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.
Our celebration of Easter has brought us again to Trinity Sunday. The struggle against evil has revealed a truth about God we could never have imagined. If we defined God as all powerful, we have been astonished into deep silence by God's surrender of all authority in heaven and earth to Jesus, the son of Mary. Who, in his turn, was drained to fatal exhaustion by his ignominious death on a cross. And when we had despaired of all hope, when even our benevolent and omnipotent God had been destroyed by petty human authorities, as we hid in the Upper Room, finding solace in companionable misery, he came to us. Filled with the Holy Spirit, he has charged us to tell the whole world about our Crucified and Risen Lord.
If the story of our salvation could be distilled into a few words, it would be the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The relationship of three divine "persons" is more foundational than atoms, quarks, and hadrons. Fourth century Catholic theologians limned "string theory" long before the physicists when they studied the "bonds" of the Trinity in our scriptures and tradition. The Father is Father because there is a Son, and vice versa. Without the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit there is no God.
Of course, the gospel cannot be distilled and even to suggest it smacks of sacrilege. If the Sun can be defined as a star, and the Earth as a planet, and if such banal words could slake our thirst for knowledge of these wonderful objects, Trinity would still defy our understanding. And yet we live within the sunshine of God's presence, we glory in the welcome the Trinity extends to us.
Our liturgies, including the Mass, the sacraments, and the Liturgy of the Hours, draw us into the life of the Trinity. We pray to the Father, with Jesus, in the Holy Spirit. We would not come to Church (or to private prayer) if the Holy Spirit did not draw us together. We would not know what words to say without the Word Made Flesh who has lived among us. Just as the thoughts in our heads find words in our mouths that are sounded with the breath of our lungs, so our prayers leap into the Father's presence with Jesus in his Spirit.
The feast of the Holy Trinity recaps the last three months of prayer, the Easter Cycle from Ash Wednesday to Pentecost. It reminds us as we set out to the deep of Ordinary Time, to know and fix in your hearts:
I am the LORD, there is no other,
there is no God besides me.
It is I who arm you, though you do not know me,
so that all may know, from the rising of the sun
to its setting, that there is none besides me.
I am the LORD, there is no other.
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.