June 15, 2014: MOST HOLY TRINITY
Exodus: “The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.”
Daniel 3:52, 53, 54: Glory and praise for ever!
2 Corinthians 13:11-13: Med your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.
John 3:16-11: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
June is the month of the Sacred Heart
Scripture Notes from the Sourcebook:
ABOUT THIS SOLEMNITY: Today’s solemnity commemorates the dogma of Christianity: the Trinity. One of the greatest gifts of the Christian faith is the dogma of the triune God: God is three (tri) in one (une). The Christian God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is relational. How amazing and wonderfully mysterious at the same time!
THE FIRST READING: Moses experiences the presence of God for a second time on Mount Sinai. Most important in today’s passage is the self-revelation of God in verse 6: “The Lord, a merciful and gracious God, / slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” It is a text that recurs several times in the Old Testament. This is how the Israelites remembered and loved God. It is how God promised to be for them in covenant fidelity.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM (CANTICLE): Our response is a hymn of praise from the prophet Daniel, not the Book of Psalms. It is a long hymn, sung by Azariah and his companions from the midst of the fiery furnace where they had been thrown in punishment but stood unharmed (see Daniel 3:1-24). Azariah praises God enthroned in glory in the heavenly Temple but who nevertheless looks into the depths, even into the fiery furnace where Azariah and his companions have been cast.
SECOND READING: Relationships within the community of believers are to be characterized by joy, loving concern for others, uprightness, unity, and peace. For such are the characteristics of God, and so must we be, in God’s image.
THE GOSPEL: We hear Jesus’s revelation of God’s love for the world, so great that he sent his Son that all might have eternal life through their faith in him. Notice that the word “believe” occurs four times in three verses. Our passage is not about God’s revelation, but about human faith. Jesus relates to God as Father, source of life. So is our relationship, our life, through faith.
PASTORAL REFLECTION: The impossibility of fully understanding God is shared today: God as Parent, God as Child, god as Spirit. Knowing God, in all his ways, is vital to living the message that was given. Which aspect of God’s nature allows you to speak God’s name so others believe? While all natures are vital, our prayer and spirituality is influenced deeply by the Divine nature that makes most sense to us. Uncover your answer and then be bold enough to seek out conversations with faith-filled friends and ask them their thoughts too; in doing so, you share the Gospel.. --2014 Sourcebook for Sundays, Seasons & Weekends
HOLY TRINITY: You have probably seen reproductions of the famous Roublev icon of the Trinity. The three persons are seated around a table in an attitude of deep harmony and peace; the very lines of the icon create a circle within which the unity of the persons, the manner of their presence to one another, is visible. The same circle even subtly suggests a cup or chalice, and at the focal point of the icon there is a cup between them on the table. It is a wonderful use of symbol and suggestion. The Trinity hints at the Eucharist. It is as if the divine persons were saying: be one with one another as we are one (see John 17:21). The fourth side of the table is a free space, inviting you into the life of the Trinity. The reverse perspective of the furniture conveys a feeling that you are already within.
Last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday, the feast of the Holy Spirit. It was the end of the Eastertide Liturgy. Today, having (as it were) collected all three Divine Persons, we celebrate the Trinity. We are taking a look at our God. Or admiring the full scope of the Christian revelation. It is vast: it is as vast as three religions. You can’t miss God. No matter which way you point (up to the Father, out and around you to Jesus, and in to the Spirit) you get caught up in the vast web. Christianity is able to feel with all the religions of the world, because it has something of them in itself. Of course Christians have often ignored or despised them in the course of its history, but that is not the teaching or the spirit of Christianity. We are to discern the spirits, to see which come from God. The spirit of our Faith is as wide as the world - wider than the world.
