Friday 1 June 2012

Holy Trinity Sunday

This weekend, the Church celebrates Holy Trinity Sunday. 


When we think about God, we normally find ourselves most at home with Jesus. He's the easiest to relate to perhaps because having been born of human flesh and walked with us on earth, we have a concrete visible image of Him, no matter how inaccurate this image may be. Jesus is portrayed in many posters and statues. His features and characteristics vary from culture to culture. 


But "Holy Trinity"... What's that? Sounds so far-fetched, so abstract, quite frightening at times, so difficult to comprehend, to imagine. Artists have illustrated the classic image of the Father on one side, the Son on the other, and the Holy Spirit in the middle or above them. But more than what a painting can tell, who is the Father? In what form does the Holy Spirit exist? Dove? Fire? Water? Hard to grasp, can't put a finger on it. Perhaps, that's why Theologians will always say that God is mystery. And indeed God is! 


Karl Rahner:
"A mystery is not something undisclosed.... On the contrary, mystery is the impenetrable which is already present". 
http://eapi.admu.edu.ph/content/mystery-incarnation-according-contemporary-theology


Meaning to say, God has already been disclosed, revealed to us. However, it is beyond our limited human capacity to understand it completely. The more we grow in faith, the more we come to understand it but never fully. 


Does this mystery of God prevent us from coming close to God? No. God continues to draw us to Himself. He gives us knowledge of Himself in bite sizes, according to how much we can 'digest', according to how much our hearts are ready and willing to receive Him. God is revealed through the Son. Jesus told His disciples that if they have seen Him, they have seen the Father, that He and the Father are one. 


Jesus reflects perfectly all that the Father is - love, mercy, justice, and far more. What He stands for are what the Father stands for. Their love unites them in a bond that begets the Spirit. The Spirit flows from the Father and the Son, and is worshipped as God with the Father and the Son.  



Here's an excerpt from Br. Adrian Danker, SJ:
Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity: the Three Divine Persons sitting around a table; feasting and celebrating; communing together. A beautiful image of the One God. But this is also an icon; before it, we are invited to prayerfully contemplate the triune God, Father, Son and Spirit. Each acknowledging the other with the tilt of his head; this is the interior life of the triune God, of God being in relationship with one another. Yet together they turn outwards to me, inviting you and me into their gracious communion, calling us to complete the circle, to be one with them. Is this communion not the salvific promise of the Father to us in his Son and through the Spirit? and are we not to call others into it too?


The question now is not about whether or not we can fully understand the Holy Trinity, know what it's all about and how it came about. This is the impenetrable gulf between us, finite beings, and God, the infinite Being. Rather, the question is what is our response to this invitation that God, as Father, Son, and Spirit, is extending to us. This invitation to join them at table, to complete the circle, to be one with them? To be in relationship with them?


What does your response look like? 


01 June 2012, Friday
6.07pm

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