The Trinity Weaves a Web

At my folks' home in Wisconsin this weekend I saw a new birdhouse: an old grill with an entrance through a hole in the side for the rotisserie handle.  I saw some stems and straws sticking out of a corner.  When I lifted the lid I saw a nest with a mewling mass of the tiniest sparrows you could imagine blinking up at me.  I quickly closed the cover and spent some pleasant moments watching the mother and father enter and exit the "nest" with grubs for their babies.

This Sunday we celebrated the feast of the Holy Trinity.  At the 8 am Mass at St. Norbert's in nearby Roxbury I heard the chatter and chirping of quite a number of children.  I thought of the chicks in the nest and realized that our human birdlings were really not much different.  They were chirping and clamoring for their parents' attention or squabbling or babbling as the mass moved along.  And, to extend the metaphor, the nest was the church, the building and the larger church of all of us Christians, with the Trinity weaving the nest together with bits of straw, stems, and love.