We are being invited and drawn into the inner life of the Trinity, to sit at that empty place at God's table. Jesus is the way, the Spirit is the inner urge to move that way. “No one can come to the Father unless the Father draw him” (Jn 6:44). Commenting on this in the fifth century, St Augustine wrote: “He did not say lead, but draw. This ‘violence’ is done to the heart, not to the body....Believe and you come; love and you are drawn. Do not suppose here any rough and uneasy violence. It is gentle, it is sweet, it is the sweetness that draws you. Is not a sheep drawn when fresh grass is shown to it in its hunger? Yet I imagine that it is not driven bodily on, but bound by desire. In this way too you come to Christ: do not imagine long journeyings; in the very place where you believe, there you come. For to him who is everywhere we come by love, not by sailing.”
The Trinity is living in us and we in the Trinity. This contrasts sharply with the experience that many people have of God; but we are never to doubt it. The life of God is ours, and it is to be ours even more. Jesus once said, “It is the Father living in me who is doing this work” (Jn 14:10). Because we are Christ’s body we are can say this too.
--- Donagh O’Shea for the Dominicans of Ireland, Today’s Good News
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THE SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY TRINITY: Throughout the Easter Season we have been celebrating the work of the Trinity. Perhaps that is why the church celebrates the Holy Trinity on this first Lord’s Day after Eastertime. It helps to remind us of what we celebrate every Lord’s Day: The risen Christ sends the Holy Spirit to be God’s presence in us and in all God’s creation. As Christians, we are called to begin and end whatever we say or do, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” – Mary Ellen Hynes, from Companion to the Calender
“I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.” ― Anne Lamott
I perceived or thought of the Light of God and in it suspended one small mote (or millions of motes to only one of which was my small mind directed), glittering white because of the individual ray from the Light which both held and lit it...And the ray was the Guardian Angel of the mote: not a thing interposed between God and the creature, but God's very attention itself, personalized...This is a finite parallel to the Infinite. As the love of the Father and Son (who are infinite and equal) is a Person, so the love and attention of the Light to the Mote is a person (that is both with us and in Heaven): finite but divine, i.e. angelic. ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
“The Best ideal is the true and other truth is none. All glory be ascribed to the holy Three in One.” ― Gerard Manley Hopkins
A Jesus Follower can explain our "One God in Three Persons" is like an "equilateral triangle". Both have three, conjoined, and distinct but identical parts. This is a simple way to help non-Followers of Jesus who struggle with the concept of Trinity to better understand the Three Personalities of our One Living God...God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit." ― Gary F. Patton
“In the seventh century, John of Damascus described the relationship of the three persons of God as perichoresis. This word literally means “the circle dance.”
― Tobin Wilson
WHAT IS THE TRINITY? St. John of the Cross wrote a poem in which he meditated upon the mystery of the Trinity under the metaphor of a spring of water.
The meaning of the poem, in brief
In the first six stanzas, the Mystical Doctor discusses the Divine Essence itself, yet seamlessly transitions from the Essence to the person of the Father – a masterful example of theological precision of which the Saint is capable, even in his poetry! The “eternal spring” is the whole Trinity, for only of the entire Trinity may we rightly say, “I know that nothing else is so beautiful” (stanza 3) and that it creates and sustains “the lands of hell, the heaven, and earth” (stanza 6). In the seventh stanza, at the words “I know well the stream that flows from this spring,” it is clear that the “spring” is the Father, while the “stream” is the Son – for the Son has eternally proceeded from his Father.
The seventh stanza speaks of the Son, while the eighth turns to the person of the Holy Spirit: “I know the stream proceeding from these two.” Here we have the famous filioque – the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son, as from a single principle; though, he proceeds principally from the Father (apud St. Augustine). And yet, although the Spirit is from the Father and the Son, he is not after these two: “I know […] that neither of them in fact precedes it.”
Finally, in the ninth through the eleventh stanzas, St. John incites our minds and hearts to long for (indeed to thirst for) this living water, the indwelling of the Most Holy Trinity. The Carmelite father directs us to the Most Holy Eucharist: “This living spring that I long for, I see in this bread of life, although it is night.” -- http://newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2011/03/most-holy-trinity-as-spring-of-water.html
Cantar del alma que se huelga de conocer a Dios por fe
(Song of the soul that rejoices in knowing God by faith)
For I know well the spring that flows and runs,
although it is night.
