THE FEAST OF THE TRINITY reminds us that God is a family of love. We are dealing here not just with some terribly abstract theological doctrine, still less with a mathematical contradiction that 3=1! We are not saying that one God is three gods but that in one God there are three Persons. What Scripture reveals to us is a unity of three real persons. Of course, to try to understand fully how one God can be three Persons is not really possible for us. There are two extremes to be avoided:
a. Breaking our head trying to work out fully how one God can be three Persons;
b. Saying, "Oh, it's a mystery" and not bother to have any understanding at all.
Our search for meaning
On the one hand, as human beings we want to understand, to find meaning in things and we should always try to go as far as we can in making sense of our faith. On the other hand, there are many things in life which are and probably always will be far beyond our understanding. (Recently, the famous scientist, Stephen Hawkings, said he had given up his dream of finding a single mathematical equation that would explain the ultimate existence of everything.) That does not meant we deny their truth or their existence. Even human life itself, even our own lives, our very identity as persons is something we never fully grasp.
Instead, then, of trying to indulge in theological acrobatics or worrying about orthodox formulations, let us instead try to enter into a relationship with these three Persons, through whom God is revealed to us. "The love of God," says Paul today in the Second Reading, "has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us." That is what it is all about.
Behaviour and existence
It was the theologian St Thomas Aquinas who said many centuries ago that "action follows being" (agere sequitur esse). That is to say, the behaviour of any person, animal, plant or thing is determined by what that person, plant, animal or thing is. Human beings can play the piano and geckos can walk along the ceiling. Dogs bark, horses neigh (they only speak on TV), donkeys bray, birds sing. Ducks can swim and fly but hens can do neither.
The reverse is also true. We can get some understanding of what a person or thing is by its behaviour. If I say about someone, "He IS a very nice person." On what do I base my statement? Surely on the way that this person consistently behaves, on his ACTIONS. It becomes even clearer in something like atomic physics. No one has ever actually seen an atom - it is simply too small. But scientists can observe the behaviour of atoms and from that behaviour they can confidently describe something of what an atom is.
A world of mystery
One hears it said sometimes that science has removed all the mysteries from life. Nothing could be further from the truth. The more that science discovers about our universe, whether at the atomic or galactic level, the more questions, the more mysteries emerge.
Life is full of mysteries, including the mystery of my own self and there is no need to be discouraged by that fact. If the material world can be such a mystery, it is hardly surprising that its Creator should not be an even greater mystery too.
What we mean by 'mystery'
It is important to be aware that when we say the Trinity is a mystery we are not saying that it is just an impenetrable puzzle, still less a contradiction in terms (3=1). The word "mystery" when used in the Christian Testament rather speaks of something that was previously unknown but is now revealed to and shared by a privileged group of people. The membership card to this privileged group is faith - faith in God as Father, faith in God as the Son whom he sent to us as Jesus Christ, and faith in God as the Spirit that teaches and guides us here and now.
While the inner reality of the Trinity is something we cannot penetrate now, there is much about these three Persons that we can know from what they do. From their actions we can know a lot about who they are both in themselves, between themselves and in their relationship to us.
The 'persona'
The Latin word persona translates the Greek word prosopon. Prosopon really refers to the mask that Greek actors used to wear to indicate the role they were playing. There is something similar in Chinese opera where the design of the make-up on the face lets the audience know immediately who or what kind of person the actor is supposed to be. The mask then comes to mean role or function. So even today in our play programmes we look at the Dramatis Personae, the roles in the play.
What the Trinity then says is that God has three "masks" indicating three distinct roles or functions. God reaches us personally in three different ways. Although it took the Church a couple of centuries to express this in theological language, the three "roles" of God are clearly delineated in the Scriptures, both Hebrew and Christian. The three Readings today are clear testimony of this.
God as Creator
We see God as Father and Mother, the origin and creator of all life and dependent existence. This Person is both the origin and goal, the Alpha and Omega, of all things, of all life. This Person is the source of all Truth and Love, a Person of Mercy and Compassion, the source of all Wisdom. And our hearts will find not rest until they rest in Him-Her. It is beautifully expressed in the First Reading from the Book of Proverbs. (Take time out to read it slowly today.)
God's love in Jesus
In the Second Reading from the Letter to the Romans, Paul tells us how God's love has been made known to us in the Person of the Son, Jesus Christ. We see God as Son in Jesus, the visible and human revelation and manifestation of God's love and compassion for the whole world. This love is climaxed in the extraordinary events of Jesus suffering, dying and rising to life.
In Jesus, the transcendent and unknowable God is presented in a form, which helps us to have some understanding of his real nature and to reach out to him. Jesus builds a bridge between the human and divine. He is the pontifex, the bridge-maker. God's love becomes humanised and therefore tangible, understandable and able to be more easily followed and imitated. For when Jesus is at his most sublimely human we are in closest touch with the Divine in him.
The Spirit our Teacher
Finally, we see God as Spirit forming us, guiding us, teaching us, moving us, comforting and strengthening us. We find God through his Spirit acting in and through us, in and through others. Constantly creating and re-creating, making all things new. The Spirit is sometimes called the 'soul of the Church'. Without that 'soul' our Church is just a human institution.
A shared life
One final consideration. God's own life is a shared life, a life of mutually interacting relationships. From this we can consider that we are called to a shared living with the Three who are one God, with other people and with our whole created environment. We are called to find unity and harmony in the midst of ever-changing diversity.
Furthermore, has it ever occurred to us that each one of us - like God and yet differently from him - is a community of persons? We are a composite of all the persons that have entered deeply into our lives, beginning with our parents and our family members.
Deep divisions
Yet, both on the intra-personal and inter-personal level, we can experience deep divisions - divided in ourselves, divided against others. Inner conflicts, outer conflicts are often a source of great pain and anguish.
Let us turn to God in the community of his Persons, a community of perfect sharing and equality. It is in his image that we have been created and it is to grow ever more into his image that we are called. It is a world of harmony, peace and joy.
A simple but awesome prayer
Finally, today's feast can be a reminder to pray with much greater meaning and respectfulness that most common of all prayers, so common we hardly think of it as a prayer - the Sign of the Cross. It combines both the mystery of the Trinity and mystery of our salvation through Jesus' suffering, death and rising to life. It encapsulates in so few words and a simple movement of the arm all that we believe in and all that we live for. Let us, then resolve to make this sign with greater dignity and reverence and in a spirit of real prayer.
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