We’ve now completed the cycle of the major celebrations of the Church’s year, which recall, commemorate, and celebrate the most important events of in the life of Our Lord, which are the most relevant events to our salvation, and are also the most significant events in all of history of the universe.  The conception and birth of our Lord, his revelation to all the nations at the Epiphany, his presentation in the temple and his life in the Holy Family with Joseph and Mary, his baptism, his suffering and passion and death, his glorious Resurrection and Ascension into heaven, and just last week, the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  Now that we’re done, now that we’ve worked our way through all those commemorations these last few months, the Church gives us this Feastday, the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, as a kind of “so-what?” experience.  It’s a Feast that summarizes everything that’s gone before.  All these mysteries have told us so much about God.  Today we pull it all together.  After all this, after these months of remembrance and ritual and mystery, what do we know about God now? 

We’ve seen the sovereign activity and creativity of God the Father; we’ve seen the teaching and the life and death of Jesus Christ his Son; we’ve seen the sending of their Spirit to animate the Church here on earth: we’ve seen that God is three: he is a Trinity.  We have seen each person, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as clearly unique: the Father is not the Son, is not the Holy Spirit.  They’re not just different ways that God speaks to us.  They are three persons.  And yet, they are so intimately close, that they can’t be distinguished like you and I can be.  They’re not different members of the same species.  The Church has never permitted us to speak of three gods.  But one.  An eternally dynamic relationship of perfect Love.  God is Love.  And these relationships within the Trinity are perfect Love.  This is our radical Christian notion: God is not just perfectly loving towards us: God is love, even within himself.  God is relationship, even within himself.  And that relationship among the persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is so perfect and so complete, that they are as one.  They are, in fact, one. 

This is so critically important for us, because we are made in the image and likeness of God.  God is, by nature, a relationship of persons, and we are made in his image and likeness.  That means that we are made for relationship too.  It means that we discover who we truly are in our relationships.  We are most like God when we pour ourselves into our relationships most fully.  I firmly believe that so many of the problems in our world that won’t seem to go away: senseless violence, hatred, disregard for human life, loss of a sense of unity and community: so many of these things are rooted in, or at least made so much worse, by isolation.  And for all our fancy means of communication, people are more isolated than ever.  I’m guilty of this too sometimes, but almost nothing makes me quite as sad as when I’m in a restaurant or some other big group setting, and I see a table full of people, none of whom are talking to each other, because they’re all on their phones.  And I understand: it’s such a temptation; I feel it too.  Because unless you’re extraordinarily outgoing, even simple human relationship activities, things like conversation, really listening to someone, having a discussion with more nuanced ideas than can fit into a text message: being in real relationship with others takes work; it takes energy; it’s risky: you’re being open and vulnerable.  It’s so much easier just to retreat to the safety and facelessness of the phone.  But this Feast is a reminder for us: the hard work, and the risk, and the time and energy it takes to have real relationships: it’s worth it.  We have to have true, substantial connections with others.  In a very real way, our relationships define us.  And that starts with our most fundamental and indispensable relationship, our relationship with our Creator, which is the relationship that makes all our other relationships make sense, or even be possible in the first place.  Tending to that relationship in all the ways we know how: by faithful participation in Sunday Mass, by praying every day, going to confession regularly, learning and deepening our understanding of the Faith so that we know who we are in relationship with: keeping our relationship with God strong, is a necessary first step for keeping all of our other relationships in good working order. 

God is, by nature, a relationship of loving persons: may we be inspired by our creation in his image and likeness, to put forth the effort and the energy and the time, with the courage that is necessary, to pour ourselves into our relationships, our relationship with the Holy Trinity himself, and our relationship with those whom God has placed into our lives.  In this, we will find our joy and true fulfillment.  Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.