The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity – June 15, 2025

Holy Trinity – Little River, KS

Proverbs 8:22-31; Psalms 8:4-9; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

The Central Mystery of the Faith and Life

Today we celebrate the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity—so our parish’s patronal feast! And it is the Trinity—as the Church teaches—the Trinity lies at the origin and core of it all, at the origin and core of our entire faith, the central Mystery of our faith (Catechism 234). And I don’t know about you, but for the longest time—I don’t think any of us really understand the Trinity, but when you’re in seminary they make you take a class called “The Trinity” for a whole semester, which is where they pretty much just boggle your mind and make you feel more confused than when you began. Just giving you all these different way that you can explain and understand and try to comprehend what it means that there is only one God and yet there are three persons in that one God; and there are three persons in God, but only one God.

And I think it’s easy for us to get caught up on trying to define the Trinity. But I think today’s solemnity invites us to something else. I was talking to a wise old priest once and he said something that changed it all. We weren’t even talking about the Trinity; we were talking about the Psalm we had today. But in this Psalm (so wisely given to us by the Church today) we see what the Church is really inviting us to do.

This wise old priest pointed out this line, this question in Psalm 8: “What is man/humanity that you should be mindful of him? mortal man/humanity that you should care for him?” And then he said, “In my entire life, no question has ever struck me like that question.” “What is man that you should be mindful of him? mortal man that you should keep him in mind?”

Why? Why was he so intent that of every single question that could be asked, every problem, everything he could ask of God—why did that one line, that one question from Psalm 8 strike him so much? Why was it this question so important? Why did it change his life?

And really, the answer becomes clearer the moment you read the line before it. But also, it all begins to make more and more clear what we are being invited to do on this Trinity Sunday, what our response is to this great mystery we celebrate.

“When I behold your heavens…the moon and the stars”

The line right before that question is this—the Psalmist is looking up at the night sky, at a beautiful sky full of stars, and as he’s doing this be begins speaking to God and says this, “When I behold your heavens [the sky], the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place…” In other words, “When I am looking up into the night sky, all of the moon and the stars, all of this which you have created and set in place—when I gaze at this seemingly infinite and unfathomable glory—one question comes to my mind, the one question that overwhelms me is: Why do you think of me? Why do you bother with me, care about me? Why do you spend any of your time worried about me? “What is man that you should be mindful of him?”

And his only makes sense if you’ve gone out star gazing. Have you ever contemplated the universe? Have you ever just laid on the ground and stared into the night sky? (I had to make the high schoolers over in Lyons do that…they’d never just laid in the grass and looked at the stars.) Or just looked at the pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the galaxies and stars?

Because when you’re lying there you start to recognize just how big the universe is—and just how small you are. Do you know how many stars there are? Do you know how many galaxies there are? Do you know how big the universe is? Don’t worry, I will tell you. The universe is still expanding, so as of this morning the universe is 92 billion light years across. That’s 92 billion times 5.88 trillion miles across. In the universe there are around 100 billion, some would say 100 trillion galaxies in the universe, each one of them containing around 100 billion stars.

Those are ludicrous numbers! We think because we have a debt of a trillion dollars, we know what that number means. But we don’t! These numbers are almost incomprehensible. I was at a talk once by a high energy particle astrophysicist—you don’t need to know why!—and he was trying to explain to us how big the universe is, because how do you picture 92 billion times 5.88 trillion miles or 100 billion or trillion galaxies each with 100 billion stars? And he said, “Picture a sandcastle where every single star is a single grain of sand: how big would the castle be? 35 miles high, 35 miles wide, and 35 miles long—where every single star is a grain of sand! (Mount Everest is only 5 miles high.) “There are ten times more stars in the night sky than there are grains of sand on the world’s deserts and beaches”—which is just the stars in the night sky (UK, Telegraph) There are in the universe 70 sextillion stars; that’s 7 followed by 22 zeros [remember that number]—that’s the number of stars.

But then even the size of the universe! So our sun—you can fit about a million earths into our sun. The biggest star that we have found is called “Big Dog,” and inside Big Dog you can fit 7 quadrillion earths. What’s a quadrillion? We’re going to do a little exercise and try to learn numbers. Imagine I’m going to ask someone to count to a million: we’re going to see that person again in 12 days. Another person is going to count to a billion: and it’s gonna take some time, but they’ll come back in 31 years. Somebody else can count to a trillion: we’re not going to see that person again, it would take them 31,000 years. And I’ll going to count to a quadrillion: it will take me 31 million years. You can fit 7 quadrillion earths inside one star.

Ok, so remember a sextillion? (70 sextillion stars in the galaxy.) You want to know how long it would take me to count to a sextillion? You will have to count to a quadrillion (which would take 31 million years) 10 million times. And there are 70 sextillion stars in the universe.

“What is man that you should be mindful of him?”

Why am I telling you this? Why am I wasting so much of all of our time? Why is this important? I will tell you. Because as scripture tells us, this God we believe in, this Triune God we celebrate today—God knows every single star by name. The Psalms reveal to us, “He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name.” (Psalm 147:4, c.f., Isaiah 40:26). He knows all of them by name!

But then this is the real kicker! In this universe—which is 92 billion light years across and filled with 70 sextillion stars—there is one, and only one creature He loves the most. And it’s you. 

And this God, who made all of this out of love—this God hold you, your life, my life, in the palm of His hand. And He’s not anxious. And He has no rival. God, this Triune God we celebrate today, is massive beyond all comprehension—in fact he is Being itself (ipsum esse) and yet His loving gaze, His affection, His care, He is mindful of one creature—and that’s you.

Go back and read our first reading if you don’t believe me. As we heard in the first reading, “Lady Wisdom” (which is the personification of the Son and the Holy Spirit)—Wisdom, with which God created all of this, the “Engineer” behind the entire universe—one thing caught His eye. We’re told, “When the Lord established the heavens I was there…I was beside him as his craftsman/engineer…and I found delight in” the incredible galaxies of the universe—nope. “I was beside him as his craftsman…and I found delight in the human race” (Proverbs 8).

This God delights in you. He wants you—and not just wants you, but has created you, destined you to share in His own life! That Triune life, the life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—He has destined you to share in that life! Not even the angels have that privilege! Did you realize that? Not even the angels are destined to share in God’s life like we are! We will be greater than angels.

Not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived

It’s very easy to lose sight of this. I mean, with all of the problems and the mess that the world and our families, and maybe even our own life is in—it’s easy to be bogged down and anxious, or fearful and discouraged.

But that’s why today’s solemnity and the invitation the Church makes to us on this solemnity is so important. The Church invites us to wonder and awe. Most of us live life stuck in the mud, in the daily grind, in the boring and flat. We search for a feeling of something in sports and championships, in a nice vacation, in falling in love—all nice things.

But the Church invites us to be blown away, to be filled with awe and wonder at one, simple, life-changing question: “Lord, Triune God—who am I that you should be mindful of me? mortal, frail, sinful little me that you should care for me?” This God who created the universe which is 92 billion light years across, who created all of these 70 sextillion stars—this God loves you, cares for you, upholds and sustains you. And He has destined you to share in His life. And that God comes to meet us. Here in this Eucharist He comes to meet us—to give us a first taste of that life shared with him. We share in His own divine life. What is going on here is so much bigger, so much more awesome that we can possibly fathom—we can’t even fathom those numbers but we think we get what’s going on here! But that’s the awe of it all—the Triune God, creator of the universe—His delight is you, He shares his life, his body with you.