Sunday, May 18, 2008

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Ex 34:4b-6, 8-9
2 Cor 13:11-13
Jn 3:16-18

“God so loved the world…” God indeed so loves the world, with a love that we creatures cannot even begin to comprehend. The love that God has for us is so overwhelmingly vast that our poor minds aren’t able to even begin to wrap around it. It is a love that brings us into existence, a love that sustains us, a love that saves us from ourselves. God’s love is so powerful, so vast, it cannot be contained. At the end of the day God’s love for us is a mystery, a mystery we can never comprehend. The expression of that love to us is made manifest in the Trinity, the love of God expressed as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Three divine Persons, yet only One God. How can this be? How can this be, how is it possible that there be one God, yet three persons? Ah, another mystery. We search for ways to grasp this mystery, but anything we can conceive of by definition falls short. The most famous attempt at explanation, I suppose, is the one attributed to St. Patrick, the shamrock, a plant with three leaves, yet only one plant. A nice enough try, but not quite enough. I have heard water used, water in different states, ocean, river, lake, all different, yet all water. Or water as solid ice, liquid or gaseous steam. All different, yet all still water. Nothing can bring us to understanding. Our only recourse is faith. God loves us with a love so vast that we see that love expressed in the Trinity, in a divine community of love, the community of Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. The love emanating from this Divine Community, calls to us, calls to us with invitation, a call for us to join, to share, to be a part of that Community of total love. This is perhaps the greatest mystery of all. No matter who we are, no matter what we may think we have done to escape God’s vast and glorious love, God still calls us, still wants us, still desires that we be a part of this glorious love. God creates us, saves us, makes us holy, all so we may be a part of God’s love, a member of that Community of Unity, because, “God so loved the world…”

Deacon John
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
May 18, 2008

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

John,
We will be praying for you and all who are enduring the scourge of cancer. I met you through my wife Joyce Wittler who recently graduated from St. Meinrad. She lost her father to a very late diagnosis of cancer on all saints day last November. I can be found at http://wittsden.blogspot.com

God bless from the Wittler family