ON THE SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST we always celebrate the Feast of the Holy
Trinity. From now on until Advent and the beginning of the next Church
year at Advent we will return to celebrating the "ordinary" Sundays of
the Year, more or less picking up where we stopped before Lent.
The teaching about the Trinity is one of the most fundamental in our
Christian faith. It is not found as such in the Hebrew Testament. It
is also a teaching that many would prefer not to have to explain. We
often refer to it as a 'mystery' and therefore something which can be
affirmed but cannot be fully understood, still less fully explained.
Trinity as mystery
In the Christian Testament, the word 'mystery' primarily refers not to
something which is obscure and difficult to understand but, on the
contrary, to something, formerly hidden, which is now being made known
to those on the "inside", something which we otherwise would not know.
The Trinity, namely, that in one God there are three Persons, is really
a mystery in this sense. We could not know about it, if we had not been
told.
Of course, it is also difficult for us to see how one being can be three
persons just as it is difficult for us to understand how Jesus can be
both God and a human person (the 'mystery' of the Incarnation).
Three reactions
We can react to this situation in three ways: one, by saying it is all
rubbish anyway; two, by just not thinking about it at all; three, by
trying to reduce it to categories which are within our human
comprehension.
None of these approaches is really very helpful. Rather, we should try
to understand it as well as we can, and say as much as we can while
acknowledging that we can only go a certain distance in our
comprehension. However, it is possible to go far enough to satisfy our
hunger for truth and our desire to have a deeper understanding of our
God.
No mathematical contradiction
One thing we can say right at the beginning: we are not dealing with
outright contradictions or trying to believe the impossible. We are not
being asked to accept that 3=1.
We are asked to believe that, in the one being we call God, there are
three Persons. Of itself, this is a statement we can neither affirm or
deny on the basis of reason alone. We are not in a position to make
definitive statements about a transcendent God. We can only listen
humbly to the statement in today's Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer
where God is addressed as "three Persons equal in majesty, undivided in
splendour, yet one Lord, one God, ever to be adored".
Rather than getting ourselves tied up in theological knots, we would do
far better by reading prayerfully the beautiful Scripture readings of
today's Mass. Here there are no abstruse theological explanations or
speculations. Rather, the emphasis is not on what, or how, or why, but,
in very practical language, on the tangible way the persons in the
Trinity relate to us.
A God who is close
The message coming loud and clear through these readings is that our God
is not far away, that he is not "up there somewhere", a kind of scary,
long-bearded policeman ready to jump on us the moment we set a foot
wrong. The message is rather that our God is close by and he cares.
In the First Reading (from Exodus) Moses is told that God is the "Lord,
a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness and
faithfulness". We really need to hear that, especially when we find
times rough and painful.
Three faces of God
Many years ago there was a film called "The Three Faces of Eve". It was
the story about a woman who had a multiple personality. In a rather
different way, we could speak of the Three Faces of God. In Greek drama
of classical times, one could recognise the character being played by
the mask that the actor wore. In Chinese opera we have something very
similar where the faces of the players are painted in different colours
to indicate their role. The mask was called a prosopon. In Latin this
word was translated as persona. And in theatre programmes we have a
'Dramatis personae', listing the roles or characters in the play.
So, we can say that there are three personae or roles in our one God.
In a play the role is assumed only for the duration of the drama while,
in God, the roles are permanently identified with God himself.
The roles of God
It might be helpful to look briefly at these three distinct roles of God
as they are presented to us in Scripture:
a. Father Traditionally the Christian Testament speaks of God as Father
but we know there are no sexual differences in God. So today people are
also speaking of God as Mother. In either case, we see God as the
originator, the source, the conserver of all life and of all that exists.
"In him/her," says the Acts of the Apostles, "we live and move and have
our being."
But God is no puppet operator up in the clouds but an indwelling Lord.
God is to be sought and found in all things, which he has created and
keeps in being: from the simplest minerals, vibrant with atomic energy,
to the most gifted and creative of human beings to the outermost galaxy
way beyond our most advanced telescopes. So we have the lovely prayer
of Moses in today's First Reading, "Let my Lord come with us".
God the Son
b. Son If we can speak of God as Father, then the "only-begotten" is
spoken of as Son. The "only-begotten" as such, having the nature of God,
is both male and female, even though incarnation de facto took place in
a male body. We need to note that the Creed in Latin says "et homo
factus est". This should be translated "became a human person". The
word homo in Latin means a human person and does not indicate the male
of the species. This may have implications for the right of a woman to
represent Christ e.g. in the priesthood. The translation "and was made
man" is, to say the least, misleading.
We know the "Son", of course, best through Jesus, the man born of Mary.
In him there was the mysterious combination of the divine and the human
in one Person. A truth as far beyond our comprehension as the Trinity
itself.
Jesus is so precious to us because, in him, we have a partial unveiling
under the limitations of humanity of our God. The message of this
revelation is primarily to let us know that God loves us with an
overwhelming love. "God loves the world so much that he gave his only
Son so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have
eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the
world, but so that through him the world might be saved." This is the
message in today's Gospel.
God the Spirit
c. Spirit Finally, we see God as indwelling Spirit. The Spirit is
described, in theological language, as the subsisting love that is
generated between the Father and the Son. Again, of course, we cannot
speak of 'he' or 'she', still less of this Love as 'it'. The meaning of
the Spirit in practice means that God is indwelling in all creation and
revealing himself through it.
Wherever there is truth or love or beauty, in nature or humanity, there
is the Spirit of God. Every act of truth and integrity, every act of
love and compassion, every act of human empathy, every act of solidarity,
forgiveness, acceptance, justice is the Spirit of God working in and
through us. When such actions appear consistently in us, they are a
sign that we are under the influence of God's Spirit.
Let us then pray today with Paul in the Second Reading: "Try to grow
perfect; help one another. Be united; live in peace, and the God of
love and peace will be with you". And then he concludes with this
lovely Trinitarian prayer we often use as a greeting at the beginning of
Mass: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God [Father] and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit with you all."
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