I've heard it said that "adoption is growing in your mother's heart instead of her tummy." That even more true when applied to our heavenly Father.
There'll be no homily for you next Sunday. I'm leaving June 2 (Tuesday) for Rome, where I'm helping to lead a discernment pilgrimage (with another priest, 2 seminarians, and 4 young men pondering priesthood) until June 11. Please say a prayer for us pilgrims!
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity B
I
was adopted.
I
was born on October 8, 1974,
and
by October 28, the adoption was complete.
The
arrangements had been made prior to my birth,
so
eager was my adoptive father to add me to his family.
And
it was an act great of love on behalf of my birth parents
to
put me up for adoption in the first place,
knowing
the kind of life this new family would provide.
By
this point,
many
of you who’ve known me—or my family—for awhile
must
be scratching your heads.
How could we not have known this?
But
what I’m talking about it the day of my baptism.
When
I was teaching Formation for Ministry a few months ago,
one
of my students shared a story—
I
believe it was about her daughter and son-in-law.
They
were unable to conceive,
so
they decided to adopt a child from Africa.
She
shared to what great lengths
these
would-be parents were willing to go—
the
paperwork, the travel, the many sacrifices—
in
order to bring this little girl into their family:
to
take this child out of a difficult, even dangerous situation
and
instead surround her with their love.
As
I listened, I immediately thought:
Isn’t that exactly what God
does for us?
To what lengths he has gone to
take us out of the country of sin
and bring us into his
kingdom—
surrounding us with love as
his own children!
This
talk of adoption is no mere metaphor.
As
St. Paul reminds the Romans,
on
the day of our Baptism,
when
the water was poured out upon us,
the
Holy Spirit was also poured into our hearts,
and
we “received a Spirit of adoption.”
When
we were immersed in the font,
we
were also immersed in the very life of the Most Holy Trinity.
God
has only one begotten Son,
but
he has countless adopted children
who
become true brothers and sisters of Jesus.
And
it is through this Holy Spirit—
the
very same Spirit of love who binds together
the
Father and the Son for all eternity—
that
we can cry to God, “Abba! Father!”
We
get to call God, “Dad!”
When
we come to this Trinity Sunday,
many
folks of think of the doctrine of the Trinity
as
something every dry and difficult.
What difference could it
make in my day-to-day life?
But
the reality is that the God’s self-revelation
as
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
is
about as personal, powerful, and passionate as it gets.
The
God who is love itself couldn’t keep that love to himself,
but
came to save us and take us into that perfect love forever.
That
makes all the difference in the world!
There
are a couple of aspects of our Catholic life
that
can help to drive this point home.
What
do Catholics go looking for
as
soon as they cross the threshold of a church?
The
holy water! To bless themselves,
marking
themselves with the sign of the cross
and
in the name of the Holy Trinity.
We
do that to recall the day of our adoption—
the
day (in most cases) when our parents
first
brought us through those church doors
that
we might become members of God’s family.
But
we should also be sure to look for the holy water
on
our way out of church, because at our baptism
we
were not only adopted, but also given a mission.
We
hear Jesus this Sunday speaking to the Apostles
before
he ascends into heaven; he tells them:
"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that i have commanded you."
When
we leave church, we need to spread this message around.
Imagine
what a different world we’d live in
if
more people believed that God
wanted
a personal relationship with them:
that
they were loved and always would be!
I
was at a conference yesterday,
and
something the speaker said made the whole room gasp
at
the truth of his words:
You must really hate
somebody
if you’ve discovered the
secret to real happiness in this life and forever
and you won’t share it with
them.
The
world desperately needs us
to
fulfill the mission entrusted to us by Jesus!
The
second thing has become clear in the last few years
since
we began using the new translation of the Mass.
Not
long before we receive Holy Communion,
the
priest introduces the Lord’s Prayer by saying,
“At
the Savior’s command and formed by divine teaching,
we dare to say…”
What’s
so audacious about the Lord’s Prayer?
They’re
familiar words that everybody knows!
But
consider how it begins.
We
don’t address the Father—a distant
and impersonal God.
We
don’t address the Father of Jesus—
concerned
only with the relationship between them.
No,
Jesus instructs us to pray to our
Father.
Imagine,
that when we call upon
the
almighty Creator of the entire universe,
we
dare to call him, “Abba! Father! Dad!”
That’s
daring!
As
Moses said to the people,
Has anything so great every
happened before?
Was it ever heard of?
Has any other god chosen a
people for his own,
and shown his care for them
with such signs and wonders
as the Lord our God has done
before our very eyes?
Yes,
it’s daring for us to call God, “Father”…
…but
it’s even more daring on his part
that
God would adopt us sinners as his own.
I
was adopted on October 28, 1974.
I’ve
made it a point in recent years
to
learn and remember the date of my baptism.
It’s
the most important day of my entire life.
And
so it is for you, too.
Recall
this wonderful day not just once a year,
but
whenever you bless yourself with holy water
or
recite the Lord’s Prayer,
for
you have received a Spirit of adoption,
making
you a coheir with Jesus Christ
and
though whom you can in truth
call
God, “Abba! Father!”
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