I am with you always...

I am with you always...

This week we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.  But how can we understand this paradox of our faith?  One way to think about it is to understand that the Trinity is all about the relationship that we have been invited into, in the context of the Church:  our relationship with God, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, and, by extension, with our church community and with our world.

This Sunday’s readings all focus on that relationship.  Moses’ motivational speech in Deuteronomy encourages the Israelites to embrace the intimate relationship God is seeking with them:  This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God… and that there is no other.  To know God is to be in intimate relationship with God, and to follow his commandments in thanksgiving for the infinite Love God offers us.

Jesus’ understanding of relationship is just as direct as Moses’:  I am with you always, until the end of the age.  At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, the disciples worship Jesus, but they doubt – even they have trouble entering into relationship, and Jesus is right there with them!  But he reassures them:  God’s Love is not only infinite, but eternally present, not only to them, but to us today.

Now, we can talk about being in relationship, but it doesn’t mean anything unless we live it, unless we participate actively in the relationship with God and with all of God’s creation.  In Romans, Paul helps us to understand the nature of this relationship:  we are adopted by God, we are God’s children.  But we have to walk in this relationship, to die with Jesus in order to rise with him, to be in right relationship:  if only we suffer with him, so that we may be glorified with him.  In other words, we must love past the hurts inflicted on us, love past the sin and the brokenness we encounter in the everyday, even though it causes us to suffer.  Only by living in Love, shared, can we one day be glorified with Jesus.  


(The above reflection is based on notes from Fr. Pat's Thursday night Scripture class.)

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