Month: May 2024

Here it is, another Trinity Sunday. I bet you are thinking, “Oh great, another Trinity Sunday homily, what else could I be doing far more enjoyable right now? Fishing? Barbecuing? Drinking Beer, maybe a Margarita, or a Tom Collins, a frozen Daiquiri?”

It was probably this time in 2018. Fr Kevin was on sabbatical, and Fr George Grafsky was celebrating Masses on Trinity Sunday at St Wenceslaus. As it gets at St Wenc, in the summer weather the church building bakes everyone inside. If you would put bread dough on the altar, in two hours it would have been baked into a loaf of bread. Because Fr Kevin was away, I wrote the bulletin article for that week. Trinity Sunday in notoriously the most heretical of all Sundays for homilists for the simple reason that the doctrine exceeds human intelligence and our feeble understanding cannot grasp that which, frankly, makes absolutely no sense in our lived experience.

So, here I was suppose to write an article on Trinity Sunday about the Trinity, something that no one can wrap their heads around. Good ol’ St Patrick’s shamrock metaphor still does not do it justice. I went back to scripture, studied, and reflected on scripture and wrote what I wrote as succinctly as I could hoping that it was not too heretical. This is what I wrote for the church bulletin:

“Trinity Sunday, a day when many homilies border on heresy. We know more about the atmosphere on a faraway planet, like Mars or Jupiter, than that which we know about the Trinitarian nature of God.

In my grad school days at the St Paul Seminary, I had a number of classes taught by theologians. When they would speak, it was as if their minds were able to draw knowledge from spiritual dimensions in otherworldly planes of existence not generally accessible to most of us day to day people. I would ask them a question, and there would be a pause as they searched these other dimensions of knowledge before answering. I remember attempting to read the great Catholic theologian, Fr Karl Rahner’s definition on the “Economic Trinity.” Rahner was a German theologian and he wrote in the German language. It is true that what is expressed in one language is not always directly translatable in another. Case in point, what Rahner wrote in German about the Economic Trinity was very difficult to understand in English. I attempted many times to understand his definition of the Economic Trinity (Note: the Economic Trinity is not a Walmart special, 3 natures of God for the price of one) but to no avail.

So here is my, hopefully, non-heretical, non-understanding of the Trinitarian nature of God. In the Hebrew Testament, we hear about a one, powerful God who breathes upon the waters of the abyss and life was created. The Hebrew Testament writers call the breath of God, Ruah, that is, the Spirit of God. God’s voice speaks to and through the prophets to the people of Israel. The writers of the Hebrew Testament call God’s voice, the Logos or God’s Word. In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, the Word of God is identified as Jesus, God incarnate. Just as in our human body, our breath and our voice are inseparable and one with our body, so the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, and Jesus, the Word of God, are inseparable and one in God. The bottom line is this. Jesus taught that God is a Trinity, one God and three natures: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If that is good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for us.”

Because Ruthie, at that time, worked full-time night shifts as an RN, she would go to the Saturday 5 pm Mass. That night of Trinity Sunday back in 2018 was blistering hot at St Wenceslaus. When it came time for the homily, Fr George looked over all the folks melting in the heat of the church building and simply said, “Deacon Bob wrote the most succinct homily on the Trinity. Take a bulletin with you tonight and read it.” Let’s stand for the creed.

I wasn’t at that Mass, I was sweltering at one of the other two rural churches that had been merged with St Wenceslaus in 2011. When Ruthie got up from her brief slumber on Sunday, she told me what Fr George had said. Admittedly, my ego was stroked. It’s not very often that deacons receive a whole lot of affirmation (though Fr Kevin was always affirming of me). I thought, “Well, while I am not Karl Rahner, I guess I am not that stupid.” So if you are thinking, “Oh great, another Trinity Sunday homily, what else could I be doing right now? Fishing? Barbecuing? Beer, Margarita, Tom Collins …. (in desperation) Anything but sitting in this church listening to this homily?” I give you this brief blog. Read it and then go fishing, and then open a cold beer or some other cold refreshment and reflect on the mystery of the Trinity.

Back in 1986, I composed a hymn for Pentecost entitled, “Come, Holy Spirit.” Not necessarily a creative name for a Pentecost hymn, but very few Pentecost hymns are named very creatively. I composed it as a gift for my then, 5 year old daughter, Meg.

This was during the time when there was a great Renaissance of Catholic Liturgical music. This was the time of the St Louis Jesuits, Mike Joncas, Marty Haugen, David Haas, Tom Conry, to name a few of the great liturgical composers that created amazing music. Of course, I, along with many others, created music for our choirs to sing. This song was created to be sung as the Sequence for Pentecost (Veni Creator Spiritus was the old Latin chant for the sequence).

Over time, working on a graduate degree at the St Paul Seminary, along with working 7 days a week in parishes, and, later, being ordained and immersed in parish ministry, this song got lost along with a lot of music I had composed while I was a director of liturgy and music. However, I kept all that music in a tote in my bedroom at home. During a recovery from another orthopedic surgery in 2016, I decided to begin taking all my handwritten music scores and transcribing into digital music files.

It was during the lockdown of the pandemic that I decided to revisit many of the choral settings I composed in the 80’s and 90’s, and recompose them as instrumental piano music. I released much of that music in a collection of music called “A Paschal Journey”. Mixed in with these up to date piano songs, was some newly composed music, too. I recorded the music and published it through CD Baby (It can be found on Amazon Music and iTunes under the name Robert Charles Wagner. It can also be found on YouTube and other streaming services).

Here is the music reconfigured for just piano.

Mystagogy – Pentecost by Robert Charles Wagner (c) 2020. All right reserved.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since 1986. Meggie, now 43 years old, is a mother of two girls, and is an RN working at the State Veteran’s Home in Minneapolis, just like her mother, Ruth.

I think the music still stands up for today.