This weekend we celebrate the Feast of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity…when we talk about the concept of the Holy Trinity many eyes glaze over and some of us experience something akin to “brain fog”. Most of us learned about the Trinity as children, and it was all quite confusing at the time.
Well, all these years later it can still be quite confusing. However, if we move towards understanding the Trinity as “relationship”….Jesus said “the father and I are one”… “I am in Him and He is in me”, then perhaps we may become ever slightly more comfortable. Jesus presents it as a relationship, a Divine indwelling. It is a relationship of intimacy, not just doctrine. So if we focus more on the Trinity as relationship perhaps then we can better open up our hearts to an intimate relationship with the Trinity.
It is far more important to have a relationship with God rather than try to explain God. Many a theologian has spent their life trying to explain the Holy Trinity. Thomas Aquinas wrote most eloquently about the Trinity but some claim that after having a mystical experience declared that all he had written was as of straw compared to the beatific vision he had been given. What is clear is that the Word made flesh, the Spirit of God that swept over waters and the Creator who spoke the universe into being were and are a vital unified Divine presence in which “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
The great American theologian, Catherine Mowry Lacuna wrote: “Living a Trinitarian faith means living God’s life: living from and for God, from and for others.” She goes on to say it is about “living as Christ lived, preaching the gospel, relying totally on God; offering healing and reconciliation…living together in harmony and communion with every other creature in the common household of God, doing all things to the praise and glory of God.” How might I better live in harmony and communion with all of creation? What might “living from and for God, from and for others” look like in my life?
Easter Blessings,
Fr. Tim
Well, all these years later it can still be quite confusing. However, if we move towards understanding the Trinity as “relationship”….Jesus said “the father and I are one”… “I am in Him and He is in me”, then perhaps we may become ever slightly more comfortable. Jesus presents it as a relationship, a Divine indwelling. It is a relationship of intimacy, not just doctrine. So if we focus more on the Trinity as relationship perhaps then we can better open up our hearts to an intimate relationship with the Trinity.
It is far more important to have a relationship with God rather than try to explain God. Many a theologian has spent their life trying to explain the Holy Trinity. Thomas Aquinas wrote most eloquently about the Trinity but some claim that after having a mystical experience declared that all he had written was as of straw compared to the beatific vision he had been given. What is clear is that the Word made flesh, the Spirit of God that swept over waters and the Creator who spoke the universe into being were and are a vital unified Divine presence in which “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
The great American theologian, Catherine Mowry Lacuna wrote: “Living a Trinitarian faith means living God’s life: living from and for God, from and for others.” She goes on to say it is about “living as Christ lived, preaching the gospel, relying totally on God; offering healing and reconciliation…living together in harmony and communion with every other creature in the common household of God, doing all things to the praise and glory of God.” How might I better live in harmony and communion with all of creation? What might “living from and for God, from and for others” look like in my life?
Easter Blessings,
Fr. Tim
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