Trinity

The Trinity… One of those things that befuddles us. We ponder it, muse on it, try to wrap our heads around it… and usually come out the other end saying “ah, it’s a mystery”. How can you have three persons and one being?? How can you have three in one??? St. Patrick has his famous cloverleaf example… We have other things… Father, Son and Holy Spirit… Creator, Created, Creating… Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier… Lover, Loved, Love… Does that help you to wrap your head around it?? I don’t know if it helps me… I can understand why the Muslims and Jews sometimes wonder if we’re not polytheistic, worshipping three gods and not one God.


I’ve been mulling over this reflection for the better part of 4 weeks! I keep reading the readings and then figure I’ll let it sit for a bit and let it settle… Who signed up for this May 30 posting anyhow I wonder!! Ah right… it was me… Or at least a part of me… There’s another part of me that is resisting it fiercely… Which is a connection of sorts to the Trinity…

This is what helps me… We are created in the image and likeness of God, yes? Yes… And we can agree that God is a communion, a community of relationship, yes? Yes… Well, so are we… Take a look at you… There’s you… but you isn’t just “you”… You is composed of your body… your mind… and your spirit or soul… We have a Trinitarian quality to ourselves, don’t you think? And we’re always in relationship with ourselves… There’s a relationship between our spirit and our mind… between our mind and our body… between our spirit and our body. We’re one being… but we have different facets to ourselves… There’s our mind that sort of gets ideas, gets things going… There’s our body that puts a lot of it into action… There’s our spirit our soul, guiding the whole process, infusing everything with that unique flair that is ours…

And I get that this is an imperfect analogy… But most of our analogies are imperfect! We’re trying to understand the infinite through the finite. The analogy (this one or any other) can only take us so far… but it’s something helps us to get another angle on it…

Unlike the Trinity though… our internal relationships aren’t always the greatest. Our relationship with our body, for example, isn’t always the healthiest… Our mind doesn’t always follow our spiritual desires or quest. There isn’t always the clearest communication happening… but… if you step back and squint a bit… you can see it, sort of…

And it gives me a sense of what it could look like… What would our lives look like if we lived purely out of love… love for ourselves… if love was the bond that united our body, our mind and our spirit… And if that love extended outwards, beyond ourselves, to everyone else who is also part of the divine plan, part of the divine Trinitarian love? Me thinks it would look pretty good...