Trinity Sunday
June 2011
One of the first things each of us was taught to do was make the sign of the Cross while saying ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’
Jesus of Nazareth was sent to show us what God was like by word and example. One of the things he told us was that God is a community of three persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This Community we call the Holy Trinity.
This revelation of the One God as being a community of Three Persons is unique to Christianity.
Human beings, being created in the image and likeness of God, are also created to be a community.
The first and basic community is the family. The nearest example we will get to the reality and life of the Holy Trinity is the good human family, but this is a very tenuous approximation.
Being created in the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity also means that we are meant, and suited to, approaching Our God as a community. Hence the existence of the Churches who seek to know and love God as living communities.
All the above is just human words trying to describe a reality which is totally mysterious and ineffable.
A few human beings who are granted the rare gift of mysticism may be able, in their prayer, to go beyond mere human words and understanding. But don’t hold your breath in expectation.
We, the hoi polloi of the spiritual life, have to be content with trying to understand the mystery of God by studying the works of His hand.
In the beauty and marvels of nature all about us, in the complexity of life, in the heavens which we can look up at and wonder about, at the mind boggling discoveries, possibilities and unknowns of cosmology, astrophysics & quantum physics we can only gasp in awe. And then there is the all surpassing beauty of love, forgiveness, compassion, acceptance, generosity.
While slowly reading Ps. 8 (which is attached to the bulletin) and which was written two and a half thousand years age by someone who was also wondering about what you have just heard, we too can wonder.
We will also play a piece of music to accompany our wondering.