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It is one of the main things we believe as Christians.\u00a0 It is the topic of today\u2019s readings.\u00a0 It is the Holy Trinity.\u00a0 And it is something we struggle with our whole life to grasp; but the reality is that it is beyond us, it truly is a mystery.\u00a0 We are simply called to believe in the Trinity.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t mean that we can\u2019t appreciate the meaning that the Trinity has for us.\u00a0 And that is what I would like to talk about for a few minutes today.<\/p>\n
First, all three persons of the Trinity were there at the beginning and will live forever- the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.\u00a0 That\u2018s three persons, but one God, the Trinity.<\/p>\n
God the Father is who we think of when we first think of God. \u00a0He is the Lord of the Old Testament.\u00a0 He is the all-powerful author and creator of all things, visible and invisible.\u00a0 Our psalm talks about the Father, about how awesome and large all that He created is.\u00a0 And the psalm poses the question, \u201cWhat are humans that you are mindful of them?\u201d\u00a0 Another way of saying that is that this person of the trinity seems so large, distant, remote, and powerful, that He is Transcendent, meaning unapproachable and beyond understanding; so much so that we humans can only fear how we could ever approach Him.<\/p>\n
But wait a minute, because God the Father sent His Son, the second person of the Trinity, to us.\u00a0 The Son is the Word of God, or the enabler.\u00a0 As the Word of God is spoken, it happens.\u00a0 And so the Word of God became flesh and lived among us.\u00a0 And that did something for us that appears to be a paradox with the concept of a transcendent God, a remote God because that made God very close to us.\u00a0 Yes, Jesus Christ had a body and lived amongst us.\u00a0 He showed us the way, which is recorded in the Gospel.\u00a0 Indeed, God become man, lived as we do.\u00a0 We call that the immanence of God, because Jesus was as close to us as any other human could be.\u00a0 And He is still immanent to us in the gift of the Eucharist, Holy Communion, which we will all share together in just a few minutes.<\/p>\n
Lastly, the first reading talks about the Holy Spirit, the third person.\u00a0 He is the breath of life, the inherent wisdom behind all things.\u00a0 We are made in the image and likeness of God.\u00a0 And so, we have the Spirit within us- it is the life force we all feel and experience, like when we breathe and have thoughts and understand things, even things beyond what we can touch and feel in this world.<\/p>\n
Now, there a few things about the Trinity about which we should reflect.\u00a0 Note that these are three social persons- they inter-relate with each other.\u00a0 They are not isolated.\u00a0 The Father begets the son, who acts as his agent and does His will.\u00a0 The Son loves and communicates with the Father.\u00a0 The Son gives up his life for all of humanity to atone for our sins and imperfections so that we may share in the Son\u2019s inheritance- eternal life with the Father.\u00a0 The Son promises that the Father will send the Spirit to dwell within us.\u00a0 The Spirit lives within us, and acts as our counselor and advocate and inspiration.<\/p>\n
What does this mean for us?\u00a0 Well, since we are made in the image and likeness of God, it means we too are begotten by the Father; we possess the Spirit or life force; and we are called upon to do the will of the Father.\u00a0 And that will is that we love each other as the Father loved the Son and the Son loved us.\u00a0 And we are called upon to be social creatures as well.\u00a0 We are not gods unto ourselves, because that would not reflect the image and likeness of God.\u00a0 God the Father is not selfish. \u00a0He is other directed, sharing somehow with equal status with the Son and the Spirit; and willing to share Himself with us.<\/p>\n
And so we learn from the Trinity that if we are to live up to our creation in the image and likeness of God, then we will love each other as God loves us;\u00a0 We will do the Father\u2019s will by the inspiration of the Spirit;\u00a0 And we will welcome and relate to each other as a community.\u00a0 Can it possibly be that simple?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Trinity Sunday Prov 8: 22-31; Rom 5: 1-5; Jn 16: 12-15 Dc. Larry Brockman It is one of the main things we believe as Christians.\u00a0 It is the topic of today\u2019s readings.\u00a0 It is the Holy Trinity.\u00a0 And it is something we struggle with our whole life to grasp; but the reality is that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[229],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":382,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}