Reflection for Sunday – June 15, 2025

Deirdre McKiernan HetzlerSunday Readings Homilies

Readings: Proverbs 8:22-31; Romans 5:1-5: John 16:12-15
Preacher: Deirdre McKiernan Hetzler

Have you ever given much thought to what it means that you and I are made in the image and likeness of God? What is our image of God? Yours and mine?

When we bless ourselves, we say “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Right? The Holy Trinity. And today, our liturgy celebrates the Trinity. But what is the Trinity? We name three distinct Persons, yet say they are One God. This analogy of the Trinity as a community of three Persons is a symbol, inadequate as all symbols are. Yet it can provide a sense of who we are as “relational beings” created in the image and likeness of this One God. Thus, we are caught up into the inner life of the Trinity.

St. Augustine spent years trying to unpack all this in his writing. I love this version of a story about him. Supposedly, Augustine came across a boy emptying containers of sea water into a hole in the sand. When Augustine told the child his task was impossible, the child replied, “And neither will you ever be able to explain the Trinity.”

The Nicene Creed tries to explain, saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. That seems to me a poor way to say that it is the love flowing between God the Father and Jesus that is the Spirit. In plain English, then, the Trinity is a community of love centered in God. Take a minute to digest that and consider the ramifications. We are created in the image of a community of love! Whoa! What does it mean to be a community of love? To live as people created in that image?

How does a community of love respond tothe times we live in? To the multiple crises in our personal and societal lives? No easy task! Yet, God’s Spirit has been poured out on us. And lives within us! Giving us the power to grow. The power to become ever more fully that community of love. A community meant to witness God’s vital, caring presence in the world.

I think that call on our lives is especially challenging in our country these days. The apparent blueprint for the current administration is Project 2025, which violates much, if not most, of Catholic teaching. How does a community of love respond? What does it mean to live caught up into the inner life of the Trinity?

One of our own Sisters of St. Joseph responded by opposing the unmarked ICE agents grabbing a man just released by a federal immigration judge in order to obtain a lawyer. Although the agents succeeded in whisking the man away, she and her companion made their concern heard.

Community outcry eventually resolved the case of a four-year-old girl receiving lifesaving care in the US. She and her mother were here from Mexico on a special parole document, because necessary treatment was unavailable in Mexico. Suddenly, her parole was terminated without warning, giving them seven days to leave the country or face consequences. For weeks there was no functional avenue to alert USCIS that a child’s life was in danger. It took an international outcry and pressure from media and elected officials to get a response — something that used to take a single phone call.

The news around the draconian budget cuts brings to mind a story I knew. The story of a family struggling financially. In urging the wife to accept monetary assistance, her sibling put it this way: “Think of this as God’s distributive justice. You have the kids and we have the money.”

Christ has acted out God’s love for us. It is that same love of that same God that the Spirit pours out on us. And through us. In opening ourselves to this divine gift of love, we become the presence of Christ in our world. Like him, we can live with malice toward none and charity for all. In the power of the Spirit, we can become that Trinitarian community of love, made in God’s image. And so we pray, “Help us, O Lord. Let it be so.”

Deirdre McKiernan Hetzler
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