SPEAKER_00: When General Kevin Chilton flew into space, he was already a remarkable man.
SPEAKER_00: A four-star Air Force general, a test pilot, a Nassau astronaut who would fly three missions.
SPEAKER_00: A pilot, he would pilot the Space Shuttle Endeavor and command the Space Shuttle Atlantis.
SPEAKER_00: He had flown some of the most advanced machines human beings have ever built.
SPEAKER_00: And every single time he left this planet, he carried something with him that was small enough to fit into the palm of his hand.
SPEAKER_00: NASA made him document it and approve it like every other piece of cargo that he was taking on board.
SPEAKER_00: It was a little golden container called a pix.
SPEAKER_00: And inside was the most holy Eucharist, the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: This man would travel further than any that from other human beings than almost anyone in history.
SPEAKER_00: He will look down at the whole earth from orbit more than two hundred miles up.
SPEAKER_00: And he made sure one thing before he ever left the ground.
SPEAKER_00: He would not go out there alone.
SPEAKER_00: He would carry our Lord with him.
SPEAKER_00: General Chilton said that when he was up there and he would look down into the deep blue oceans of the earth, the words that came to him were the blue of the Virgin's veil.
SPEAKER_00: Surrounded by the silence of the universe, nothing about his faith was shaken.
SPEAKER_00: Everything about it was confirmed.
SPEAKER_00: He had chosen to bring the Eucharist precisely because he could bring it so little, and he wanted to bring the Lord everywhere he went.
SPEAKER_00: And on one of his flights on a quiet Sunday in orbit, he gathered his fellow Catholic crewmates, and there, floating above the earth, they received Holy Communion as one.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why am I telling you this on Trinity Sunday?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should have saved this story for next weekend for Corpus Christi Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I tell you this story because that astronaut understood something this feast is trying to teach all of us.
SPEAKER_00: He understood that the worst thing in the universe is not the cold, is not danger or distance.
SPEAKER_00: The worst thing is to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: And he had found that the one thing in all the world that means you are never ever alone.
SPEAKER_00: Today the church does something bold.
SPEAKER_00: We don't just talk about what God does for us, we try to say who God is from the inside.
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is the most hopeful truth ever spoken.
SPEAKER_00: God is not alone.
SPEAKER_00: God has never been alone, not for one second.
SPEAKER_00: We say God is three persons in one.
SPEAKER_00: God, Father's, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: People hear that and immediately reach for a calculator.
SPEAKER_00: How can three be one?
SPEAKER_00: But the Trinity was never a math problem to solve, it is a love story.
SPEAKER_00: Saint John tells us God is love.
SPEAKER_00: But you see, love can't happen alone.
SPEAKER_00: Love needs someone to love.
SPEAKER_00: So if God is love and God has always existed, then before there were any stars, before there was anything at all to love, God was already loving.
SPEAKER_00: He was the Father loving the Son, the Son loving back the Father, and the love between them so alive, so real, that it is itself a person, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: God is a communion of love.
SPEAKER_00: God is a family.
SPEAKER_00: You heard that word today, and you may not have caught it.
SPEAKER_00: At the very beginning of Mass, I prayed the word Saint Paul uses in the second reading today.
SPEAKER_00: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
SPEAKER_00: Communion.
SPEAKER_00: That is the inner life of God.
SPEAKER_00: Grace, love, communion, Son, Father, Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: If we go to the first reading, when Moses climbs the mountain and begs to see God, God does not lead with his power.
SPEAKER_00: He does not say, I am mighty, worship me, I am strong.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says, I am merciful, I am gracious, I am slow to anger, I am full of kindness.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of those words is about love, about how we turn that love towards somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: The very first time God tells us who he is, he describes a God who loves.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why this matters for us.
SPEAKER_00: So if God is communion, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, if God is a family of love, then you were made for communion too.
SPEAKER_00: You were never meant to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: That is why loneliness cuts so deep.
SPEAKER_00: That is why a person can have all the money, all the success, all the things that they want, and still lie awake at night and feel empty.
SPEAKER_00: You were made by God who is love poured out, and you will only ever be at peace.
SPEAKER_00: You will only ever find meaning when you're doing what he does, giving yourself away in love.
SPEAKER_00: That is the very heart of today's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: In the gospel we have probably the most famous line of all of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Gave.
SPEAKER_00: And he did not stop giving on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: He gives himself to you still at this altar at the Eucharist.
SPEAKER_00: So hear this.
SPEAKER_00: The same Lord that General Chilton carried into space in that small golden pix is the same Lord waiting for you here in a few moments.
SPEAKER_00: He traveled hundreds of miles and risked his life to be to be able to take Jesus with him, to be close to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You only have to walk up an aisle.
SPEAKER_00: And remember what this astronaut did with the gift.
SPEAKER_00: When he could, he did not keep it for himself.
SPEAKER_00: He shared it with others.
SPEAKER_00: Because communion with God always pulls us into communion with the other.
SPEAKER_00: Faith was never meant to be a solo act.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is not a Jesus and me relationship.
SPEAKER_00: The Trinity is not a loner, and neither are you.
SPEAKER_00: On the day you were baptized, you were not just signed up for a religion.
SPEAKER_00: You were adopted into a family.
SPEAKER_00: The family, the church.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want you to take home with you today.
SPEAKER_00: You do not need a rocket.
SPEAKER_00: You do not need to figure out the math.
SPEAKER_00: The Trinity is not a puzzle to solve, it is a relationship to live.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Augustine, our patron, said a famous quote.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard it many times.
SPEAKER_00: I'll say it again.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Augustine says, You made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: That restlessness that you may feel, that ache, that ache is to be loved and to be known, to belong.
SPEAKER_00: It is a homing signal.
SPEAKER_00: It is the pool from God I desire you.
SPEAKER_00: It is a pool of God who made you for Himself and will not stop calling you, searching you.
SPEAKER_00: So whatever you carried in here today, whether it's loneliness, whether it's distance, whether it is indifference and anxiety, whatever's crept in between you and God, hear this and believe it.
SPEAKER_00: You are not alone.
SPEAKER_00: You've never been alone.
SPEAKER_00: The Father made you, the Son gave himself for you, the Spirit lives inside of you right now.
SPEAKER_00: And in just a moment, that same God, the one an astronaut and an astronaut, would not leave the planet without, is going to be placed on your tongue or on your hand, through him and with him and in him.
SPEAKER_00: Because you see, the mass does not just draw us in, the mass draws us up.
SPEAKER_00: Up into the life of God who has never been alone, who has decided from all eternity that he does not want you to be alone either.
SPEAKER_00: And so, my brothers and sisters on this Trinity Sunday, come to this table, receive the one who is in communion, and then go home and live like someone who will never be alone again, understanding that God desires companionship, communion, and then you will feel and know the meaning that God has for you.
SPEAKER_00: You will have determination to know him, to love him, and to go out and serve him.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.