Stained glass window depicting doctrine of the Holy Trinity in Latin

The Most Holy Trinity 16th June 2019

A Mystery to Me

Think of the last time you witnessed an act of selfless love in your family. Parents and caregivers of all kinds are called upon to act selflessly every day. Family life calls us to share selfless love with one another.

God is the model for us of selfless love. There was no need for God to create our planet or the creatures that inhabit it; it was an act of selfless love. There was also no need for God to send his only Son to save us. That too was an act of selfless love.

As we draw closer to God and the mystery of the Trinity, we learn about God’s love. God has lavished us with love in the persons of the Son and the Spirit, who in turn nurture in us the desire to do the same. When we open ourselves to be filled with an awareness of the divine life within us, we participate in the endless spiral of love that leads to eternal life. Whenever we share selfless love in the family, we are sharing in the life of the Trinity.

One of the most poignant attempts to explain the Trinity came from C.S. Lewis, who reasoned that if God is love, then God must contain more than one person: ‘God is not a static thing – not even a person – but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance.’ The idea of the Trinity as a sort of divine dance is a good place to begin reflecting on this great mystery of God as a communion of love. In today’s Gospel, we see that Jesus is comfortable with an element of mystery. He does not reveal everything to his disciples at once, as it ‘would be too much for you now.’ The full truth will be revealed later, when the Spirit comes. The more we reflect, the more we pray, the more we are open to the Spirit, the more we will understand about the great mystery of God as love.

A Sonnet for Trinity Sunday

In the Beginning, not in time or space,                                                                                                      

But in the quick before both space and time,                                                                                                  

In Life, in Love, in co-inherent Grace,                                                                                                        

In three in one and one in three, in rhyme,                                                                                                      

In music, in the whole creation story,                                                                                                            

In His own image, His imagination,                                                                                                        

The Triune Poet makes us for His glory,                                                                                                    

And makes us each the other’s inspiration.                                                                                                  

He calls us out of darkness, chaos, chance,                                                                                                  

To improvise a music of our own,                                                                                                                

To sing the chord that calls us to the dance,                                                                                            

Three notes resounding from a single tone,                                                                                                

To sing the End in whom we all begin;                                                                                                      

Our God beyond, beside us and within.

From “Sounding the Seasons” Malcolm Guite