Sunday, June 15, 2003

The Feast of the Holy Trinity

Readings:
Deuteronomy 4: 32 - 34.39-40: There is but one God
Psalm 32
Romans 8: 14-17: We are children of God
Matthew 28: 16-20: I will be with you until the end of the world

The Holy Trinity as it is and as it has been preached sounds like so much celestial music. It is a mystery: no one understands it. And in the end, however much work we put into it we're never going to be able to uncover it. “One God in three distinct persons. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.”

When most Christians given up on trying to understand the Holy Trinity, it seems to make little sense

for us to try and discover how this supreme Christian mystery impacts on our daily lives. All the same were going to give it a shot, because if in fact we believe that we are made in the image of God, then we should try to understand this image of God so that we in turn might better understand ourselves.

In general, the ideas that we have about God, are not very Christian. Most of our ideas about God come from Greek philosophy, when it infiltrated Christian communities at the beginning of the Church. In the best of all instances, our ideas of God come from the Jews.

For some God is that “which moves all things from on high”. For others, God is the beginning in the end of all, Aristotle’s unmoved mover, or Plato’s creative intelligence. For others God is a personal being, someone angry, jealous, vengeful, unmoved, and impassive. These are images of a God that Jesus canceled out 20 centuries ago. God is not like that.

God is not something; God is someone. Jesus told us this. He said, “When you pray, say, ‘father.’” God had been called ‘father’ centuries before Jesus. We have discovered Sumarian prayers which address the sun god as “father”. But it seems that that image of God had been forgotten.

These days now that the image of the father has fallen into disrepute, in these days in which we suffer a striking crisis of authority, should we continue speaking of God as “father”? Or what kind of father is God?

The God of Jesus, is father but not in a paternalistic nor an authoritative manner. John says in his gospel, “The Father and I are the same thing.” Jesus says to his Father, “ I know that you always hear me.” The primary place of the Father in the Trinity is not done at the cost of the Son. Indeed the authority of the Father is exercised in a paradoxical manner: “The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.” Trust and complete commitment shapes the relationship between God the Father and God the Son.

God is also Son. In other words, God is also dependent. At all families, the Son's birth depends upon his parents. However to exist as a person the umbilical cord must be cut. There is a dependence and an autonomy that conexist. Presently we're seeing a crisis over the role the father. Parents are rejected by their children; governmental authority is challenged by citizens. Indeed we can begin to speak of the abandonment of the patriarchal system. Would this be because the father smothers the aspirations of his children, or because his children, seeking their liberty, refused to recognize their dependence upon their father?

In the Holy Trinity this is not what happens. The Son does not reject the Father. The Son and the Father or the same. “Whoever sees me sees my Father.” The Son does not suffer domination, nor does the Son practice anarchy. It is love which levels out everything thanks to the spirit. Paul says it clearly in his letter to the Romans: the fact that we call God “Father”, far from enslaving us, sets us free from all slavery, because God is our Father. No other human being can claim to be our lord and our master, for we are all children of the divine promise.

God, finally, is spirit. Like wind and fire, heat, freedom and love. Without the spirit, the relationship between the Father in the Son would be a tortured martyrdom of cold inattention.

And this is where the Holy Trinity becomes a lesson of life for us. In our society we need authority and we need parents. We don't need authoritarianism or paternalism. Children need to depend on their parents but this dependence cannot dishonor the children’s autonomy. And all of this needs to be bound by love, freedom, listening, in the warmth of a home.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus sends his disciples out to all the nations, to consecrate them to God Father, Son, and Spirit. These new disciples are not taught a new doctrine, but are ordered to put into practice the “smallest of the commandments”, that is, the Beatitudes, taken from the ten commandments given to Moses. The practice of the Beatitudes would lead to the birth of a new society, austere, united, filled with love and openness, freed from authoritarianism, respecting differences. Jesus would always be present in this new society, fulfilling the promise of Emanuel, of God-With-Us: “And know that I will be with you always, even until the end of the world.”

For Personal Consideration:

For the Group’s Consideration

God established a first covenant with the Jewish people based on the Law. This first covenant was renewed and offered to humankind, a covenant not now based on law but on love, not carved out in the stone of the tablets, but in the heart and flesh of Jesus. Is my faith based upon following the Law, or upon the quality of my relationship with God?

Are our liturgical gatherings marked by joy, happiness, fraternity, and a common spirit?

For the Prayer of the Faithful

Let us pray

     Oh Loving Triune God, eternal mystery, of whose love we cannot even begin to approach, awaken within us your own life, that which you have placed in all that has been created, so that we may be inspired to take charge of this life that you have given us. May our actions reflect the same love for life that you show us as a Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, forever and ever, Amen.