Deut 4:32-34, 39-40 / Romans 8:14-17 / Matthew 28:16-20
We know what a plank is. Or at least we know what the initial meaning is.
It is a long, thin, flat piece of timber, used especially in building and flooring.
But words have a tendency to morph from its initial obvious meaning to some other meanings that might make us wonder where they come from.
The latest meaning of plank is actually an exercise. It's hard to believe that the plank exercise could provide such a great workout, until you try it. Some trainers would even recommend conquering the plank before attempting any heavy weight exercise.
It seems quite easy. Just get into pushup position on the floor. Bend your elbows 90 degrees and rest your weight on your forearms.
Your elbows should be directly beneath your shoulders, and your body should form a straight line from your head to your feet. Hold the position for as long as you can. Your goal should be to hold it for two minutes.
So even though you are not moving or lifting weights, you have to constantly squeeze your abs to hold the position.
The surprising thing is that most people can't last 30 seconds on their first attempt.
The longer you can hold the plank, the more resilient your lower back will be to injury, and the better your abs will look once you tone up the muscles.
Sounds too good to be true and it seems too simple, until we try it.
And when we actually get down it, the initial motivation will slowly wear off when we don’t see immediate results and then the exercise will be like those fancy exercise machines that end up as a clothes rack.
It’s not that we doubt the effectiveness of the exercise. It’s that we just don’t have the persistence and perseverance and we want immediate results with the least effort.
Well, today we celebrate a Sunday called “Trinity Sunday”. So what is it about this Sunday?
Oh we will say the usual things like God is Trinity, Three Persons in one God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
But with God who is Trinity, what is the meaning in it for us? Do we really understand the meaning of Trinity? Or has that word morphed into other meanings?
If we have some difficulty in finding meaning in God as Trinity other than what we have been told, we are not alone.
The great Doctor of the Church St. Augustine of Hippo spent over 30 years working on his treatise ”De Trinitate” [about the Holy Trinity], endeavoring to conceive an intelligible explanation for the mystery of the Trinity.
He was walking by the seashore one day contemplating and trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity when he saw a small boy running back and forth from the water to a spot on the seashore. The boy was using a sea shell to carry the water from the ocean and pouring it into a small hole in the sand.
St. Augustine approached him and asked, “My boy, what are you doing?” “I am trying to bring all the sea into this hole,” the boy replied. “But that is impossible, my boy, the hole cannot contain all that water” said St. Augustine.
The boy paused, stood up, looked into the eyes of the Saint, and replied, “It is no more impossible than what you are trying to do – to comprehend the immensity of the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your small intelligence.”
The Saint was absorbed by such a keen response from that child, and turned his eyes from him for a short while. When he glanced down to ask him something else, the boy had vanished.
Some say that it was an Angel sent by God to teach St. Augustine a lesson on pride in learning. Others affirm it was the Child Jesus Himself who appeared to the Saint to remind him of the limits of human understanding of the great mysteries of our Faith.
Through this story, the sea shell has become a symbol of St. Augustine and the study of theology.
And this story, together with today’s gospel passage, reminds us of the mystery that we have been immersed into, and that is the mystery of Baptism.
We are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Like the shell, we can only understand so much of the mystery of God.
But like the shell, we also hold the mystery of God and that mystery is that of God’s love.
We scoop up God’s love with the shell of our hearts and we pour it out into the sands of the world around us.
The water of God’s love seeps into the sands and we don’t seem to see any results immediately, and we think it is futile.
And so we begin to doubt God’s love, and we hesitate, as we heard in the gospel that some of the disciples hesitated.
Over the past week, a handful of people had been folding these invitations that will be given out later. It is an invitation to the triduum and the parish feast-day Masses.
It’s rather labour intensive and about 3000 invitations have to be folded and given out this weekend.
Will there be a response to the invitations, or will they end up in the trash?
But these invitations were folded with love, and where love is sown, there will be a harvest, maybe 30, maybe 60 and maybe 100.
Whatever it may be, the mystery of the Trinity is the mystery of God’s love.
The meaning of God’s love has not changed and yet at the same time it is also growing, and will continue to grow, and as Jesus promised us in the gospel, it will continue to grow until the end of time.
Like the plank exercise, we must not doubt its effectiveness; we only need to persist and persevere in God’s love.