Bottom line: Trinity Sunday is about where we have come from and where we are going.

You may have heard about the American who got lost in Ireland. After driving around the Irish countryside, he finally encountered a native, "Please," he said, "can you tell me how to get to Balbriggan?"

"Well," said the Irishman, "If you take the first road to the left...no that wouldn't do...drive about four miles and turn right...no that wouldn't do either." Finally the Irishman scratched his head and said, "You know, if I was going to Balbriggan, I wouldn't start from here at all."

Well, you have got know where you are starting from, if you want to get to your destination. If we are just a cosmic accident, a complex bunch of molecules, we really aren't going anywhere - except to the grave. But if we have our origin in the Trinity - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - then we have a destiny.

The Trinity is a family - persons who are distinct, yet one. Bit the Trinity is not just one more family - it is the perfect family. They are one in a way that completely respects the distinctiveness of each member. The Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father and together they are not the Holy Spirit - yet they are perfectly one - one substance.

If the Trinity is our origin, it is also our goal, our destination. Because of that our purpose here on earth is to form family. This Sunday we have with us who is going to give us a little bit of help. You have heard me talk about Dawn Eden. This weekend she is with us. Dawn was born into a Reformed Jewish household, but about ten years ago she experienced a conversion to Christianity that eventually led her into the Catholic Church. She has written a wonderful book titled The Thrill of the Chaste. "Chaste" is spelled c-h-a-s-t-e as in the word "chastity." Chastity is a virtue, that is, a power, a basic way of living.*

We can think of chastity as abstinence from sex and that is true, up to a point. The abstinence is not because sex is "bad" or dirty" but because sex is so beautiful, so sacred that its use belongs in a specific context - the complete and life-long commitment of marriage. Chastity is about achieving a "beautiful love." Dawn expresses it this way: "chastity is seeing your sexual nature as part of a three-way relationship...between you, your husband - or if you're not married, your future husband - and God." To put in a few words: Chastity recognizes that human sexuality has a exalted purpose: the forming of families.

We are made for family, but, you know, achieving family - and maintaining family - is difficult. Dawn Eden describes her own experience as a child of divorced parents. Her story is poignant and painful, but at the same time she reveals touching details about the relationship with her mother - and also with her dad. And with amazing frankness, Dawn tells about her own desire to meet the right man - and the many land mines along the way. She gives practical advice about dating, dealing with temptation and depression. She also discusses more mundane matters like clothes, dieting and what to do with one's time alone. But her book is much more than a manual for young people. Dawn keeps her eye on what ultimately matters - the relationship with God that involves every other good relationship.

Jesus said it today, "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life." All of us have fallen short - we have strayed from the ideal of family, the ideal God himself placed in our hearts. Yet Jesus did not come to condemn, but so we would have life through him: to become sons and daughters in him - by the power of the Holy Spirit. He invites us to join a perfect family - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Jesus offers a free gift. At the end of her book, Dawn writes about receiving life as a gift, with a spirit of childlike wonder. She uses the example of eating a certain pastry on a New York subway. "As the sourdough sensation drifts across my taste buds," she writes, "I savor the pieces as though they are the last delicacy I will ever eat in my life." That sense of wonder makes all the difference. It is the difference between choosing a life of frustration and choosing a life of appreciation. A life of frustration comes from constantly demanding more and more. A life of appreciation result from marveling at gifts, both small and great. Today we hear about the greatest gift: "God so loved the word that he gave his only Son." Jesus call us to family - to form family by God's grace and to take part in the one perfect family, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Join me in that beautiful prayer: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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