Trinity Sunday

One of the more interesting films of the past 20 years or so, Tom Hanks’ “Castaway” (2000, directed by Robert Zemeckis), was the story of a man, Chuck Nolan, whose Federal Express freight airplane crashes on a desert island. This modern-day Robinson Crusoe is trapped, stranded on this island, which is somewhere, I think, between where Gilligan was and where the cast of “Lost” had been.

Thanks be to God, Hanks’ character, Chuck, was on an airplane that was carrying almost everything one could need to survive. And survive he does, learning how to cook, clean, build a shelter, even in one particularly harrowing scene, do minor dental surgery. He has everything that one could need to survive except for company.

In one of the more interesting parts of this movie, there is complete silence, no dialogue. Chuck is just trying to survive. Yet he is longing for someone to dialogue with. He needs companionship. So, if there is no one to talk to, what can one do? Well, in the case of this character, he meets Wilson.

Wilson functions as the “Man Friday” to Chuck’s Caruso, with one telling exception. Wilson is a volleyball! Granted, Wilson is a volleyball with a bloody handprint for his face. And the character played by Hanks forms a relationship with Wilson. They even have arguments, at least in the lead character’s head, leading to one of the more heartbreaking scenes in this movie — while on a raft at sea during an attempt to escape, Wilson floats away. When Chuck notices this, it is too late, leaving him to shout, “Wilson, come back, I’m sorry!”

Why do I mention this film in a homily on Trinity Sunday? For one reason — we can have all of the basic necessities of life and still not have what we need to be fully human. We need community!

Why do we as human beings need community? Because Almighty God in Himself is a Communion of Three Persons, yet One Godhead. You might say that being in communion with others is built into who we are as human beings, created by God in his image and likeness. We are called to communion, because God is a Communion!

German Karl Rahner, the 20th century Jesuit theologian, in his book, “The Trinity” (1970), opined that, for the average Catholic, one could dispense with the entire doctrine of the Blessed Trinity and few would notice in their daily life. This statement has always bothered me tremendously, but in many ways, for the average Catholic, and not only the laity, the doctrine of the Most Blessed Trinity, although certainly acknowledged, does not play an explicit part in their daily life. This is true even for us priests and deacons, especially when we are called to preach on Trinity Sunday. How many times have we heard the homilist simply proclaim this as a mystery, something that we must accept as a tenant of the faith, yet no real attempt is made to engage this most essential element of our faith, namely who God is in himself!

Yes, the Most Blessed Trinity is a mystery. We can never fully comprehend the Godhead. Yet, in our daily lives, we experience the working of the Persons of the Most Blessed Trinity time and again. In fact, in the Church, through the sacrament of Baptism, we are made adopted children of God the Father, through Christ his Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Existing from all eternity, God is. He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit; one God, three Persons, equal in power, equal in majesty. From all eternity, God the Father and God the Son gaze in love upon each other and that look of love and knowledge is so great, so intense, so mutual, so reciprocal, that also from all eternity the bond of love and knowledge that is the Holy Spirit is also present. This divine circle of love and knowledge is so great that it spills out and, from that intense love, all of reality is created. We are called to a life of communion with the Most Blessed Trinity. We desire that companionship with each other and we find it in the Church.

Far from an abstraction, the doctrine of the Most Blessed Trinity is actually one of the most practical in all of our faith. Even if we have the basic necessities of life, we still need communion — both with God, who is a Communion of love in Himself, and with each other.

The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is the place where we can find that communion, both with God and with each other. May she be healed of all wounds and division so as to allow the Lord, the true Lumen Gentium (Light of the People), to radiate that communion to the whole world.