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Most Holy Trinity
May 22, 2016
Reading I: Proverbs 8:22-31
Responsorial Psalms 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
Reading II: Romans 5:1-5
Gospel: John 16:12-15
Reading 1 Prv 8:22-31
Thus says the wisdom of God:
"The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways,
the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago;
from of old I was poured forth,
at the first, before the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains or springs of water;
before the mountains were settled into place,
before the hills, I was brought forth;
while as yet the earth and fields were not made,
nor the first clods of the world.
"When the Lord established the heavens I was there,
when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
when he made firm the skies above,
when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth;
when he set for the sea its limit,
so that the waters should not transgress his command;
then was I beside him as his craftsman,
and I was his delight day by day,
playing before him all the while,
playing on the surface of his earth;
and I found delight in the human race."
Responsorial Psalm Ps 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
R. (2a) O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars which you set in place —
What is man that you should be mindful of him,
or the son of man that you should care for him?
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
You have made him little less than the angels,
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him rule over the works of your hands,
putting all things under his feet:
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
All sheep and oxen,
yes, and the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air, the fishes of the sea,
and whatever swims the paths of the seas.
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
Reading 2 Rom 5:1-5
Brothers and sisters:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith
to this grace in which we stand,
and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions,
knowing that affliction produces endurance,
and endurance, proven character,
and proven character, hope,
and hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Alleluia Cf. Rv 1:8
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit;
to God who is, who was, and who is to come.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel Jn 16:12-15
Jesus said to his disciples:
"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.
He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.
He will glorify me,
because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
Everything that the Father has is mine;
for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine
and declare it to you."
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/052216.cfm
TRINITY
Sometimes I think it might be slightly disrespectful to discuss the Trinity at all. What we're talking about is something that even in human experience is so sacred that we approach it with the greatest reserve. Better to say too little than too much and to pass over in silence what we do not understand. As we do if ever a conversation turns to the relationship between two people, even perhaps our parents. Really it's none of our business.
What we call “The Trinity” is really the relationships within the living God.
There is a real danger of losing respect for the mystery of life in God if we focus on geometric diagrams or abstract terms. It's not about how 1 can be 3, or 3 can be 1.
For this reason I'd prefer to talk about myself, and how I relate to God. Yes, I do think of god as Father in one way, and of the Word-made-human-in-Jesus in another, and also of the Spirit in yet another way.
The Father is the remote one, as fathers often are. But there is immediately the sense of god being the cause of my being here. I remember when that idea first dawned on me, that without mum and dad I just wouldn't be! Not that I understood it then, or even now for that matter, because the idea of not-being is just an emptiness in my head. There's nothing there.
But I am, because here I am thinking, sitting, typing, relating as I write to some folk I know and many more I don't who will possibly read these hesitant words. I am, and my origin is a secret the key to which is in god, and the closest we can come to getting that key is to use the word 'love', because it has to be something like the love that made me a parent, and I reckon that made my parents have me too. There was a wanting to... Now, where does that sentence go to next? What would be the right word there? Wanting to have a child, we say, but the cliché means more than 'have a baby to cuddle and care for'.
In the end, there's a dimension about reproduction that is beyond our choosing. I wonder is it also of the nature of god that love had to reproduce, both within and to the outside – as in creation and eventually us? It's an idea that Thomas Aquinas felt strongly about. Good of its nature tends to pour itself out. Bonum est diffusivum sui. Love is giving. And 'being' = giving. whatever people would call the source and origin or the cosmos, it must be - as far as we can make sense of anything - a loving-being. a Being loving.
To say I'm grateful to god for my being is so trite. Like calling a tsumani wave a ripple on the ocean. So we move on.
Love is giving, and it's also being close. Aquinas wasn't so smart about this. To the question why would god become one with us in humanity, he could not go past the reasons he found in revelation, and he read those as all focused on sin to be repaired. He had little time for the other idea, that even apart from sin the incarnation might still have happened. He wouldn't say that this is something we can know for sure.
We've come some way since then, and Anselm's position is rapidly becoming the accepted one. It was just for love. “Why did you come?” “I wanted to be with you.” Words we might hear any day, and now we dare to say that that explains the coming of God in the Anointed One, in Jesus the Christ.
It's interesting, what happens when you do ask someone why they came, and this is their reply. "I wanted to be with you." You relax, deeply. You can drop your guard. There's no need to perform, to play the host, not even to make conversation. All the visitor wants is to be here, to be together, so you can carry on with what you were doing or you can sit down and be with them.
This helps me quite a lot to feel less compelled to measure up with Jeshua. I can confidently leave the negatives out of it, and just marvel at the goodness shown to me. Immediately my thought goes lateral too. The divine in Jeshua is so hidden that he could be anybody – and anybody could be him!
In fact the father's love is poured out on me from everybody. All love is god's love to me.
And my responding smile, my respect, my most gentle thank you: it is likewise to my friend and to my father god.
Let's move on again. Jeshua isn't around any more. I didn't live in that country at that time, and he doesn't walk our streets or drive a Ford on our roads. He has gone away. That special time of god being with us has come to an end, and now god is with us in another way.
I relate to the Spirit a bit differently again. The Spirit is actually more real to me than Jeshua because, well, you know – sandals, and walking, and sleeping rough... I like to dream about him and work out what he meant in the things he said, but I'm glad he went away. With the Spirit there is no culture gap.
The Spirit is in me like a second thought. In fact my second thought is getting to be normally a question I put to the Spirit. I say “getting to be” because it usen't to be like this. Now as I'm older and seeing better, I know I need to double-check the bright ideas that come. I could do this. I could say that. We could go there.
Whatever it is, I'm developing the habit of checking. Is this a good idea? It wasn't always so. In fact it was only when I discovered Aspergers that I came to see there was a fault in my thinking patterns. Of course I blamed it on the Aspi, but I daresay I could've learnt to be careful much earlier in my life. But there's another side to this. I don't know how it happened or where it came from, so it must be a mystery gift: nowadays the Spirit is just here, always in touch. The sense of distance has dissolved, like morning mist, as a poet would say.
The Spirit is 'strength' too. Jeshua promised the disciples would have 'power' dynamos – reverberations of dynamite. Not everything is a good idea, as I've discovered, but when there is a good idea and it seems out of reach, the Spirit whispers: We can do it.
Paul says the Spirit prays in us when we don't know what to say. Isn't that always the case? How do you pray for women and children, little babies too, sheltering in tents in a vast sea of tents near the Syrian border, when jets come screaming over and bombs fall and fire bursts out and burns them tents, children, mothers, old folk and all? How do you pray about that?
I feel my anguish gives the Spirit some sort of anchor. Or perhaps in us is the only way god can feel how awful is this creation he has made. But mind you, the paradox is always there: the time of rejoicing. It takes courage to be joyful, the courage of hope.