In both the traditional and Novus Ordo calendars the Church recently celebrated the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. For priests who offer Masses in both forms by necessity of their circumstances it is an infrequent blessing when the two calendars coincide, meaning less work preparing multiple sermons. A wonderful story related to the Most Holy Trinity is associated with Saint Augustine. Following his conversion and appointment as bishop of Hippo this great theologian was walking along the shore of his diocese pondering the Mystery of the Holy Trinity when he came upon a small boy who was running back and forth from the sea to the sand with a wooden bucket, filling it with water and pouring it into the sand. He asked the boy what he was doing, to which he responded, “I am going to put all the water of the sea into this hole which I have made in the sand.” Augustine laughed and said, “Little boy, you cannot fit the entire ocean into your little hole,” to which the boy replied, “Neither can you fit the Mystery of the Holy Trinity into your little head!” With that the boy—the angel—vanished.

Mysteries are divine realities that exceed our limited capacity to know them unassisted by divine revelation and they exceed our finite capacity to fully comprehend them. Even so, as we all know and acknowledge, Mysteries are not contrary to reason. But Mysteries are much more than intellectual truths to be believed; Mysteries are intended to have real significance in our lives.

For instance, the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist sustains and strengthens supernatural life when worthily received by those in a state of grace. The Incarnation of Christ is another Mystery with inestimable significance; were it not for this reality we would all remain under condemnation, for God would not have died for us upon the Cross. With regards to the Mystery of the Holy Trinity certainly one inescapable significance for us is that we are by nature intended to exist in relationships with other persons, as does God within Himself. We are made in the Image of God, which means that there is relevance to the Triune nature of God that must be reflected in our own social existence, in accord with human nature.

Pondering this Mystery and its implications for humanity, it strikes me that in American secular society we have failed miserably to recognize and properly imitate the relational aspect of the Holy Trinity for nearly a century in the area of human sexuality. I chose the increment of a century based upon efforts by the likes of Margaret Sanger to establish birth control clinics and national contraception leagues as early as 1916. Undeterred by her initial jail sentence for her birth control clinic she and other like-minded eugenic enthusiasts eventually prevailed and within decades they exceeded their earlier expectations, establishing the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942 and capitalizing upon the ungodly Roe v Wade decision of 1973 to enshrine abortion as the national sacrament of the secular world. What a contradiction: the Church professes that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the love shared between the Father and the Son within the Triune God; the secularists profess that through contraception and abortion we can insure that love (or lust) between a man and woman can be rendered sterile and unproductive. Strike one and strike two against secular America: Contraception and Abortion.

But the sex-crazed component of America will not stop with these two sins against the generation of life. Just as preventing conception through contraception was a stepping stone to terminating pregnancies through abortion, so now there is a giant step in full stride which renders absolutely impossible the fecundity of sexual relationships, namely, homosexual unions. There is nothing new in human history about this perverted behavior but the social promotion of this perversion in America is a recent phenomenon which is having disastrous consequences to our nation. Militant homosexual activists in every branch of government and in gay pride parades in every major city are steadily marching ahead with no more regard for the salvation of souls than the citizens of Sodom. The really frightening thing is that too many citizens of this country are clueless as to the disaster that awaits us—much like Lot prior to the warning of the angels. Even more cause for alarm: we have supernatural advantages that ancient humanity was lacking and so we are without excuse when we fail to conform our individual lives to Christ and our social relationships to the Holy Trinity. Watch out, America, because this final sexual misstep may be strike three, and it may bring upon us all the final foot stomp of God