Communio

So I remember when I was in seminary, and I was having a hard time and starting to question my vocation. Is this really what God wanted for my life? I remember God answered that prayer. During this time, a week or so later, I was invited to serve as a seminarian at some friends wedding. They were getting married. I knew both the groom and the bride. As a seminarian, I was honored that they asked me to serve. It was a beautiful Mass in a beautiful Church. As I reflected back a few days afterwards, I remember vividly where my heart was. In my heart, I was asking “Lord is this what you want for my life?” And at the same time, as I was serving at this beautiful Wedding, I felt my heart drawn not to the groom who was giving himself to his bride, but my heart was drawn to the priest, standing before the bride and groom and guiding them as a couple towards God. The Lord showed me in that Mass, that truly my heart was there with the priest. I wanted to give my life to the Church in this specific way.

I share this with you because the question I get sometimes is, “Father, is it lonely being a priest??” “Is it lonely to not have someone to share your life with?” And I totally understand the question, because this is a fear that many of us have. The fear of loneliness… Now let’s be honest, are there priests who are lonely? Absolutely… But I’ve been a priest long enough to know that even if you are not a priest, even if you are married, you can find yourself extremely lonely in your marriage. Matrimony is not a cure for loneliness just as priesthood or religious life is not a condemnation to a life of loneliness.

Now here’s the point I’m getting at… we are made in the image and likeness of God. We were made with a God sized hole in our hearts. And our hearts are restless until they rest in God…. Let’s be clear: there is an essential loneliness that is fundamental to the human experience, fundamental to how were were made.

Because all of us carry in our hearts an infinite depth that no human being has the ability to completely fill. No spouse can be perfectly known by another, I don’t care if you’ve been married 10 years, 20 years or 70 years… There always still more to know, there always still more to discover. God leaves a space in us that only He can fill, and most of the problems in our life and in the world comes about when we try to fill that space with things that are not God. We try to fill it with an imperfect spouse, we try to fill it with children, we try to fill it with Amazon packages, so many Amazon packages… and yet there still more emptiness. Why because we were made by God, for God, and in the image of God.

Our hearts are made for communion. But not any communion, we were made for the eternal Communion of Love of the Most Holy Trinity. It is the perfect love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that our hearts are made for. And our life, our vocation all point to this beautiful reality.

The Most Holy Trinity, the catechism says, is the central mystery of our faith. Why? Because the mystery of the Trinity reveals to us who God is and who we are.

As Christians, we worship one God in the Trinity of persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each person equal in dignity and distinct… and who pours himself out as a total gift to the other in complete life-giving love. This eternal gift of love that is between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is in turn given to us.

This is what happened at our baptism. The word “baptism” in Greek (baptizein) means to be immersed or to be plunged. You can say that at your Baptism, you were plunged into the center of the eternal communion of love of God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But also the other reality is just as true. At our baptism, the Trinity, the Father Son and Holy Spirit, was plunged into the depths of your soul. The Trinity is not only “out there” but the Trinity is within you. Which means Heaven is already in you and me…

I’ll leave you with one last thought: the Church, our church, our parish, is meant to be a sign of the communion of the Trinity in the world. We are called to be a communion of persons by freely giving ourselves to each other and receiving each other in love. And it starts not with the people “out there”, but it starts right here. How do we do this? By service. Christ said, I have come not to be served but to serve. If we want to unite ourselves to Christ in the Trinity, we must also do the same.

When we come to Mass, it is tempting to treat the Mass as a consumer. As someone who is coming to get a product. Sunday Mass becomes about what I get out of it. It becomes about how does the parish serve me and my needs. How does God give me what I need. My Jesus, My Mass, My Pew… It’s all about me, and that’s why sometimes our parishes don’t look very Christian.

If we are to follow Christ, if we are to be a a sacrament of the communion of the Most Holy Trinity here in Angleton, then we must change the way we approach Church. What if, everyone here came here on Sunday with the same mentality as Christ… I have come not to be served but to serve… what if everyone here was so in love with God and cared deeply about each other that everyone here made it their mission to serve one another.

What if we served one another so deeply and intimately here that it just naturally and organically spilt out into the streets of Angleton?  

Brothers and sisters, everytime you come, come to serve. Come to serve Jesus in worship, come to serve one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Then together, go out into the world together and share with the world the love and communion of God’s love. Then and only then can the Church be a sign and instrument of the communion of God. Then can we be a sacrament of unity for others. Then can we pave the way for peace in society and in the world.

“To believe in Christ means to desire unity.” (John Paul II)… because God is unity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.