On Trinity Sunday one is
reminded of the great saint and philosopher, St. Augustine. There is a well
known story that one day Augustine was thinking about the Trinity while walking
upon the seashore. He came upon a little boy who was busy emptying pails of
water into a hole he had dug upon the beach. Augustine asked him what he was
doing, and the boy replied that he was trying to empty the sea into the hole.
When Augustine told the boy that he was attempting the impossible, the boy
replied that Augustine in trying to understand the mystery of the Trinity was
also attempting the impossible.
Nevertheless, the boy's advice
did not stop Augustine from writing a treatise on the Trinity. Nor has it
stopped theologians and homilists from writing millions of words about the
Trinity ever since. None of these words would ever have been written if our
Lord had not repeatedly referred to the Trinity during His time on earth. The
Church did not invent the idea of the Holy Trinity, our Lord did.*
Today's gospel passage begins
with the famous gospel verse, John 3:16, which we often see on tee shirts and
on placards at sporting events. "God so loved the world that he gave His
only son..." John is quoting
the words of Jesus here, words which speak of the special relationship between
God and His Son. In our second
reading from St. Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, Paul refers to the
Holy Trinity using words that we now use at the beginning of every Mass.
The
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and
the love of God
and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
Neither Paul, nor Augustine,
or anyone else would have come to the idea of three persons in one God by the use of reason alone.
Reason had led even the pagan philosophers to conclude that the many gods of
antiquity were fraudulent, even comical. Reason had led them to conclude even
before the time of Christ that there could only be one God. Of course, the Jews
had come to this realization even before the philosophers.
Still, only the words of
Christ opened up the idea that this one God contained three Divine Persons.
Let's pause for a minute and consider the meaning of the word
"person." The Latin word "persona" means the mask or masks
that ancient actors wore to express different characters or emotions. We've all
seen pictures of these masks, some with smiles and others with frowns, which
the actors held over their faces while playing their roles. It's similar to the
way our TV newsmen will look glum while reporting a tragic story but then smile
when the next story deals with the rescue of a cat from a tree.
We often today think of our
"personality" or "persona" as something different from
ourselves. No matter what we are like inside, our personality is the way we
appear to the world outside of us. Looking at it this way, couldn't we say that
there are many persons in any one of us. A man could be a husband to his wife,
a father to his children, a son to his own parents, a friend to his friend,
etc. A woman would not be the same person to her husband as she is to her
children, or her parents, or her friends.
Certainly Jesus meant much
more when He talked about the relationship of the Persons of the Trinity. And I
don't mean to suggest that God wears masks. I am merely saying that He has
chosen to appear to us in different ways. I know that this is not a scientific
explanation but if we consider the Trinity, we will see that our Lord is
telling us that it is possible to have a warmer, more intimate relationship
with God than our reason could ever imagine. Just imagine that the same God who
created not only this world but all the worlds keeps them in existence by love
alone. He actually came into our world as one of us. Then after He suffered,
died, and rose from the dead, He sent His own Spirit to dwell in us and guide
us.
Some poor heretics throughout
history have been unable to accept this divine intimacy. For some Jesus was God
but never truly a man. How could God lower Himself in such a way? For others, Jesus was a good man but
certainly not God. How could a man be God?
We say, however, that what
kind of a God would it be who couldn't do it, or who wouldn't do it?
Who would want a different
God? God is not a white haired old man sitting on some mountain top waiting to
zap us with lightning bolts when we do wrong. He is not some force of nature
that guides our evolutionary progress. Neither is He some kind of unconcerned
creator who made the world and then ignored it. St. John tells us that God is
Love. The Book of Proverbs says that God "found delight with the human
race." Our creed tells us that God sent His Son to be one of us, and to
suffer and die for us. St. Paul says that the grace of God is our hope,
and
hope does not disappoint,
because
the love of God has been poured into our hearts
through
the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
We have a mystical
relationship with the Trinity. Because of the Trinity we can with Jesus call
God, "Abba" or "Father." We can call Jesus, "our
brother." Finally, we can say that the Spirit of God lives not in the
faraway heavens, but in our very selves. ###
Reading II. 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13
Gospel. John 3: 16-18 (God so loved the world).
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