Children have lively images of God. One of my favorite stories features a school cafeteria. The apple tray held a sign: “Take only one. God is watching.” So at the cookie tray a youngster put a note: “Take all you want. God is watching the apples.”
Now that's one child’s image of God.
The Bible gives us many splendid images of God. A walking companion, a God as tender as a mother, a God who wants to share wisdom with us, in many ways. Then there are the images in the parables of the good shepherd, and the forgiving father and his prodigal son, and the last judgment in which we will account for what we have done or not done with our lives.
These many splendid images cannot capture fully the inexhaustible reality of God.
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, the feast of the triune God. We begin every liturgy “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” and are sent forth at the end with the blessing of the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
St. Augustine wrote in his autobiographical Confessions, “Thou hast made us for Yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You.” Yes, we were born to live in relationship with God: yes,the triune God abiding within us; the ultimate relationship. Today’s feast highlights that relationship we have with the triune God.
The word of God takes us back to the wisdom literature of ancient Israel, the book of Proverbs. The author personifies wisdom as a woman, as creative energy, as a playful companion who witnesses the mighty acts of God in this manifold universe. The early Christians saw Jesus in this wisdom image, God’s Word made flesh among us. We might pray for the wisdom to know what truly matters.
Paul, in his letter to the Christian community at Rome, waxes eloquently about the saving work of Jesus Christ. Through him we have a right relationship with God, and the essence of that relationship is in the practice of faith or trust in God, hope or anticipation of something yet to come, and love or giving our all.
As a saying goes, good things come in threes. In the Gospel, Jesus in his farewell alludes to the mystery of the triune God: The Spirit that comes through Jesus and the Father will guide our global community into all truth. We pray the Spirit of truth will guide us in our daily lives.
The mystery of the triune God (a God who is one yet distinctive in Father, Son, and Spirit; a God who is love) invites us to reflect upon our relationship with God and one another.
I like to think most people do have a relationship with God. We are forever trying to make better sense out of our lives. Especially in moments of crisis, people often ask the most fundamental questions. What is the purpose of my life? Where is my life going? These are religious questions, questions we cannot help but try to answer.
As we go through our own human development, we are trying to better integrate our lives, or get our act together, so to speak. When we are young, we have so many hopes and dreams. As we move through the middle years, we may not be as dreamy eyed. We want to live for something greater than ourselves, something with ultimate meaning.
At times, we wonder. Life seems to be marred by too many tragedies.
At other moments, experiences lift us up. A starry sky, the joy of friendship, the golden rays of a sunset, the accomplishment of a goal. Such experiences can take us out of ourselves and into the presence of an awesome power. We begin to experience the transcendent dimension of our own lives. Yes, we say, there must be a purposeful and gracious God who is responsible for this magnificent universe and for creating our very lives.
Christianity says that there is indeed a gracious God who can heal the brokenness of human life. Yes, this God became flesh in Jesus and is alive among us by the power of the Spirit. That is the mystery of the triune God, a God who is one in three modalities or “persons”: Father, Son, and Spirit.
This triune God, the model of self-giving love, empowers us to reach out in love to one another with compassion, forgiveness, a smile, a kind word, a helping hand. And in reaching out to one another in love, we become like the triune God in their self-giving love.
And so let us pray on this feast, to quote the musical Godspell, for the grace to see the triune God more clearly, love this God more dearly and follow this God more nearly in our daily lives. Amen.
