SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY
26 MAY 2024
In
a sense, every Sunday is a Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. At every Mass, all prayers are addressed to
the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. During the ninety days ending with Pentecost,
the Church focused our attention on the central Mystery of our faith – the
Paschal Mystery. The 40-day Season of
Lent reminded us that Jesus was absolutely faithful to the will of his
Father. He endured the pain of the cross
out of love for us. The cross and death
are part of the Paschal Mystery. The 50-day
Season of Easter assured us of the truth of the resurrection. We ended those 90 days by celebrating the
gift of the Holy Spirit. That is why
this Solemnity puts the Paschal Mystery into perspective. By living the Paschal Mystery, we are invited
to participate in the life of the Trinity, not only now, but after death. In his Icon, the Russian artist Rublev
pictures the three persons of the Trinity seated at a table, drawing our
attention to the front of the table. The
triune Godhead invites us to have a seat at that table.
We became
disciples when we were baptized.
Disciples must live the Paschal Mystery.
My parents taught my brothers and sister and me that lesson on a daily
basis. It always amazes me how often
parents and spouses must die to themselves, trusting that they will share a
little more fully with each other in the rising of Christ. We priests are disciples called to die to
ourselves on a daily basis to focus our energies to share his rising with the
people assigned to us.
When Bishop
Pursley ordained me fifty years ago today, I promised obedience and respect to
him and his successors. Connecting that
promise with the Paschal Mystery did not occur to me at the time. I had my own ideas of what priesthood
meant. I preached at my Mass of
Thanksgiving (remember – it was the 70’s!) and made the confident statement
that our generation of priests would be building build communities of people -- not physical
buildings. That seemed to be working for
the first ten years, when I served in high school ministry at Marian High
School, spending weekends at Saint Matthew Cathedral for the first five years
and Saint Monica for the next five. That
is what I wanted to do for the rest of my priesthood. When Bishop McManus told me that it was time
to become a pastor, I argued with him as much as possible. But, the promise of obedience and respect won
that argument!
The
transition was extremely difficult, because I had to die to what I knew and
loved: high school ministry. However, after pouting for a few months, it
became clear that the role of a pastor is not such a bad thing. I shared in Christ’s rising by being welcomed
into the parish family of Saint Paul of the Cross in Columbia City. They taught me how to be a pastor.
Then Bishop
D’Arcy announced my next death and assigned me to be pastor of Saint Jude in
Fort Wayne. I had to die again. It took me a while, but the people of Saint
Jude taught me how to be a pastor of a bigger parish, work with Associate
Pastors, and be responsible for a school.
I loved being the father of that family for 13 years, until the next
dying happened. That is when Saint Pius
got stuck with your first Diocesan pastor.
It was another difficult transition. It took me about a year to feel at
home and stop mentioning Saint Jude in the Third Eucharistic Prayer. But I love this role I’ve had for the last 23
years.
Never would
I have chosen any of these moves. As
painful as they were, the process of dying opened me to new forms of life that
I could not have imagined. Being a
priest for fifty years has taught me the truth about the Paschal Mystery. Of course, I have failed to die to myself
more times than I care to admit and apologize to anyone I’ve hurt in failing to
die to myself. I am profoundly grateful
for my vocation and trust that my next step in dying as pastor of this parish
will bring new life. As we disciples
celebrate this Solemnity, we can renew our confidence that we are invited to
take a seat at the table with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We do that by living the Paschal Mystery on a
daily basis.
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