Do Puppies Need to Go to Mass? A Dialogue
Trinity Sunday
There’s this conversation I had the other day. One might call it an argument. One might call it a dialogue. In any case, on this Trinity Sunday, I wanted to share it with you.
This is the conversation I had with Floyd, my corgi puppy, about the Trinity.
Okay, Floyd, I need to go say Mass. That’s because I’m a priest, and one of the things priests have to do is say Mass. Now, puppies don’t need to go to Mass, so it’s time to go in your crate.
But, Father, why don’t I need to go to Mass?
I told him, Because puppies don’t need salvation, but I do.
He cocked his head and asked, Why don’t puppies need salvation?
Because puppies can’t sin, I replied.
He objected, What do you mean puppies can’t sin? I do things you don’t like all the time.
Yes, Floyd, but you misbehave by instinct and habit. Humans do wrong freely and deliberately because we have a rational intellect and will.
Are you saying I’m not intelligent? he said looking rather offended.
No, I assured him, you certainly are, only you’re intelligent for the kind creature you are. But God made different creatures in different ways, and he made humans in his image and likeness, meaning we can think and choose freely—but not puppies.
Well, Father, hold on for just a moment. Does not the Psalmist say “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (19:1)? And does this not suggest that all of creation, being the creation of God, bears God’s image? Furthermore, don’t you recall that Saint Paul writes to the Romans that the invisible God can be “clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (1:20)? Have not the great philosophers and theologians of the Christian tradition taken this to mean that all of creation bears the mark of the Creator? Would I, then, not also be considered to have been made in God’s image and likeness?
Certainly, dear pup, your argument is well-founded on Scripture, and the saints do agree with your assertion that God is reflected in all he has made. But you forget the distinction they also make between “image” and “trace”. Saint Augustine was the first to teach that, while all of creation bears a trace of God, only human beings bear the image of God. So, on me God has left his image, but on you only his trace.
Now, Father, isn’t that just semantics? What difference is there between “image” and “trace”?
Floyd, allow me to teach you. First, let’s expand what we mean by God. We believe that God is not only the first cause of all that exists and the most supreme being. As Christians, we also profess the same God is a Trinity of divine persons.
His ears perked up. A Trinity?! Sort of like how I’m a tri-color corgi and am three distinct colors while being only one individual dog?
No, I’m sorry, Floyd. That’s the heresy of partialism, which says that the one God is not three distinct persons but is just broken up into three different parts. But that’s a lesson for another day. All I want to do now is make one fundamental point about the Trinity: What distinguishes and unites the three divine persons is love. The love of the Father eternally begets the Son, and the Son eternally returns himself in love to the Father, and the bond of love that unites the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit.
I see, Father. But I think we’ve gotten a bit off topic. We started out talking about why you say puppies don’t need to go to Mass. Now we’re talking about the Trinity. Does any of this connect?
It certainly does! Floyd, let me ask you: If God at his essence is love, then all of creation must bear the mark of his love and, to some degree, be capable of loving. Do you agree?
I suppose, he said.
I asked further, But not everything can love in the same way, can it?
I would think not, he replied.
You and I, Floyd, for example, love in completely different ways.
How so? he asked.
Well, my boy, you love me because I care for you. I feed you, provide for your well-being, take you out, and make sure you have all you need to live a happy and fulfilled life. Do I not?
You most certainly do, he said.
And you love me for what I do for you? Do you not?
Yes, I do, he said with a smile.
But if I stopped doing all those things—if I left you in your crate all day, fed you rocks, didn’t play with you, and gave you no attention at all—would you still love me?
I think not, he said as he shook his head.
No, you wouldn’t. You, as a puppy, aren’t capable of loving me for my own sake. Your love is dependent on what you receive, and therefore your love is transactional, which is proper to your puppyhood. But the love that’s proper to humans is different and higher—loving purely for the sake of the one who is loved, not just for oneself.
Father, hold on. Don’t you also love people for what they do for you?
Of course! I replied. But that’s not the fullest form of love, and I constantly need to work at loving better—not out of self-interest, but in the manner of self-gift. I should love not because of what I gain but because I am called to give.
He nodded. Now I’m beginning to see the difference, but could you tell me more about this higher form of love, since clearly I don’t know anything about it?
Sure. The degree to which we can love is relative to the degree that God has impressed himself upon us. In you, he has left a trace, and you can love in some way, but only for your own benefit. Because God has made me in his image, I share the same capacities of God—the capacities to know, to choose, and to love freely. God did not need to create the world, but he did. Why? Because of love. God did not need to redeem the world, but he did. Why? Because of love. God does not need to continually sanctify the world, but he does. Why? Because of love. In all of this, God gains no benefit. All that God does is for the benefit of his creation. And, thus, God’s only motivation is love because God, at his essence, is love. As a human, made in God’s image, I’m called to love with the very love of God.
Floyd, you love because you bear a trace of God within you. But since it’s only a trace, the love you’re capable of is small. But I bear God’s image, which means the love I’m called to—and with God’s help am capable of—is great. Do you understand?
Yes, I do, he said. But there is something I still don’t get. You said at the beginning that you need to go to Mass because you need salvation, while I don’t. Well, if you go to Mass to be saved, aren’t you then loving God because God gives you something? Would you go to Mass even if you didn’t get anything out of it? If not, how are you any different from me?
Floyd, that is a point well-taken. I’m afraid even what I first said to you did not meet the standard of love I’m called to reach. What I should have said is that I need to go to Mass because I need to worship God; and the act of worshipping God is first and foremost for his praise and glory and only secondarily does it benefit me.
When people go to Mass, they go for many different reasons. Some will tell you they go for a good homily. Others will say they go for a sense of belonging to a community. Most will tell you they’re there to receive the Eucharist. None of those are bad reasons. In fact, they’re all quite good. But they are not the most important reason why we should go to Mass—why we need to go to Mass.
You will remember that Aristotle said that a thing becomes more fully itself the more it approaches the end for which it is made. You are most fully a puppy when you are running around in the yard, playing fetch, and rolling in the grass. When I see you like that, I know you are happy, and that makes me happy. You are living as you are supposed to live—as God made you to live. Well, you see, God made me—and all of us humans—to love as he loves, which as I told you, is selfless. When we love like that, we are living as we are supposed to live, and this is what makes us happy. But that love is hard—very hard—and on our own, we will never be able to reach it.
But when we go to Mass, God brings us once again into his most profound act of love, the Cross—as the Son returns in love all that he is to the Father, and the Father receives his Son back in love as the Eucharist, his Body and Blood, is lifted up from the altar. The love between them, the Holy Spirit, gathers us together and makes us part of the Son’s self-offering, so that we, too, can participate in Jesus’ perfect act of love. And this is the point: the more we are part of that love, the more we are who we are supposed to be, and the more we are able to put that love into practice in loving our families, friends, strangers, and yes, little Floyd, loving even you. Mass makes us humans capable of the love that God calls us to—a selfless love that is properly human, because it is first a love that is properly divine.
So that’s why I need to go to Mass. How does that sound, Floyd?
Thank you, Father. It sounds like you should do what you are supposed to do. I will lay here and rest so that, when you return, I can fulfill my being by demanding treats from you.
Very good, my boy. Sleep well. Good-bye.
Homily preached May 26, 2024 at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen