Most Holy Trinity

If you live according to (your) sinful nature, you will die; but if, by the Spirit, you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. Brothers and sisters: for those who are led by the Spirit of God are [children] of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!' The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit, that we are children of God."  [Romans 8: 13-17]

Traditional Catholic teaching says that God is our Creator, Jesus is our Savior, and the Holy Spirit is that which makes us holy. With all three forms of God in one, we have the Holy Trinity.

I fully understand all of these separate functions, but the mystery of how this Trinity is really One and the Same, is what has always puzzled me. Indeed, many a priest has related how he spent an entire semester in seminary on the Holy Trinity; or how he wrote a several hundred page treatise on the Holy Spirit-- only to arrive at exactly the same place as where he began: totally mystified.

I have written before ("Holy Trinity", June 19, 2011), about how God is like the Head, the Creator of the Universe, the One who knows us and understands us and directs a plan for us.

Jesus is like our hands. He calls us to be redeemed by our love for one another, to serve with gentleness and humility.

The Holy Spirit is like our heart. The Holy Spirit appeals to the spirit within us, calling us to live our lives as children of God. The Holy Spirit is the Love, the Truth, the conscience within us. The Holy Spirit is the One we are left with, our Counselor of Truth within us, now that Jesus is gone from this earth.

We need our Head, our Hands and our Heart to be whole; to be holy! We are one body, but with several indispensable parts.

I actually believe that everyone who is of my generation, and younger, is uniquely qualified to understand how the Holy Trinity can exist simultaneously as three parts, in One Holy Being.  I was meditating on the Holy Trinity recently, and I thought: It is as if God gave us Himself, but across more than one spectrum.

When my mother was a girl, the methods of communication were few. A daily newspaper came, in the early days, first thing in the morning, then again late afternoon. In the evening, the family would gather around the radio and stare intently at it, as the sounds of the news came across the airwaves.

When I was a girl, televisions began to appear in most homes. So now, we had newspapers, radio, and television.

In the last 25 years, we have had an explosion of media-- not only network television, but also cable and satellite television; computers, Internet, social media, smart phones, tablets, e-readers.  I can imagine a major news story that the whole world is watching, such as a war, or a tsunami or political turmoil. Where once the world would turn to only one medium such as the newspaper, now we have perhaps 8 or 10 forms of media to turn to.

And yet, when it comes to that one major story that we all want to learn about, it is still one story.  Many media, one story.

Is God that elastic and pervasive that He can come to me in many ways? Absolutely! He is one God, but He comes to me in so many forms.

I used to think, when I was a girl, that God and my faith were only in church. I thought that, when my family stopped taking me to church after I was 14, that they had taken my faith away! I did not know about the Trinity, and about how God can come to us in so many ways, and in so many places.  I did not know that God, and the love of Jesus and the Holy Spirit were even inside me!

God can come to us as His human personification, Jesus. Even Jesus himself came to us as a tiny babe, as Teacher, as Shepherd, as the man of righteous anger overturning tables in the temple, as a prophet, as a human being who weeps and cries out in pain.

God Himself can come to us in our waking hours, through an emotion, a thought, a plea, a longing, a prayer. He can come to us in a dream, while we are asleep.  Perhaps you will say, " 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,' [but] even the darkness will not be dark to God; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to Him." [Psalm 139: 11-12].

God can come to us in nature, for God is Creator. He can come to us through a butterfly or a sunset or a rainbow. [Related posting: "The Color of Lent", March 2012].

I have often wondered whether God would care if I write about His Word in this space? Is God adaptable enough for this electronic age? Is He versatile enough to spread His message of Love and Truth to the world through the Internet? Could He have foreseen tablets, smart phones or whatever else that we humans can invent in the future? Then, I realize, God is so huge, so adaptable, why not?!

So then:  why, oh why, would God make Himself available on so many "channels"? I think it is because He does not want us, as His children, to ever feel alone. He does not want us to "fall back into fear". He wants us to "receive a spirit of adoption" so that we know that we are His children.

God, wherever I search, wherever I go, I feel Your loving Presence. You are in my days, and in my nights, You are in my thoughts and You are in emotions. May I never feel alone.

(c) The Spiritual Devotional 2012. All Rights Reserved.