Homily for the Week of June 3, 2012

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, 2012 Deuteronomy 4:32-40 Ps 33: 4-9 Romans 8:14-17 Mt 28:16-20 If all of you were in a Sunday school class today I would probably give you the assignment to find the word Trinity anywhere in the Bible. No matter how long and how hard you would look in the Bible, and especially in the the 4 Gospels that talk about Jesus you would not find the word Trinity. Yet today all Catholic churches throughout the world celebrate the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. You and I made the sign of the cross in the name of the Trinity. You were baptized in the name of the Trinity. In fact it was several hundreds of years before the Catholic spiritual writers coined the word Trinity to mean that in ONE GOD there are THREE PERSONS known as of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But there is only one God, not three Gods. Even though the word Trinity is not found in the Bible, there are plenty of other places where the word is found. If you were to do an Internet search for Trinity you would find about 220 million references to the word Trinity. These would include the names of colleges, schools, nightclubs, hospitals, nursing homes, churches. There is one reference which is especially unusual. 67 years ago next month, at a place called Trinity, New Mexico, at the White Sands Missal Range Project Trinity began. Project Trinity was the code name given to the project which detonated a plutonium bomb at Trinity, New Mexico. This bomb had the explosive power of 13,000 tons of TNT and its mushroom cloud soared to a height of 7 miles. This was the beginning of the Atomic Age, and the world has never been the same since. The following month, on August 6, President Harry Truman authorized a United States Army plane to drop a single atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and a second bomb three days later on the city of Nagasaki killing 237,000 persons, and many others dying from the effects of radiation. In today's Gospel Jesus announces the real Project Trinity. He reveals to his disciples and to us their missionary agenda by assuring them that All Power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Jesus had just detonated his Godly power when he destroyed what no bomb could ever do. With this statement Jesus destroyed death itself. Jesus conquered death by his resurrection from the dead. And now Jesus is also willing to share this power with each of us. To carry out his project the followers of Jesus were to go and to tell all nations about the great and loving power of God, and to baptize them In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and to teach them to observe all the commandments. So Trinity means that our God -- the father, the son and the holy spirit ---chose to explode upon the world, to let go and to realize all the love, joy, peace and glory of their most intimate union. Our Catholic Project Trinity is all about life and love, not destruction and death. Catholic life begins with the Trinity. The Trinity is one of our most observed beliefs. Each week we come together here to receive the Eucharist where we tap the power of the Trinity and the Trinity continues to tap into us. We begin our Mass as we do all other spiritual events In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and we end our Mass the same way. Most of you began to pray by making the sign of the trinity. We are baptized, according to the Lord’s command, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. As a priest I have thousands of times showed faith in the Trinity whenever I have anointed a sick person or blessed spiritual objects. Our faith in the Trinity is shown whenever we have blessings at meals; whenever we end public prayers; when a couple exchange wedding rings; and for nearly every other Catholic practice that we experience. The early Church understood the Trinity as the heart of Christ’s message. You may not have realized it but we do all of these sacred and spiritual actions in the name of another. That is unique in the Bible. Doing something in the name of another implies solidarity and agreement with that other person. The apostles purpose is our purpose. Our Project Trinity has not made us radioactive, but God-active. Our job is to carry the power of the Trinity into our day-by-day lives. At the end of this Mass we are told to Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. We are then ready to burst forth into the world with the explosive life and love of God in our hearts, heads and hands. But we are not alone. The Holy Trinity makes us towers of power to release the life, love, peace, joy and glory of God upon our world.