Scripture Reflection, June 07, 2009: Trinity Sunday

Scripture Readings:
Deuteronomy 4: 32-34; 39-40
Psalm 33
Romans 8: 14-17
Matthew 28: 16-20

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Catholics on Call will be hosting its sixth young adult conference at Catholic Theological Union this weekend. Thirty-three young adults from around the country will be participating in a four-day experience of prayer and reflection, presentations by a variety of speakers, interaction with pastoral ministers, discussion and discernment. We are very excited about this wonderful event. When we listen to the feedback of young adults who have participated in past conferences we hear one comment repeated again and again: they are very grateful for the opportunity to spend time and get to know other young adults from many different places who are asking the same questions about life and vocation as they are asking. They appreciate the experience of community with others who are also listening closely for God’s call in their lives. These young adults tell us that they often feel alone and even misunderstood by friends and family members because they are considering a vocation in the Church. As they encounter others who are on a similar journey they are encouraged in their own search. These young adults remind us that the life of Christian discipleship – and the discernment of one’s vocation – is not meant to be experienced in isolation but in communion. We are a people who are called to communion with God and with one another.

We celebrate our faith in the Triune God this Sunday. We reaffirm our conviction that the God in whom we believe, the God of Jesus Christ, is a mysterious unity in relationship – a communion of coequal persons. This is, of course, a mystery that exceeds our comprehension. While in prayerful faith we can gain glimpses into the meaning of this mystery, we will never be able to wrap our minds around it. A famous story is told about Saint Augustine, who spent many years writing a masterful treatise on the mystery of the Trinity. As he was walking along the shore one day he spotted a child digging a hole in the sand and pouring water from the sea into the hole. Augustine stopped and said to this child, “You will never be able to fit the sea into that hole in the sand.” The child responded, “And neither will you be able to fit the mystery of the Trinity into your mind.”

Even though we will never be able to fit the mystery of the Trinity into our finite minds, our belief in this mystery is rooted in human experience, the experience of the people of God. And it has very practical implications for our lives as followers of Jesus. In history God’s people have experienced God’s constant, faithful reaching out to them. They have testified to God’s gift of self as one to be known and loved – God ‘s grace present and active drawing us closer to himself. The Scripture readings for this Sunday speak poignantly about the magnetic action of God’s grace. The author of Deuteronomy poses a rhetorical question: “Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of?” He goes on to marvel at the way that God has entered into the lives of the people of Israel, acting powerfully to give them freedom and life. He celebrates the boundless love of the God who has saved his people “with strong hand and outstretched arm.” In his letter to the Romans, Paul reminds these Christians of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in their lives. It is this Spirit who moves them to relate to God not as slaves but as sons and daughters of a God who draws close to them. It is the indwelling of this Spirit that enables us to call on God with the confidence and intimacy with which Jesus called on his Father – crying out “Abba.” In the gospel the disciples experience the presence and power of God in the risen Jesus, who sends them forth to make disciples and to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These Scripture readings remind us that what we believe about God as Christians is born of the real experience of real people – the experience of a God whose love is powerful and who is always acting to draw us closer to share in his own life. You and I have this same experience every time we celebrate the Eucharist, where Christ who gave everything for us on the cross gives himself to us in this great sacrament.

This experience of the way in which God relates to us, gives of self to us, suggests that God must be like this in God’s very being. This must be what it is like in “God ‘s own home.” The God who reached out to the people of Israel with strong hand and outstretched arm, the God who revealed his love and power in the crucified and risen Jesus, the God who has given us the gift of his Spirit – this God must be a communion of life and love. We Christians have come to believe that God is not a solitary, egotistical divine being who is obsessed with his own power and might. Rather God is eminently personal, a circle of life and love – Father, Son and Holy Spirit living in mutual giving and receiving. As Cardinal Walter Kasper has put it, the mystery of the Trinity reveals that the true meaning of being – of what it means to exist – is the selflessness of love. And we have seen that this love of the Trinity overflows to us. God has opened the doors of his home to us and invited us to share in his very life. We do that through a life lived in faith and in regular communication with God through prayer, the sacraments and a life of charity.

Our belief in the Trinity has very practical implications for our lives. It summons us to strive to build communion with one another – to build communion in our homes and families, parishes and neighborhoods, and even in the wider world. As we read the papers and listen to the news each day we hear so many distressing stories of fragmentation in our world. We see a human family fragmented by competing ideologies, by the gulf between the rich and the poor, and by the constant threat of terrorism. In our own relationships closer to home, we struggle to overcome the resentments and divisions that drain the life out of those relationships. Our belief in the Trinity calls us to recognize that we are connected with one another and that we only flourish when we strive to strengthen our bonds with each other. This belief challenges us to do the hard work of building communion with one another through concrete efforts in understanding, forgiving, and the sharing of our gifts. The temptation is always to erect higher walls between ourselves and others. But this not how God relates to us; this is not who God is. And we have been created in the image and likeness of God – the image and likeness of the Trinity. When we engage in the challenging work of building communion with others we share in the very life of God and we make God’s presence known a little more clearly in our world. May our celebration of the Eucharist on Trinity Sunday inspire us to undertake more energetically the work of building communion with one another.

Fr. Robin Ryan, cp