So if I use the expression the GOAT. Does everybody know who the GOAT is? The greatest of all time. Now, I myself have been called the GOAT. But it’s another story. And I’m just guessing Gracie is the GOAT. The G-baby of all time. It sort of goes with it. But the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about the GOAT.
It’s the last week. Does anyone remember what the greatest lie that we have been told is? What is the greatest lie? That we cannot be holy. Thank you. That’s the lie. Each and every one of us in baptism is called to be holy. And so today, as we welcome Grace into our community, we are inviting her to enter that holiness that comes from God.
The greatest of all lies. We can’t be holy. And this morning we are going to demonstrate why that isn’t true. As we baptize this little baby, and today the church asks us to celebrate the greatest mystery of all time, the Holy Trinity. Now we can think about the Trinity for as long as we want, but we will never really understand the Trinity because it’s the greatest mystery.
And what is it about a mystery? Despite what Jessica Fletcher shows us. A mystery can’t be solved. If it’s a real mystery, we will never figure it out. That’s why it’s a mystery. However, in faith, through the saving waters of baptism, we enter into a relationship with God. We are invited to encounter Christ. And in that relationship and in that encounter in faith, we get to know the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit.
So in that sense, we come to understand the Trinity, a unity that can never be divided. Never separated. Never lonely. Always together. And is it that the promise of faith that we as a community are always together, never divided? Always united in the love of father, son and Holy Spirit. The greatest mystery of all time. And next week we are going to be asked to to celebrate yet another goat.
The greatest gift of all time. The gift of the Eucharist. So if we say in the saving waters of baptism through father, Son and Holy Spirit, then truly we are united in the spirit of our risen Savior, in the waters of baptism, in the unity of the Trinity. Next week the church says the greatest gift of all, the Eucharist, will unite our hearts and our minds as we become the Body and Blood of Christ.
And so this morning, we celebrate that unity of the body and Blood of Christ. As we baptize grace. Today is really the perfect day to have a baptism because it brings together all of the goats, the gift, the mystery, and above all else, the love of the Trinity. It is amazing how in water and the Holy Spirit we truly find the meaning of our faith.
And today, in our diocese, we are graced to be able to walk the streets of saints. A procession began at Saint Patrick’s Day federal at 10:00. It’s processing with the Eucharist to the shrine of Elizabeth Ann Seton, a great saint of the Americas, a great American woman, one who reminds us that we are called to holiness as she was made stand on the Brooklyn Bridge.
We will greet the Eucharist to bring the Eucharist in our diocese, and tomorrow we will walk the streets of another great saint, Francesca Cabrini, in our own neighborhood. That reminds us that our holiness comes alive in the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, which we are about to celebrate. And so, as we gather now, let us pray in thanksgiving for all of the grace that we have been given the greatest call to holiness, the greatest gift of the Trinity, the greatest gift of the Eucharist, all coming together as we now prepare to baptize this child in our faith.
As a community united in the Eucharist. Let us now call upon all of the saints of God as we prepare to baptize this child.