06.07.2020 Homily

Today is the feast of the, of the Trinity. It's the feast in which we acknowledge the inner life of God. In all the other celebrations through the year, we, we praise God for the external things that God has done in calling us in saving us in sending forth his son and pouring forth his spirit. It's all about us. Now this is the one Sunday of the year. When we, we praise God for nothing having to do with us, but that powerful inner life by which father, son, and spirit live for all eternity. 

Now the challenge that you and I have as people of faith is we want to come into contact with God. We want to make a connection to God. God tells us in the first reading how that connection gets made. This is the part of the story of Israel, where Moses has come down from the, the mountain and he's found the people worshiping the golden calf and he's destroyed the tablets. And He's now Gone back up to the mountain a second time to beg God for a second covenant and a renewed covenant, a new covenant. And the question has always been, what does God do with him? How does, how is it to get into the very, the very center of the life of God? 

Is this a great mystical experience? Maybe it's at the opening of some knowledge that is too far for us to attain. So what does God say to him? If you want to enter into my life, recognize that I am God Reverence me offer prayer to me, respect members of your family do not commit murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness against your neighbor. Honor the dignity of marriage and be satisfied, do not lust and be envious of what the other has. That's the way you'll come close to me. Well, what, uh, What a downer that is, I mean, that's so simple. Why did he have to go up to the top of the mountain to find that out? And yet it's the realization of that truth that really opens the door to a deep spiritual life. 

Thomas Merton wrote about an event that occurred in his life. It was March 18th, 1958. He was in Louisville, Kentucky. He had been to a doctor's office and he had, when he came to call the fourth and Walnut epiphany, any event that marked him for the rest of his life. He says Yesterday in Louisville at the corner of fourth and Walnut, I realized deeply, Oh, so deeply that I loved all these people around me. That none of them were Or could be alien to me. On that street corner he realized that depth within him to embrace the truth of who God is. He realized the truth that we are, we are sisters and brothers. We are members of one family. He realized that no one who disregards the family and draw close to God, those experiences happen over and over again. 

This week I was reading David Brooks book, The Second Mountain, and he talks about a similar experience that occurred in his life. As he rediscovered his Jewish faith. He said, my experience of God is I go about my normal day to day life. For some reason, I do not understand mystical intrusions pierce through hinting at a deep reality. The other morning, I've set off on the train at Penn station in New York at rush hour. I was surrounded as I always am by thousands of people. Normally the routineness of life dulls my capacity, but on this day, my soul in every way, flipped and suddenly everything came to light. And I became aware of the infinite depth of each of those spirits around me. Suddenly I regarded the whole crowd with a kind of awe and reverence that in these are all spiritual souls. It is a short leap to the belief that there is one who breathe that spirit into them. Then he says, some months later he went on vacation and he sat on the American river, just outside of Aspen, Colorado. And a second such experience came to the second such opening about the truth of who God is. 

Now. One more the author Flannery O'Connor. She talks about again, being downtown and coming up to across the street and having to stop because the light was red and she was a very shy woman. And she normally keeps her eyes down and she doesn't, she doesn't want to draw attention to, and certainly she doesn't want her to be drawn to others. But in that moment, she said, She felt And knew, and she never knew That all these people around her are sisters and brothers, Sons, and daughters of the living God. And that you come to God through acknowledging and being in one with his sons and daughters. Now this invitation to come into the presence of God is given to us in Jesus Christ. No one comes to the father except through me and Jesus Christ present in those around us is the one who invites us, invites us to see in our neighbor, the very glory of God. 

I find it curious that in just a few weeks, reading from a number of books, I could stumble across three distinct and yet similar experiences, which marked the holiness of three people. If you and I are going to make a new beginning of this earth and this world, if we're to, If we're to receive each other as members of a family, If we are willing to step beyond what we see with our eyes and see with our hearts. And if we see with our heart and no one is outside, no one is the stranger. No one is the unacceptable. No one is the alien. All of those barriers that keep people from each other come crumbling down because not because of laws Or customs, because of faith. I look in the eyes of the other and I see the face of God.