I have a theologian friend. Her name is Dr. Clare Henning, and she wrote a most beautiful entry on the TRINITY on her Catholic Conversations blog this week entitled THE SACRED DANCE OF THE DIVINE LOVE https://www.catholic-conversations.com/post/the-sacred-dance-of-divine-love

I want to quote her beautiful introduction:

“Every time we make the sign of the cross, we enter the mystery of the Trinity. We call upon the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three Persons moving together in perfect unity, love, and relationship. The Trinity is often described as a kind of sacred dance, a continual flow of love shared and given. Within this divine relationship there is no division, no selfishness, only perfect communion. We are invited not simply to observe this mystery, but to step into it and allow our lives to be shaped by it.” (With that divine dance image in mind, I will offer my reflection.)

The dance of the Trinity shapes our lives in the interconnectedness of all things. To use a scientific metaphor, the Trinity’s DNA is in everything within us and around us. All living things, for example, are comprised of atoms, and atoms comprise a three-fold unity: neutrons, protons, and electrons. Interestingly, all living things, including human persons, have one atomic element in common: carbon. Our DNA strands may be different, but atoms and CARBON are the constant—a ONENESS that never changes. Science has coined a poetic phrase that affirms who we are as people and that no one exists without commonality to all that is in the universe, and, for us, all that relates intimately with the Triune God’s desire for Creation: 🌟 Entitled “The poetic truth,” the short verse goes as follows

• The carbon in your bones was forged in a star.
• The carbon in your breath was exhaled by ancient forests.
• The carbon in your thoughts was once drifting between galaxies.

Life is the universe becoming aware of itself through carbon.

This evening I pray that these poetic images help us grow in consciousness, especially in this era of climate crisis, in a Trinity of care for ourselves, others, and Creation itself.

To go deeper, we need to acknowledge that more often you and I define ourselves through our individuality and our value of independence. To counter this I invite us to think “CARBON” along with CHRIST because our faith in Jesus of Nazareth insists that He is all in all, binding the world together in communion just as Father, Son, and Spirit are one.  And as the Divine Trinity tied itself to humanity in Christ, we must never forget that we, too, have a  Spiritual Dimension—the divine spark, the human soul.  In the beginning, God breathed life into man and woman, and millennia later, Jesus breathes into the Apostles. Both accounts remind us that the Holy Spirit continues to infuse our free will, our desires with faith, hope, and love, strengthening our link with Heaven.

Remember this: God designed the Universe and all its materials, all matter, to culminate in Christ Jesus— the perfect union of humanity with God – the material with the spiritual, an indivisible union of Body and Spirit, to transform us and Nature through the millennia into a New Heaven and a New Earth. And this new reality—what we aspired to—was evidenced in the realities of Jesus’ Resurrection in the Gospels.  Our Catholic Sacraments continually remind us that Resurrection is at the heart of our faith. The material and the divine are destined to a full, complete consummation! We  are part of an ongoing evolutionary process: the creation of a new heaven and a new earth begun in Christ when God created the world. The Creed states: Through CHRIST all things were made.  

Throughout Jesus’ life and through His Body, the Church, we participate in the threefold Trinity of existence:  of life, death, and resurrection. Jesus preached it, Jesus lived it and invites us to trust in it. As the Gospel states, he did so: “that the world might be saved through him!”  And don’t forget: “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.”

In Jesus, the KINGDOM OF GOD on earth is inextricably linked to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Paschal Mystery insists humanity only becomes fully actualized, fully alive in the pattern of Jesus: through life, death, and resurrection—the pattern evident in all of Nature.

As humans we find we grow spiritually, emotionally, and physically in this deep, three-fold reality, no longer fearful of death, but welcoming transformation as we grow from childhood to adulthood. We believe the Holy Spirit enriches us with Gifts of courage, and fortitude, and Divine Love to address the problems of our age, making our contributions—be they great or small—to strengthening the world’s awareness, i.e. for our governments as well as for our neighbors—that all our decisions honor the interconnection of all people and all things in imitation of the indissoluble relationship of the TRINTIY.

On this Trinity Sunday, we must recall Jesus’ final words to the disciples: “That repentance for the forgiveness of sins be preached in my name to all the nations.”  For sin is the common denominator of all peoples, as ubiquitous as CARBON.  But without honest admission of sin,  there is no hope of advancing the transformation of the world.

In his latest encyclical, MAGNIFICENT HUMANITY released this past Tuesday, Pope Leo invites us to focus on the Social and National dimensions of sin.  Indeed, the time has come for government, technology, and business to repent of its ongoing damage to the environment, and for advancing progress at the expense of others–especially its oppression of the poor. Leo’s letter invites each of us to make better personal choices that inspire and promote social change so that the Kingdom of God on earth literally moves  the world toward the Kingdom of Heaven

Always remember the Trinity is our help. We need our God in Triune Form lest God, the Father, become too distant, too detached from our daily lives. We need the Person of the Son because Jesus insists we nurture our common humanity in HIM and follow Him in service and communion with one another. And when we fail as we do, as we do, we need the Holy Spirit making Christ present in our Church in Word and Sacraments. Today’s Eucharist affirms Jesus’s presence in us yet again, uniting our hearts, minds, and bodies with Christ’s Body not only for our personal good but for the good of our intricately, interconnected world in which grace and goodness in all our relationships will continue to mirror the dance of the perfect relationship at the heart of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit forever. We stand now to profess the faith that we believe.

ADDENDUM – The following excerpts from LAUDATO SI gave me inspiration for my Sermon:

VII. The Trinity and the Relationship Between Creatures.

1. NOTE: Consider this metaphor with which I only recently became acquainted. Understanding the Trinity is not a matter of 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 (nonsense) but, instead:

1 x 1 x 1 = 1.

• # 238: “The Father Is the ultimate source of everything; the Son, his reflection, through whom all things were created, united himself to this earthy when he was formed in the womb of Mary. The Spirit, infinite bond of love, is intimately present at the very heart of the universe.”
  • # 240: “The divine Persons are subsistent relations, and the world, created according to the divine model, is a web of relationships. . . . (To) marvel at the manifold connections existing among creatures … discover(s) a key to our own fulfillment.”

IX. Beyond the Sun

1. # 243: “At the end, we will find ourselves face to face with the infinite beauty of God (cf. 1 Cor 13:12). Jesus says, ‘I make all things new’ (Rev. 21:5). Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place and have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated once and for all.”
2. # 244: “In the meantime, we come together to take charge of this home which has been entrusted to us…” knowing that  (# 245) “The Lord does not abandon us . . .his love constantly  impels us to find new ways forward. Praise be to him!”