Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. We've all heard the various descriptive explanations for it—three persons in one God: like a triangle with three sides, still one triangle. Like a chicken egg, with a shell, a yolk, and a white, still one egg. Like an apple, with skin, flesh, and seeds, still one apple. Like water as ice, as liquid, and steam, still H2O. And, of course, like the three-lobed leaf of a shamrock…thank you, St. Patrick!
Doctrines like the Trinity develop from an experience of the divine, an original encounter with God about which a person tries to talk. We memorize the doctrine but we can't let the understanding of one person or one time period be the litmus test of our faith. Our faith will falter if we try to rely, or depend, on somebody else's description of their experience of God's presence. It's not enough, maybe, because it's not our own. As our understanding of the world grows, as our time in history changes, as our life situation develops, so must our understanding of God grow and change and develop. What really matters is not how someone else described their experience of God, but how we experience the presence of God. That's not to say that we can't learn from our ancestors in faith—we do. Hearing how they have experienced the divine can help us recognize God in our own personal experiences.
As Catherine LaCugna (a feminist Catholic theologian and author of God For Us) says, “The nature of the church should manifest the nature of God.” She writes: “The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that in God there is neither hierarchy nor inequality, neither division nor competition, but only unity in love amid diversity. The Christian community is the image or icon of the invisible God when its communitarian life mirrors the inclusivity of divine love.” So, All Are Welcome! They’ll Know We Are Christians by our love! What a model for all the world and for us!
Each time we read and ponder the scriptures, each time we pray, each time we reach out in love to another person, we see God revealed anew, among and within us, in the here and now. Trinity=Community. Glory be to God, the Creator; Jesus, the Redeemer; and the Spirit, the Sanctifier!
Keep singing!
Elizabeth Dyc
Doctrines like the Trinity develop from an experience of the divine, an original encounter with God about which a person tries to talk. We memorize the doctrine but we can't let the understanding of one person or one time period be the litmus test of our faith. Our faith will falter if we try to rely, or depend, on somebody else's description of their experience of God's presence. It's not enough, maybe, because it's not our own. As our understanding of the world grows, as our time in history changes, as our life situation develops, so must our understanding of God grow and change and develop. What really matters is not how someone else described their experience of God, but how we experience the presence of God. That's not to say that we can't learn from our ancestors in faith—we do. Hearing how they have experienced the divine can help us recognize God in our own personal experiences.
As Catherine LaCugna (a feminist Catholic theologian and author of God For Us) says, “The nature of the church should manifest the nature of God.” She writes: “The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that in God there is neither hierarchy nor inequality, neither division nor competition, but only unity in love amid diversity. The Christian community is the image or icon of the invisible God when its communitarian life mirrors the inclusivity of divine love.” So, All Are Welcome! They’ll Know We Are Christians by our love! What a model for all the world and for us!
Each time we read and ponder the scriptures, each time we pray, each time we reach out in love to another person, we see God revealed anew, among and within us, in the here and now. Trinity=Community. Glory be to God, the Creator; Jesus, the Redeemer; and the Spirit, the Sanctifier!
Keep singing!
Elizabeth Dyc
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