When we speak of The Blessed Trinity it is generally within the context of doctrine. Be assured, however, that The Trinity is not just an academic description of a mysterious divine reality to be pondered from afar with reverential awe.
I suggest to you that the focus of today’s liturgy is not so much on complex theological formulations as it is on relationships.
I am thinking about the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit and more specifically about its impact on our relationship to each other and to God.
That impact is, to say the least, decisive, giving rise to baptism, church, Jesus Christ, the creator and therefore creation itself. The Blessed Trinity is then the ultimate reality that defines us and binds us together into one human race; one human race sharing one fragile, volatile, terrestrial environment.
In effect, we can meet our God in three different ways.
In the Father we meet the God beyond our world. The Creator, the ultimate source of all there ever was, is or shall be. The very foundation of reality...eternal, without cause, beginning or end...pure spirit...always present but without voice or foot print...the one without whom even ”nothingness” cannot exist.
Unimaginable...totally awesome...but almost as hard to love as a BIG BANG!
But this same God meets us in Jesus. I am often reminded of the little girl who, when afraid of the dark, asked her Dad to stay with her until she fell asleep. Her Dad reminded her that God was always nearby so she need not fear, "I know," she sobbed, "But I want someone with skin on."
In Jesus, God comes to us with "skin on."
Now we can relate to God, imagine God and look forward to seeing God as well as to being with Him for all eternity. Now we can LOVE God!
But considering the billions of people who have gone ahead of us, how can we even dream of Jesus making time for just us when our turn comes? We can and should dream of future intimacy with Jesus. In eternity the constraints of matter, time and place, motion and numbers will simply be non existent.
And, you know, that should not surprise us. After all, how many millions throughout the world today will receive Holy Communion? And yet, for every one of us it will be an intimate and personal encounter...indeed a taste of heaven!
And finally, God meets us in The Spirit. The Holy Spirit who helps us to understand our salvation history, who helps us to put horrific natural disasters into their full and often complex scientific and social context, the Spirit who creates faith within us so that we can proclaim and live that Faith as brothers and sisters, as Church, and do so in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit...Amen.
