JANUARY 20, 2019
9:00 AM, 5:30 PM ORDINARY FORM (ENGLISH) MASSES
A hat trick in ice hockey is when a player scores three goals in the same game.
Currently, when a player scores a hat trick - that is three goals - fans toss their own hats onto the ice.
The origins are a bit murkier lost in the history of the early 20th century.
Multiple sources in different cities claim that local haberdashers - that is hat-makers - would make a gift of a fedora to any player who achieved three goals. While this appears to be the official story upheld by the Hockey Hall of Fame, which places the occurrence in Chicago in the 1940s. Toronto, Montreal, and Guelph all claim to have been the origin.
Yet, the term was in use already in the 1930s. And the term “hat trick” was so well known by the 1940s that the Amateur Hockey Association was giving away small silver derbies – sort of like the Monopoly playing piece – by the mid 1940s.
Wayne Gretzky holds the record for the most career hat tricks – with 50 under his belt. The first hat trick was scored in 1917, while the fastest “perfect” hat trick – that is, three scores in a row – is 21 seconds.
A humorous variation, named after a Detroit Red Wings player, is the Gordie Howe hat-trick: scoring a goal, getting an assist, and then getting in a fight.
Wherever it came from, it is part of the language of ice hockey to this day.
Today is the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time.
Our Gospel reading is from the second chapter of St. John’s Gospel – the Wedding Feast at Cana.
The Wedding at Cana is sort of third piece of a “hat trick” of Gospel events known as “theophanies.” A theophany is a visible manifestation of God.
As John tells us, this is Jesus’s first miracle, and yet it is the third theophany.
The other two have been played out over the past several weeks in the Epiphany – when Jesus is first recognized by the Gentiles as “king and God and sacrifice;” and in the Baptism of the Lord – where as Jesus comes out of the water, the Trinity is shown forth in the Father’s voice, the Son – in Jesus himself – and the Holy Spirit descending like a dove.
In St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he points out a sort of “hat-trick” to remind us that:
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God …
In Paul’s time, as in ours, there were divisions among Christians – not just what we might consider denominational differences – but even with individual communities. St. Paul wants to emphasize that no matter what your role, we are called to unity in the Trinity. There is one God, one Lord, and one Spirit. And if the we acknowledge three divine Persons united in the Trinity – then through the grace and power of that same God – we should seek to resolve and remove any and all divisions among Christians.
In the first reading from Isaiah, we hear that God will not be silent until Israel is reconciled to Him, and until all nations are reconciled through, with, and in Him.
As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, and as we will shortly profess the Creed – our belief in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – that we might be united in Christ Jesus, by the power of God … so that as we are filled with the Spirit of God, we might make manifest in the world the saving power of the Most Holy Trinity – in whom we have been baptized.
