Father, most Holy, gracious and forgiving, Christ, High exalted, Prince of our salvation, Spirit of counsel, nourishing creation, God ever living.
This hymn ushers in across the world the wonder of the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. It expresses the awe of a people made in the image of God. Often symbolised as three intertwining circles (Creator, Word and Love) or Patrick's Shamrock of three leaves (persons) in one stem (Godhead) or as Archbishop Fulton Sheehan in Dublin compared it to county teams battling it out at Croke Park on an All-Ireland final day.
Some, unfortunately, reduce the mystery into an abstract mathematical, metaphysical formula, "one nature, two processions, three persons, four notions, five relations, for easy memorisation as a conundrum or dismissal as irrelevant . . . (How can three persons share one nature?)
For Jesus, His Divine Family was at the very core of His being, His prayer and mission. It was the object of His preaching and, our destiny. In John's Gospel, Jesus says, ".. . Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. . . I am the Father and the Father is me . . . And I shall ask and He will send you the Spirit of Truth to be with you forever. . . To anyone who loves me. . . we shall come to him and make a home with him."
The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is an invitation to look deeper into our God, and His Inner Life. St Augustine tells his story of searching and analysing the Divine Mystery of God's Family. He speaks of his study of the Word and the ancient Fathers of the Church, and how lost he became. He says . . ."There I was, going mad, on the way to sanity." Then one day, while walking on a beach in North Africa, he happened upon a small child who was running frenetically to and from the edge of the water with a small bucket filling the seawater into a hole he had dug in the sand. Augustine asked him what he hoped to achieve. The child replied that he was trying, bucket by bucket, to bring all the sea into his little sand hole. Augustine, as adults often do, patronisingly pointed out the futility and ridiculous nature of this task. The child replied: "It is no more ridiculous than you trying to understand and explain the mystery of the Godhead with your human mind." Later Augustine wrote: ". . . It is not easy to find words or ideas which accurately define the utter complexity, simplicity and excellence of the Trinity" .. . "the one God from Whom, through Whom and in Whom all things exist. . ."
John of Damascus used many images, ".. . Think of the Father as a spring of life. . . the Son, a river . . . the Spirit as the sea sharing the one nature of water . . . Think of the Father as a root, the Son as a branch and the Spirit as the fruit. . . Think of the Father as sun, the Son as rays and the Spirit as heat. . .". John Wesley wrote, ". . .Tell me how it is that in this room there are three candles lighting but one light, and I will explain to you the mode of divine existence."
Rublev, the 15th century Russian icon painter, leaning on his Eastern early church tradition uses the image of apparition of the three angels to Abraham by the oak of Mamre to depict the Trinity of Persons. Using a circle as the basic form of composition, and intersecting circles and very vivid colours of blue, pink, brown and purple, he paints three persons in a oneness of deep peace and joyfulness.
We know that all our ideas of God, even our concept of God as creator is arrived at by analogy from his creatures. We need light, insight, patience, stillness, understanding, and most of all, faith to enter the mystery of God. Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 28:19, "Baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. . ." In God's own mysterious way, he has co-opted us into his plans, his life, his family - it is our destiny and it is awesome.
We can make our own the prayer of John Donne:
Bring us, O Lord, .. . into the
house and gate of Heaven,
To enter into that gate and dwell in that house, Where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling but one equal light,
No noise nor silence but one equal music,
No fears nor hopes but one equal possession,
No ends nor beginnings but one equal eternity,
In the habitations of thy majesty and thy glory,
World without end. Amen.
Alleluia.
F.McN.