Trinity Sunday 2025

A father (mine) is delighting in his son (me)!

Have you heard that new Lake Street Dive song, “Dance with a Stranger”?  The lyrics begin like this:

“Look around the room
Find someone's eyes that are new to you...
Go say, ‘Hello, how do you do?’
Listen to their answer...commiserate
Say, ‘I feel that way sometimes too.’
And, ‘Would you like to dance?’

Dance with a stranger ‘til they’re not a stranger anymore.”

(Click here to listen to Lake Street Dive's "Dance with a Stranger)

It’s a song about taking a chance—not in romance, but in relationship. It’s about reaching out, being present, being vulnerable.

That, believe it or not, is what today—Trinity Sunday—is all about.

Because our God is not a solitary being, but a relationship: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

And at the heart of that relationship is a divine movement of love—giving, receiving, overflowing. 

The early Church had a word for it: perichoresis. It literally means a divine dance.

The Father pours Himself into the Son,
The Son gives everything back to the Father,
And the Spirit is the rhythm and breath of their love,
shared with us.

The Trinity is not a concept to master—it’s a mystery to enter.

St. Augustine, one of the greatest minds in the Church, wrestled with this mystery for years. 

One day, the story goes, he was walking along the beach, pondering how to explain the Trinity. 

He saw a child pouring buckets of seawater into a hole in the sand. 

Augustine asked, “What are you doing?” 

The child said, “I’m putting the ocean into this hole.” And 

Augustine said, “You can’t fit the whole ocean into that small hole.” 

The child looked up and said, “And neither can you fit the Trinity into your small mind.” 

Then the child vanished.  You see, the kid was actually an angel sent by God to teach Augustine a lesson!

We may never understand the Trinity—but we are still invited into it.

And here’s the part that still stuns me:
We are not spectators of this dance.
We’re invited into this dance, too!

But maybe we hesitate. Maybe we feel like strangers to God—or like He’s a stranger to us.

That’s where today’s readings reach out their hand to us.

In Proverbs, we hear of Divine Wisdom—at play before the foundation of the world, “delighting in the human race.” That’s not a God who keeps His distance. That’s a God who says, “Would you like to dance?”

In Romans, Paul says, “The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” Not rationed. Not explained. Poured. Freely, abundantly.

And in John’s Gospel, Jesus describes the Spirit receiving from Him, and Him from the Father—so that all of it might be declared to us. 

It’s like the Father says to the Son, “Take my hand.” And the Son says to the Spirit, “Let’s bring them in.” And now they ask us: “Would you like to dance?”

We live the Trinity—we dance with God and with each other—when we:

• look around the room, like the song says, and find someone new. Someone overlooked. A child. An elder. A stranger in the pew. 

• Say hello and mean it. Ask how someone’s doing and really listen.

• Commiserate. Say, “I feel that way sometimes too.” That’s how strangers become friends.

• Forgive, even when it’s hard. That’s the Father’s mercy.

• Sit with someone in silence. That’s the Spirit’s gentleness.

• Bless our kids, grandkids, godchildren. That’s the love of the Son reflected in you.

And yes—today is Father’s Day. Good fathers know that love is less about control and more about presence. 

It’s about taking your child’s hand and saying, “Let’s go through this together.” When you love like that, you reflect the very heart of the Trinity.

And our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, comes to us as an Augustinian. That means he belongs to a religious order that follows the Rule of St. Augustine. 

Augustine teaches us that friendship is sacred—that we don’t find God by ourselves, but together. 

He once wrote, “Two things are essential: life and friendship.” 

If Pope Leo leads with that spirit, then his papacy may invite the whole Church to step more fully into this divine dance.

So maybe this week, don’t try to explain the Trinity.
Just step into it.
Reach out to someone who feels like a stranger.
Listen.
Be kind.
Be present.
And in doing so, let the love of the Trinity be poured into you,
and then poured out through you.

We may not be able to pour the whole ocean into a hole in the sand,
and we can’t pour the mystery of the Trinity into our minds.
But we can open our hearts.
We can take someone’s hand.
We can step out on the dance floor of daily life and love.

And we can dance with the God who’s been waiting all along to say:

“Would you like to dance with a stranger,
‘til I’m not a stranger anymore?”

And if you take His hand—
He will never let go.