June 10th, 2001

Holy Trinity Sunday Jn16/12-15

Recently there has been complaint that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is no longer preached. Perhaps the reason for this is that the doctrine, as presented in the class rooms and taught in the seminaries, seems to opaque to be the subject of preaching. With all due respect to the three Cappadocians (Gregory, Basil, and Gregory) their rhetoric is not our rhetoric. Most preaching on the Trinity goes over the head of the laity - and the clergy.  Perhaps the best path for a homilist to follow is to say that the Son is God's knowledge and the Spirit is God's love and that the knowledge and love of God are so enormous and so powerful that are persons. Hence we are in the hands of knowledge beyond our imagination and of love which dwarfs any love we can know. That God knows us so perfectly might be scary. But that God loves us so passionately ought to be powerfully reassuring.

read the padre
read the padre
Keep in touch...
Locally, and Globally! 

Check out
Andrew M. Greeley's Columns for the
Chicago SunTimes'
Daily Southtown.
_

Once upon a time a father and two children were out in a boat on a very small lake. The kids were little and the father made them wear life preservers, despite their protests. Suddenly a terrible storm came along. Rain and wind, lightening and thunder, waves and fog. The engine in the boat died. The kids were scared but they knew their father would take care of them. Then a fierce burst of wind and a big wave hit the boat and turned it over. The boat was on
top of the kids and they had to struggle out from under it. When they came up outside the boat, sputtering and gasping, they could not see their father anywhere. He'll come for us, the boy said to the girl. I know he will, she replied. Their life jackets kept them afloat but they clung to the boat so their father would know where to look for them. But he didn't come. Maybe he drowned said the little boy. Then we'd be alone, the little girl said. They were both terrified. The screamed and they cried. No one answered them. Eventually the storm blew over. The first thing they saw was their father in another boat only a few yards away from them. Then they realized that they were at the end of their pier and that they could if they tried touch the bottom of the lake. Their father got out of the boat and waded ashore with them.