Trinity Sunday

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9; Daniel 3; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; John 3:16-18

God asked Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He answered, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” With that question, Cain suggests that others are responsible for Abel.

This year there is a conjunction of three events, like planets appearing together. 24 May marked one year since 19 students and 2 teachers were killed in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. 2 June was National Gun Violence Awareness Day, sponsored by the grassroots movement, Moms Demand Action. And today, 4 June, The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity according to the Christian calendar.

A mass murder, a voice crying in the wilderness and the presence of the living God.

When put so straightforwardly, do not these contemporary events not reflect the massacre of the Hebrew boys in Egypt and millennia later in Bethlehem; reflect the continually unheeded voices of the Hebrew prophets and; the crucifixion of Jesus, where no one spoke up…because silence reigned?

The stories of the Bible are not bedtime stories for children they are human and divine realities. How many massacres, how many children, how many unheeded voices and how much silence characterizes our past century and our present realities?

Nothing has changed, has it? And why? One simple reason: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Have we not offered God and each other the same irresponsible answer?

The consequence of Cain’s inaction and lack of responsibility for his brother was that he would “become a constant wanderer on the earth”. Are we not Cain? Are we not wandering from mass shooting to mass shooting seemingly powerless to respond to care for our children, their parents, and others caught up in the frenzy of violence? Don’t drive up the wrong driveway, approach the wrong house door or get into an argument. You might die.

But, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

On the day of the Uvalde shooting there had been an awards ceremony at the school. Busy parents had tried to take a few hours off work to come to their child’s school, watch them win an award or perhaps sing a song, kiss their heads and then go back to their day jobs. And then their child died.

How do parents continue to drop their children off at school, shopping malls or even bring them to church in such a world?

Every day we turn on the news and there it is again. We have increasingly accepted mass shootings and the death of children as our reality. We act as if we are helpless. We sit around as if there is nothing we can do and our hands are tied. We blame our political leaders for failing us.

We are failing ourselves! …and our children and their families. This has to stop.

To call ourselves disciples, followers of Jesus Christ, people of faith empowered by the Spirit and act like there is not thing we can do is blasphemy! Because we are saying that the God we believe in, Father, Son and Spirit, is powerless to work through us to effect change in the world. That is wrong.

Our God, “a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity”. Our God, “praiseworthy and exalted above all forever”. Our God, who “so loved the world that he gave his only Son” to save us could have been in that classroom, writing farewell notes in yearbooks and packing up his pencil box. She could have been cowering in fear under her desk, hiding her mosquito-bitten legs under a backpack, calling for her mother.

Our God was in that classroom, because we are not.

The God that we claim to follow is very capable of working through us. It is through people God has always affected great change.  That is why the first principle of our Catholic Social Teaching tradition is upholding the dignity and respect of every human being. We cannot continue to make up excuses – “Am I my brother’s keeper?” – to justify death by gun violence any more. Have we not all come to the realization that thoughts and prayers are not enough? They never have been enough. Though prayer has a vital place in the life of the believer, must it not bear the fruit of the Spirit? On Pentecost we heard how the community in prayer was impelled by the Holy Spirit into the world beyond locked doors of fear and impotence.

As these three events coincide, I invite you to discern what God is calling us to do. It might be calling or writing our legislative representatives to make our voices heard, educating ourselves about gun violence, supporting Moms Demand Action, asking the parents of your children’s friends whether or not they have guns in their home before playdates, reflecting on your own attitudes toward guns, violence, and the value of every human life, looking deeply into the faces of your children and grandchildren. What do you see? What will you tell them?

In light of what our faith tells us, not our politics, not our fears, nor our perceived and distorted views of freedom; in light of what our Christian faith tells us to be true, how will we act?

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” will not suffice. It never did. Human life is sacred, and the upholding of the dignity of the person is the foundation of a moral vision for society. How will you participate in this building?

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_{Moms Demand Action: www.momsdemandaction.org.}

_{Hospital chaplain: I’ve seen the bodies of children killed by guns. Must you see them, too? by Britt Luby, America Magazine, 24 May 2023. www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/05/24/uvalde-mass-shooting-anniversary-245356}

_{The Talk of the Town, Firing Lines, Amy Davidson Sorkin, The New Yorker, 29 May 2023}