“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Probably we don’t often think about the Trinity but today is a good opportunity. Our “story of God” is a rich one. We affirm the origin of everything in God and God’s presence in everything. We affirm Jesus Christ, his ministry and teaching, his death and resurrection, as the culmination of God’s engagement with humanity through history. We affirm the Spirit within, God’s presence in the hearts of us all, the voice of conscience and, even more, and the inner gift of love. As St Paul puts it: the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us. Our three-fold story is rich and, like all things profound, it evades, even resists definition.
Nevertheless, as an attempt to “hold” these experiences in hobbling human words, the doctrine of the Trinity evolved quite early on.
POINTERS FOR PRAYER
1. It would be very cushy for us if we could be a source of life to others without cost to ourselves. The true life-givers know that they need the generosity of being lifted up by giving their lives so that others may have life. Recall when you have had that generosity and give thanks for others who have been like that for you.
2. We receive life from God when our faith enables us to trust in God’s love for us. We give life to one another when the love between us is trustworthy. Recall memories of that kind of trustworthy love. For whom have you been able to be a ‘Jesus person’ and give a love that another could trust? Who has shown that kind of love to you and been for you a sacrament of God’s love?
The Trinity is not first of all a puzzle, which in principle could be solved, but rather a mystery, a relationship which is first of all lived, never exhausted and only inadequately spoken of in words. This is true of any of the significant relationships in our lives and true, therefore, all the more so of God. Within the mystery of that relationship, we recognise God, from whom we come, in whom we live and move and have our being. We recognise the Son, the way, the truth and the life. We recognise the Spirit, who helps us to pray when we do not know how to pray as we ought.