Dcn. Tom McClelland's Homily:
        Trinity Sunday, June 11, 2006

Each of us is a member of the family of God.  Scripture tells us we are all children of God, and that God is our loving Father.  To each other, then, we are brothers and sisters in God's great family.  No one is left out.  We all are indeed one true family.  To help you focus on the meaning of this, I've invented a new last name for each one of us.  From now on, think of your new last name as "OfGod."  That's spelled O-F-G-O-D.  For example, there's Mary OfGod, and Bob OfGod, and Louis OfGod.  We are all sons and daughters of God, baptized into His great family, and heirs of His kingdom.

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, and we can begin exploring our family of God by first exploring the Trinity.  By "Trinity" we mean one God in three persons, with each person of the Trinity distinct from the other but inseparable in unity.  God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.  God is three; yet God is one.  This is the central mystery of our Christian faith, and it is the foundation of our faith.

In the gospel reading, Jesus commissioned his disciples to baptize all nations "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."  Jesus did not say to baptize in three names but in one name.  In these words of God, in this gospel, he reveals himself as a family: that is, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Now, don't presume these are gender terms.  Gender does not pertain to God.  Instead, these are the terms Jesus gave us that define the relationships among the three persons of God.

Did you ever think of the Holy Trinity as a family?  This idea of God, of the Trinity, being a family comes from a highly credible source.  Pope John Paul II wrote, "God in his deepest mystery is not a solitude, but a family, since He has in Himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of the family, which is love."  The pope proceeded then to identify this "love" as the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.  So it is not correct to say that God is like a family.  God is a family.  And in his family there is complete unity despite the three-ness of persons.  The Trinity is a family.

What's our new last name?  "OfGod."  God is a family, and we are part of the family named "OfGod."

We also know that we are members of a human family.  We can think of the Holy Trinity as a theological family, but more real for us on a day-to-day basis is the fact that we are all members of a biological family.  Each of us has a mother and father, and, with various degrees of imperfection, they love each other and they love us.  But I'm sure you can see the parallel with the Trinity family: parent, child, and love.

We call this world of our temporary human existence the world of the flesh, and much of the time we're definitely caught up in the concerns of this material world.  We are concerned about food and shelter and clothes and cars.  TV and music and money and jobs and career progression get a lot of our attention.  How many times do we parents lament, as we get older, that we didn't take enough time for our children when they really needed us?  How often did we let other things get in the way?  How often did we not love them enough?

God, who created us, knows that we generally do not do well as solo individuals.  We need family.  We need relationships.  It's part of our human constitution.  In Genesis, God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a suitable partner for him."  God also said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."  So!  Just as in the Trinity, being made in God's likeness means being part of a family and being surrounded in love.  You could say this is our personal trinity: parents, children, love.  In both of the creation stories in Genesis, the man and the woman are made in relation to each other, and it is relationships within a family that are by far the most important part of our human existence.  It is not about individuals.

Imagine the joy in a family where the members all obey Jesus' one command — love one another as I have loved you.  They care for each other and look out for each other and relate to each other.  They spend time together and talk together, work together and play together.  There is trust among the family members, and each member of the family knows he or she belongs to that family.

These biological families that God has put us into have their own family names to be sure: Williams, McClelland, Matelski, Grondin, LaJoice, ….  But what is our new last name?  "OfGod."

Are we all really one family?  Yes!!  Whatever the condition of our earthly, human families, we may all trust in the fact that we are children of God.  St. Paul in the second reading tells us explicitly that "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him…."  In other words, if we accept our crosses—because suffering will come into our lives—and if we follow the teachings of Jesus, we will inherit the kingdom of God.  AND, we are all brothers and sisters of each other.

Because we are children "OfGod," we can be certain that God will intervene in our lives.  Just as our biological father would provide guidance, direction, and help when we needed it, God, who loves us even more, will be an even greater part of our daily lives.  He does this in at least two ways.

First, as our Father, he gives commandments to us and sets boundaries for our behavior that are for our wellbeing.  Moses tells the people, "You must keep his statutes and commandments that I enjoin on you today, that you and your children after you may prosper."  God has given us the free will to make choices, and by his commandments he has given us the criteria to use in our decision-making process.  We make dozens of little choices everyday, and if we follow his laws and making good choices, we will prosper.  We will be solidly centered in the family "OfGod."

The second way God as our Father intervenes in our lives is by answering our prayers.  Maybe he does not answer our prayers exactly in the way we expect or hope for.  Perhaps the Holy Spirit seems to close the door we wanted to go through but he opens another.  After a while, we see that the second door opened onto a better path than the one we had asked for.  I can look back over key events in my life and identify things that I did not expect, but things have definitely happened that brought me closer to God.  Even standing here today before you as a new deacon amazes me.  I have prayed about it.  I know that many of you also prayed about me becoming a deacon.  Through many prayers and by the Holy Spirit's intervention in my life, here I am.  Now we must pray that God will clearly show me how he wants me to serve you, for that is the key role of the deacon—to be the servant-Jesus for all of you.

In our family "OfGod," the Father guides and directs us.  He sent his only Son to be our example.  He gave us the Holy Spirit as the loving essence of his family.  Three persons.  One God.

Take a second now, put on your best smile, and look around you.  See your brothers and sisters of the family "OfGod."  God is a family.  The Holy Trinity is a family.  We are God's children.  The resurrected Christ tells his eleven apostles, "Go … and make disciples of all nations."  He omits no one.  He wants us all to see ourselves as brothers and sisters in God's great family, present here and now on this earth.  To me it seems just a little simpler if was adopt the family name "OfGod."

May God bless you always!