A priest went into a second-grade classroom of the parish school and asked, "Who can tell me what the Blessed Trinity means?" A little girl lisped, "The Blethed Twinity meanth there are thwee perthonth in one God." The priest, taken aback by the lisp, said, "Would you say that again? I don't understand what you said." The little girl answered, "Y'not suppothed to underthtand; 't'th a mythtewy."
On more than one occasion I have the opportunity to discuss the Church's teaching on the Holy Trinity with someone who could not or would not accept the idea of a triune God. It seems that on each occasion, if I happened to mention anything about the "mystery" of the Trinity, the mere mention of "mystery" was taken to be a sign of weakness in my explanation, if not in the Church's teaching overall on the sacred doctrine.
However, we should realize that to acknowledge the ultimate mystery of God is anything but a weakness. Rather, it shows that we stand in relation to that which is ultimately beyond the scope of our human understanding, but also we stand in relation to that which by means of the Spirit becomes accessible to us and bears the evidence of fruit in our lives in terms of all that it means for one to live his or her humanity as fully as can be.
Our readings today for Trinity Sunday point us to the gradual revelation of the mystery of God made possible by the power of the Holy Spirit among us. God desires greatly to be known among the people chosen to be recipients of salvation. Moses questions the people, "…ask from one end of the sky to the other…Did a people ever hear the voice of God? …did any god ever venture to go and take a nation for himself?"
In effect, Moses describes God as moving from beyond being a distant, static, and entirely conceptual divinity to being experienced as a dynamic and living God who is able to enter the affairs of human life. In Moses questioning he knows already that the people cannot answer him affirmatively because the gods of human understanding—perhaps more correctly, the old gods of human creation—must remain ever in the cold and remote distance of mental objectivity, never to enter the life-world of humanity. Thus Moses makes the point that there is but one true God, and indeed God is one.
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity stands as a fulfillment and as a positive answer to Moses questioning of the people, for in Jesus Christ's humanity we hear the voice of the unseen God, and even more so we see God venture forth and enter into our world to take humanity and to sanctify it in order for it to be his own; that is, for us to be his sons and daughters—the heirs of God.
The Trinity, as expressed by the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church, fully reveals the God of Moses who is living and dynamic and who is able to transcend from the realm of being a unitary and static ideal, an absolute and singular monad, forever set apart from human experience. Our grasping the mystery of God as Trinity, and understanding God as Trinity, reveals God with us and active among us, in relationship to us, at all times.
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity serves the purpose of informing us that God is not distant or unreal, but is such that he desires to know and relate to us as well as we know and relate to ourselves and one another. Furthermore, the Trinity informs us of the divinity of Jesus Christ, that he is God, and that all we might possibly desire to know about God in the deepest mystery can be known by looking to Jesus. The Trinity also reveals the Holy Spirit as alive and with us today in the Church—even here among us—as our constant teacher and comforter, and as he who is effective and acting in the life of the Church.
A good life lesson is that the Trinity reveals how God has desired to have a relationship with humanity throughout time, throughout salvation history—from the days of Moses and the exodus of the Hebrew people from Egypt, to the time when Jesus walked among us, to the early Church following Pentecost and to the modern-day times of the Church. God continually reaches out to us in an overture of holy relationship. In this reaching out God is continually being revealed to us and among us.
In relating to us God teaches us by example to relate to one another in the same way. God teaches us to forgive one another and to forgive ourselves, for in Jesus he has forgiven each of us. God teaches us to give of ourselves for the essence of the Trinity is God's continual self-giving.
By the power of the Holy Spirit we find Jesus, sent from the Father, in the Sacraments we celebrate and then carried forth into the world of our everyday existence. Each one of us becomes a vessel of the mystery of God. Each one of us becomes the evidence and example of God to the world.
God's mystery, the mystery of the Holy Trinity, is a mystery to be lived rather than comprehended—it is a mystery sung in the songs of the psalmist and by the mystic poets. It is a mystery we see in the depth of life, in new life and in the life of the old, in the turning of the seasons and the slow and gradual changes each of us comes to know in birth and in passing.
The power and the beauty of the Trinity is that it shows us clearly that God is able to do all things and does them in such a way that not one of his laws must be broken, not one logical inconsistency must be admitted. The perfect threefold form of God continually reveals the one great overall truth that God is love and is the source of all being.
There is nothing on earth or in heaven that can prevent the unending depths and mystery of grace from being made known. Today we celebrate the mystery of godhead. We celebrate that God is with us always and continues to teach us and guide us and show us the way. We celebrate the God who, rather than being hidden from us, is revealed to us.
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