and a frying pan.

See this church or St. Mary’s Church or any church and you know there were collections to build it. You know there were people who wanted a church. Look for the cornerstone and see when it was built.

See the stars, and you know there is a star maker.

But what is the car maker and the star maker like?

That’s where revelation comes into play.

GOD: A TRINITY OF PERSONS

Today, we’re celebrating God as Trinity – three persons – one God.

We hear this as revelation.

We hear this as faith.

Christians, like Jews and Moslems, are monotheists. We believe in one God.

Christians, unlike Jews and Moslems, believe that there are three persons in this one God.

Now that’s a revelation.

It took centuries for Christianity to come up with formulas – on how to state this – how to put into words, Jesus’ words about the Spirit, about the Father, about indwelling, about “See me, see the Father.”

There were heresies – major heresies in the process. Some said the Spirit was not God. Some said Jesus was only divine and not human or vice versa. Some said all three were not equal.

So we have the major creeds: the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. One is said at the beginning of the rosary and the other is said at Sunday and major feast day Masses. Listen carefully to the words about God in the Nicene Creed as we say at this Mass after this 60 minute homily.

Christianity teaches: God is three persons – one God – equal and co-eternal – all 3 without beginning, without end.

“Oh my God!” that’s quite a statement.

So we have the shamrock and the triangle as two major symbols of the Trinity – to try to help people grasp somehow that three can be one.

But we won’t understand God, because we are not God. We won’t know the much more about God till we enter into the Trinity in eternity and then we’re going to really say, “Oh my God.”

What images help you? What are you thoughts and understandings and figurings about God being one and three and one?

WE ARE MADE IN THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF GOD

For starters, there is a key text in the first chapter of Genesis – verse 27. Someone very early on in Jewish history came up with the revelation that we are made in the image and likeness of God, male and female God made us.

That person like every person from time to time was trying to understand God and life – in good times and bad, sickness and health, birth and death, with males and females, – and the why’s and wherefores of God in all this.

The world that person lived in was filled with cultures that came up with all kinds of images of God: war gods, fertility gods, wine gods, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, etc., etc., etc.

To understand God, instead of looking out at mountains – powerful scenes of God experiences on tops of mountains like Moses had in today’s first reading – we can also look within – into our inner geography and inner spaces – as well as in our relationships with each other – as we heard in today’s second reading.

In those places and spaces – we can get glimpses of how we are made in the image and likeness of God – how God can be three as well as one.

Only glimpses however….

God like the other persons in our lives – as well as ourselves – is very mysterious.

AUSTIN FARRER (1)

Let me use some thoughts by Austin Farrer – a British preacher who died back in 1968 – to walk closer to the edge of the mystery of God – as Trinity – knowing as St. Augustine knew, it’s like standing at the edge of ocean and trying to put it all into a tiny pail.

This stuff is quite tricky – and we don’t have centuries to grasp it – so we take so much on faith. However, think of these two human experiences.

1) We talk to ourselves

2) We talk to each other.

FIRST WE TALK TO OURSELVES

Does anyone here do that?

Human beings talk to self all day long. We even answer ourselves. We argue with ourselves. We laugh at ourselves. We get angry with ourselves.

Isn’t that interesting?

We’re experiencing ourselves as two – yet we’re one. Yet, at times, we feel so divided.

We talk to self about others, about weather, traffic, what we’re experiencing, what were eating, drinking. We talk to ourselves about our family, our neighbors, our boss, other persons on the bus, or in the car. We think about a person looking out the window or reading the paper and we wonder what they are thinking about. We talk to ourselves about their hair, their weight, their clothes.

Yet, I am one – just one person.

I am me – so different from every other person that I know.

I am like God – when I love, when I create, when I care, when I cry, when I help another or when I scream, “Not fair!”

I am so unlike God – when I don’t care – when I hurt others – when I hide.

So human beings can discover that God is so other than us and God is so like us.

The call is to be like God – because God likes to be with us.

When we talk to ourselves and start to bring God into that conversation – we are getting glimpse after glimpse of how we are made in the image and likeness of God. It’s called prayer. It’s called a relationship with God.

SECONDLY WE TALK TO EACH OTHER

Secondly, we talk to each other. It’s called relationships, friendships, marriage, family.

And when we really get close to another, our ego boundaries or self boundaries, our borders, disappear. Two people can become one. Three people can become one. Four people can become one. A team can work as one. Music can work – when all play in harmony. Marriages can work. Families can work. Parishes can work. Church can work. World can work.

Obviously, it starts with two people, male and female God made us, then the circle widens.

The dream is that the circle becomes as big as this world – and by the time it happens – maybe that’s what Jesus meant by the kingdom of heaven coming. Maybe that’s what we are praying for when we say, “Thy Kingdom come” in the Our Father. Maybe the circle will eventually embrace the universe. Time will tell.

So all this takes time. It takes a lot of living to be able to finish each other’s sentences, to know each other’s thoughts – to really become one.

It takes time to be thinking God’s thoughts – but God rejoices each time we are like Mary and say, “Be it done to me according to your word”. Then we too will experience our Christmas – Christ being born in the Stable of our heart, in our Holy Land. We too will experience Christ growing in wisdom, age and grace in our hearts. We too will experience Christ’s passion, death and resurrection taking place in us. We too will experience Christ sending the Spirit into us.

CONCLUSION – I NEED A CONCLUSION QUICKLY

“Oh my God, I’m talking to myself again.”

“Oh my God, some people might be understanding me. We’re becoming one.” Uh oh!

“Oh my God, thanks for creating me, making me, bringing me into existence - bringing me into You: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as into all those who have gone before us - all those who are here - and all those who are to come. More!”

"Oh my God!" More! The Trinity. Standing before God. Standing at the Edge of the cliffs of More!

_________

(1) Austin Farrer, The Essential Sermons, edited and introduced by Leslie Houlden, SPCK, Great Britain,1991, "Thinking the Trinity", pp. 76-80

Picture on top: from a post card I bought at the Cliffs of Moher - from the Liam Blake Collection, Irish Picture Postcards. I pronounce Moher, "more" - hence the ending pun.

BOLLARD

“Who is God to you?”

“God is a bollard?”

“What’s a bollard?”

“It’s one of those solid steel
or iron posts that boats tie up to
when they come home.”

“Oh, I’ve seen them,
but I never knew
what they were called.”

“They are also posts
to stop cars and trucks
from getting into certain areas.
But I like the first meaning
of the word “bollard”: one of those
solid posts on docks
to slip a big, fat,

strong, sturdy rope around.”

“Well, who is God
when you leave harbor?”

“Oh, that’s when I forget God –

that is
till something goes wrong,
till big waves start crashing,
till a storm starts smashing me.

I know God is called, "The Ocean",

but I prefer God,"The Harbor",
and I can’t wait to get home -

and moor my ship to a bollard.”

© Andy Costello,

Reflections 2008