1. That eternal spring is hidden,
for I know well where it has its rise,
although it is night.
2. I do not know its origin, nor has it one,
but I know that every origin has come from it,
although it is night.
3. I know that nothing else is so beautiful,
and that the heavens and the earth drink there,
although it is night.
4. I know well that it is bottomless
and no one is able to cross it,
although it is night.
5. Its clarity is never darkened,
and I know that every light has come from it,
although it is night.
6. I know that its streams are so brimming
they water the lands of hell, the heavens, and earth,
although it is night.
7. I know well the stream that flows from this spring
is mighty in compass and power,
although it is night.
8. I know the stream proceeding from these two,
that neither of them in fact precedes it,
although it is night.
9. This eternal spring is hidden
in this living bread for our life's sake,
although it is night.
10. It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst, although in darkness,
because it is night.
11. This living spring that I long for,
I see in this bread of life,
although it is night.
Last Sunday was Trinity Sunday and I heard a very good sermon about the Holy Trinity as I attended Otay Parish, the church of my childhood in Sewanee, Tennessee. I knew the sermon was promising when Rev. Joe Ballard opened it with a quote from John F. Kennedy: “When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations.”
The concept of the Holy Trinity—one God in three and three in one—has always been a difficult concept to grasp, and has led some religions to accuse Christianity of polytheism. Rev. Ballard talked about the arrogance of thinking that we can ever fully grasp the Trinity but said that poetry can sometimes helps us get close. One poem he cited was a Celtic Christian prayer:
Three folds of the cloth, yet only one napkin is there,
Three joints in the finger, but still only one finger fair,
Three leaves of the shamrock, yet no more than one shamrock to wear,
Frost, snowflakes and ice, all in water their origin share,
Three Persons in God: to one God alone we make our prayer.
The frost-snowflakes-ice framing makes particular sense to me, suggesting that the Trinity is a narrative unfolding in time: God is distant (God the Father), God manifests God’s self in a human being (God the Son), God manifests God’s self in each one of us (God the Holy Spirit).
The cloth, finger, and shamrock analogies, meanwhile, get closer to the idea that God can be seen as different aspects of the same being—perhaps (to cite one theological view cited by Rev. Ballard, perhaps inspired by Julian of Norwich) God as creator, as redeemer, and as sustainer.
To throw another idea into the hopper, I have sometimes thought of the Trilogy as analogous to wave-particle theories of light. Seen from the vantage point of points on a timeline where we strive to freeze moments, God appears three particles/particular beings. But seen from a vantage point beyond time, God is a single wave. It all depends on what you need at a particular moment. --By Robin Bates http://www.betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com/ |
God’s blessing be yours, and well may it befall you;
Christ’s blessing be yours, and well be you entreated;
Spirit’s blessing be yours, and well spend you your lives,
Each day that you rise up, each night that you lie down.
- Celtic Christian blessing
Reflection for June 15, 2014: THE HOLY TRINITY
The Catholic Church is not one of those churches that more or less runs out of liturgical steam and sputters to a halt after Christmas and Easter; instead, we’re always hitting the floor for another Holy Dance or two. Last week was Pentecost, of course, and this weekend we honor the Most Holy Trinity. And next Sunday we’ll have a tremendous encore: celebrating The Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. By then, you might say we’re ready for summer vacation, or at least a couple of months of Ordinary Time. But first we have to pause to consider the great and wonderful mystery at the heart of our faith: The Most Holy Trinity. A lot of my non-believing friends think I’m stupid as a head of lettuce to even believe in any kind of God, but if I talk about the Holy Trinity, trying to explain my understanding of it to someone over a glass of wine in 25,000 well-chosen words or so, well, even I run out words eventually and float off like an untethered balloon into the wild blue yonder of mystic conjecture. I’ve noticed that no one I’ve ever talked to about the Trinity has ever asked me to follow it up with a disquisition on the nature of Transubstantiation – that extraordinary thing that happens every Sunday in the Eucharist. Fortunately, Father Chrysogonus gets to do that for us next Sunday, at Corpus Christi. And you thought Pentecost was complicated. Next to the concept of the Three-Personed God and the sacrament of Eucharist, even Resurrection and Tongues of Fires seem like business as usual. But nothing about Christianity is business as usual. At least, it shouldn’t be.
