Each of the banners behind me show a symbol of how much our lives have changed over the last several months, from Lent, through Easter and today as we celebrate the Holy Trinity. Sometimes we don’t notice change, even if it is revolutionary change in our lives. As with all things about Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit, we know that the changes they ask of us can be enormous. But even as God asks us to move ahead in our Christian lives, many big changes can only happen step by step.
When we think of God, pray, read, or talk about God, to our family and friends it is often difficult to wrap our minds around all that has happened in our lives. And none of it could have happened without God giving us the power to change.
The banner of the Lamb of God, behind me shows how power can come out of weakness and happens in our most difficult moments. It is from the Crucifixion that we have the power of new life. Jesus, from the Cross says: “Into your hands I give my Spirit.” And a new pattern of existence begins in our world.
The Power of the Resurrection comes to rest upon us at Pentecost. The Power of the Holy Spirit is given to us when God breathes into the dust of the earth and we are created anew, just as Adam and Eve were. And with our new spirit a new pattern, again, exists in the world.
The banner of the Most Holy Trinity explains another kind of power. The power of compassion and love, in a never ending dance of knowing that God loves us enough to let go of his Son, and in the love of letting go, the Spirit continues to show itself to the world.
Power comes to us in the Trinity every time we cross ourselves, we baptize, we pray. We begin our Mass in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. As the gospel is proclaimed we ask, with the sign of the cross, that God be in our minds (forehead) on our lips, to speak of God and in our heart (chest) to live as God asks. All done in the name of our God, who shows himself to us as one God, but three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And a pattern of existence, that has always been, is shown to us in the world.
The next banner shows us how to participate in the Holy Eucharist. The Body and Blood, Corpus Christi, which we will celebrate next week. It takes a great and powerful faith to believe. Generated by the powerful love that God shows us in Christ and the Holy Spirit, we can “Take and Eat, Take and Drink” as we come forward and proclaim a great and powerful “Amen” “I do believe.” And when we do believe, a new pattern of existence begins in the world.
Finally the banner of the gift of the Sacred Heart. It seems that without the heart, we would die, our life power would cease to exist. However, the hope Jesus has for us is that the Trinity, that is the Holy Spirit, generated by the love of God and Jesus, will be enough for us to see that even a wounded heart, can still pump out the power of life, needed to keep all things alive. And again, a new pattern of existence begins in the world.
It is no coincidence that these four moments of faith are celebrated during this time in our Church year. From the moment of our birth, when God breathes the gift of the Holy Spirit into our lives, we spend the rest of our time growing in great power and wisdom, encountering God along every step of the way. The power of God as Father, leads us to know the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us to recognize Christ in the world.
A feast like today, the Holy Trinity, reminds us that God is all around, that Jesus gives us all we need to move forward, and that the Holy Spirit always blesses us.
And when this happens… a whole new pattern of existence begins in the world today.