Trinity Sunday (John 16:12-15)
Trinity Sunday (John 16:12-15)
Living the liturgical year of the Church is a good way to gain perspective. Our lives unfold in a cycle. We have joy, sadness, ups, downs, boredom, excitement. And that is the way it is with the liturgical year. We have just gone through the 50 days of Easter. Isn’t it hard to let that season of promise go? The church offers us two major feasts to help us prolong our spiritual high. The first is the Feast of the Holy Trinity. Next week we’ll reflect on the Feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord.
The Holy Trinity is a dogma of the church. If we ask any Christian what the Holy Trinity is, we will probably get the same answer. We believe that there are three persons in one God. The early church came together to develop this dogma after three centuries of argument. The teaching seemed radical. The doctrine seemed mystical. No one will ever see the Trinity. We will never completely understand. The Theologians of the early church knew that, but Christians immediately tried to define the dogma Trinity clearly. But we’ll never completely know the designs of God. God is far bigger than us.
We still attempt to describe the indescribable. One way is by how we try to portray the Trinity in Christian art. We have a typical example in the stained-glass window over our old high altar. What do we see? We see God the Father portrayed as an old white man on a throne. We see Jesus portrayed on a cross below him. A dove is in between these two figures. The image is very inadequate. Another way that we depict the Trinity is with geometrical shapes. I was stationed at Holy Trinity Church in Bloomington. In the stained-glass there was an image that was repeated dozens of times, three concentric circles joined at one spot. Does this triangular shape help us to understand better? What can point us in the right direction?
In the first lines of the Book of Genesis, we have an interesting verse. Creation evolves until it comes time to create humanity. What does God say in verse 26? God says, “Let us make man after our image.” Notice the two plural pronouns in that sentence which seem to tell us that God is a plurality of persons. God is all about relationship.
The ironic thing is that the normal way we think of God is that we think of God as a single person. How do most Christians picture God? If someone is talking about God how often have we heard it said, “Well, I got to please the man upstairs?” God is that old man sitting on the throne with the tierra on his head in our stained-glass window.
God is like a big Santa Claus who evaluates our lives. He is watching to see who is good or bad. We will receive the gift of eternal life at the end of our life if we are good. We will get a lump of coal if we are not. God is distant. It’s interesting that in the middle of many of the geometrical depictions of the Trinity is an eye. I remember being in the sanctuary of a church one time where there were triangles painted all over the wall. In each triangle was an eye. The symbolism couldn’t be mistaken. “God is watching everything we do.” We won’t get away with anything. Is that a God we are comfortable with?
The doctrine of the Trinity, again, says that God is all about relationship. The three persons of the Trinity are familial. The preeminent virtue that is exercised in the relationships between the three persons is love. The God that is the Trinity created the world and everything in it so that a bond could be started with everything and everyone. The relationships are sustained by love.
We know, human interactions are not static, but relationships evolve. Relationships can be messy at times. We can be disappointed in our dealings with others. We can be uplifted by our relationships. We also know at our connectedness to others makes life worth living. As it says in the 18th verse of Genesis, when God ponders the human that has been created. “It is not good for a human to be alone.” Being alone is a deprivation that is as bad as a lack of food, clothing or shelter. God doesn’t want us to live a life without intimacy. God is always open to sharing intimacy with us. The spiritual question we must answer is whether we want to have an intimate relationship with God? And God gives us free will so that we can choose to enter the divine dance.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not a concept, but it’s about an invitation into the life with God. God has chosen us to be one with the divine. What a gift this is! Let’s rejoice in it today.
Reflection Questions:
- How do I picture God? Where did that portrait come from?
- If God is a relationship how does that change my spiritual life?
Dear Parishioners,
The last few years it has been difficult to gather for worship. On the weekend of June 18th and 19th we commemorate the Feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord. It would be good to consider why the Eucharist is an important part of our faith lives. We have various reasons for going to Mass.
When I was a child, it seemed like the main motivation was a fear of punishment. People were afraid if they did not go to Mass that they would jeopardize their salvation. Miss Mass once, it was said, and you will end up in hell. People came to Mass in large numbers. Probably seventy-five percent of Catholics attended Mass but looking back I now wonder about their level of enthusiasm. We had four Catholic Churches in town and it seemed like the object of many was to find out which priest would say the fastest Mass. Just fulfilling the obligation was the important thing. Homilies were usually short. Many times, there was no preaching or music at all. Few would have said the main reason to be at Mass was to celebrate.
Over the last fifty years people have gradually concluded that a God whose chief attribute is unconditional love would not condemn a person for all eternity for failing to attend Mass one Sunday. Somehow this does not make sense.
The fear of punishment is the weakest moral motivation. The highest motivation is the desire to do the loving thing. Jesus said we are to love God and our neighbor. Jews and Christians highest desire has always been to love God with all our heart, mind and soul. Our worship is a concrete proof of our love for God. The preeminent question of our spiritual life is not, “How do I avoid God’s wrath?” The most important question of the spiritual life is how I can experience, enjoy and express my love for God.
One of the best ways is attending Eucharistic celebrations.
May Our Lady of Peace pray for our violent world today.
Fr. Mark