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SCRIPTURE
READINGS
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Deuteronomy |
4:32-34,
39-40 |
| Psalm |
32 |
| Romans |
8:14-17 |
| Matthew |
28:16-20 |
One
of the most familiar things we do as Catholics is
to make the sign of the cross in the name of The
Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit. For Christians
this is the name of God, The Trinity. Whenever we
go to Mass we are gathered in that name and at the
end we are blessed and sent in that name. We are
baptised into the name of Father, Son and Spirit
and throughout our lives that threefold name accompanies
us.
The
name we give to God, The Trinity, marks the depth
and height of the Christian knowledge and experience
of who God is. It is completely unique to Christianity.
Too often our understanding and experience of God
as Trinity is dismissed as a mystery or presented
as some sort of paradox or conundrum: 'three persons,
one God.' Now, of course, God is the Absolute Mystery
of our lives and because we, as finite creatures,
have only very limited ways of expressing the transcendent
glory of God's Trinitarian life, we have to remember
that our language must be humble, partial and inadequate.
The point of our attempting to put this luminous,
holy reality into the poor rags of language is not
to obscure but to point the way - the way from thinking
and speaking to the life of the Mystery itself.
So, when we speak of the Trinity as a mystery we
do not mean that we should not think or speak about
it but rather that its meaning is inexhaustible.
So what do we mean when we say 'three persons, one
God'? Well, we're not talking arithmetic. If we
are then, clearly, we're going to get into trouble
and our Trinity will seem nonsensical.
A
helpful way of coming to understand what we mean
is to think of the three primary
colours: red, green and blue. If you divide a piece
of paper into three sections and paint each section
a different primary colour, then spin the paper
very quickly it will appear white. It is a simple
illustration of oneness and threeness. It makes
the point that the 'oneness' is dynamic but does
not diminish the three.
But
that opens up another problem about the word 'person'.
When we use it in the special context of the Trinity
it doesn't mean what we normally mean by person.
Even Augustine had to admit that when we spoke of
'person' in the Trinity we really had no understanding
of what we meant. The best we can do is to be clear
about what we don't mean: we are
not speaking of three individual centres of independent
consciousness and wills, and, of course, we are
not speaking of three 'bodies'. If we thought this
way, it would not be a Trinity but a club - a very
exclusive club! Yet once we're clear about what
we don't mean we can begin very tentatively to glimpse
something profound: that 'person' in the Trinity
points us to the eternal relationship of Father,
Son and Holy Spirit and that these relationships
both distinguish them from each other but simultaneously
open up a union in which each dwells in the other.
The Trinity is a sort of 'communion.' (co-union)
This
has two important consequences for us: First, if
they 'indwell' in each other then they also reveal
each other: to know one is to know all and to know
each in their distinctness and in their communion.
Second, we know that these relationships are relationship
of love. The Trinity is the revelation that God
is Love. Now we get Love wrong if we think of it
as a 'thing' –
something
we can possess or control. It is a relationship
and it is a verb - we can only 'have' love by loving,
by participating in a relationship of love. So,
the Trinity is Love Loving -dynamic, unfathomable,
inexhaustible, eternally complete and creative.
Yet, here is the great wonder. We only know this
because the Father gives Himself to be known in
His Son and the Son gathers us into this eternal
self-giving through and in the Spirit. In other
words, the fact that we can speak at all about God
as Trinity is already a sign that we are beginning
to participate in God's Triune life: We know and
experience that the Trinity is Love Loving US
. This is what we call grace. The whole
of the Church's liturgy lives out of this knowledge.
It is our act of love, both a confession and a proclamation
-' a great cry of wonder'- that in loving us the
Trinity takes us into these relations of life, so
that we learn again how to love by participating
in Love. Literally, by 'being-in-Love'.
In
this way we can see that the life of grace is a
Trinitarian life and that grace is itself a relationship
through which and in which we learn love. The Trinitarian
Life of God is our school of Love and by loving
we come to Love loving and that is our sanctification.
All
this is beautifully and simply expressed in the
great prayer of the Mass, 'Through Him, with
Him, In Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, All
Glory and honour is yours Almighty Father. Forever
and ever, Amen.'
.
Fr
James Hanvey, SJ
Superior
of the Mount Street
Jesuit
Community
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