Since it’s so, so hard to get one’s head around the idea of
the Trinity (one God in three persons??), perhaps we might consider, this Trinity
Sunday, simply recognizing that our belief in a Trinitarian God is to
acknowledge a belief that love is relational.
The Trinity is
relationship: the love that is God
captured in such completeness that that perfect union exists among the three
members. The Trinity makes the concept
of God’s love for us a living idea – dynamic, not static. It is always and everywhere in the process of
being realized for us. It will not leave
us alone: there is no rest, if you will,
from the love of God. And it’s not only a dynamic, it is the dynamic, giving creation its existence, giving us our very
lives, so that we, too, might enter into relationship with God in preparation
for the perfect union that is heaven.
How is all of this reflected in this Sunday’s readings? In our reading from Proverbs, Wisdom (who
will later be identifed with Jesus) is in relationship with God from the
beginning of creation. There is an
intimacy between Wisdom and God, a closeness and commonality of will that is
expressed in reciprocal love: I was his delight day by day. And it is through this relationship that God
so clearly cherishes that we, humankind, were loved into existence at the
creation of the world. Moreover, within
the beauty of that creation, Psalm 8 suggests, God graces mankind with a
particular kind of dignity – You have
made him little less than the angels – and with that dignity comes the
responsibility to care for God’s creation as stewards over the works of God’s hands, vessels of God’s activity on earth.
Our reading from Romans clarifies the role Jesus himself
plays in this relationship. To be at peace with God, Paul tells us, is possible because Jesus has reconciled
us to God through his death and resurrection, making access to God (and thus,
relationship) available, if only our hearts are open to it. Even our afflictions
– an inevitable part of the journey through which the Spirit guides us – allow
us to be drawn more deeply into the love that has been revealed by Christ. What’s more, love, God’s gift, has been
poured into our hearts by the Spirit – and that Spirit, John’s Gospel tells us,
will guide us to all truth, the Truth
that is God’s love. This is not a
once-over-and-done-with deal; it is the process of a lifetime that bears us ever
onward toward perfect relationship, the perfect Trinitarian relationship the Son
knows with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, the perfect relationship that
we aspire to: that is heaven.
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
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