We pretend we live in a sensible well-ordered world, where things can usually be explained, perhaps with the help of click or two on Google. But our faith takes the opposite view, as it should. I think it was one of the early monks who said that “any faith that says God is comprehensible is, by its nature, untrue.” The Trinity represents Mystery itself: the inexplicable presence of God in our lives – As Creator pouring life into Creation, as Spirit streaming into our souls, as Jesus come to earth as a human being, born of a woman in flesh and blood, pitching his tent among us here, to walk and eat and laugh and weep and live and die with us. Mystery upon mystery, beautifully curling around each other like the spiraling curves of a seashell or the petals of a flower. Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
It’s a mystery, all right. And the very fact that I don’t understand it is one of the reasons that I believe it. This universe is so much greater than the sum of its parts, and so are we; we are so much more than the bones and flesh and brains and blood of which our bodies are woven. So, naturally, any kind of God worth worshipping is going to be beyond everything we can see or describe or comprehend -- always larger, endlessly greater, tremendously more -- and not to mention different -- than whatever we can begin to imagine.
And yet this Mystery speaks to us – and enters our everyday lives. Which is where the Trinity comes in. Because we are such limited creatures, who can only hear or see or touch what we are able to hear and see and touch, an awful lot of the universe goes over our heads. (Even your average buzzy little bee gets to see colors that we can’t!) But God reaches out to us in as many ways as are necessary to get our attention and to touch our hearts. In all we hear, in all we see, in all we learn, in all we feel, there is always one flash of truth that is there for us, one that we will be able to connect with and see by, however briefly. Consider the notion of color again: Each beam of white light holds all the shades of the spectrum – and is still itself, a beam of white light. Even in the physical world, something as basic as water takes different forms: as the solid substance of ice, the liquid we drink to survive, a gas in the very air we breathe. Just so, God enters our lives in Triune fashion, holding our fragile world together in a circling dance of love. We are created, and we are redeemed, and our souls are filled with holy light, because the Trinity is at the center of All.
God speaks to us always in the voice we need to hear – and that voice is likely to change in the course of our lives, mainly because we grow and change as well. The Trinity is an admission that God is not just a bigger, stronger version of a human being, like Zeus, say: a big guy with a long white beard, perched on a fluffy white cloud with a thunderbolt. Nope, sorry, it ain’t that simple. “The Sacred Three Who are over me” as the Celtic Christians called the Trinity – this is Mystery Itself. God is Three, and the Three are One, and that One is the still point at the heart of the spinning world. No, I don’t understand it either. But I know in some place deeper than my bones that the Three Persons of the Trinity are there, are here, in my life and yours – mystical and dynamic and forever alive and loving, moving in a kind of sacred dance. And I believe that the love that springs from them is the love that keeps the sun and the other stars moving, as Dante would say. You don’t always have to see something to know it’s there, and real. You don’t always have to know in order to know.
We celebrate mysteries like the Holy Trinity to remind ourselves that God is also a Mystery – bigger and older and stranger and stronger than we can comprehend. All true religion begins, and ends, in humility. And humility requires that we acknowledge the fact of our smallness in the universe, admitting our fathomless ignorance. We are set down suddenly on this spinning earth, and our lives are sometimes sad and scary and hard. But we are never alone, or forgotten by the God who loves us. We are created, and our lives are redeemed, and our souls are filled with light – by God the Creator, and God the Redeemer, and God the Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name. – Diane Sylvain