God is Three yet One…mind boggling—truly a matter of faith
The majority of us have been baptized into the Trinity, yet the bible does not have a specific teaching on the Trinity nor does the term appear in Scripture. There is the command of Jesus to go out into the world baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. There are also references of the Holy Spirit and Advocate that Jesus gives to the disciples and also declares that God the Father will send the Paraclete (the Holy Spirit) to teach us all that Jesus has said, and St. Paul refers to each of the Three Persons in God over 30 times (counted by scholars). However, nowhere do we find in scripture the theology expressed as God is One in Three Persons. The Church’s teaching about the nature of our triune God has a very complex history as we search for ways to describe an indescribable mystery.
Like some, I have had different relationships with each of the Three Persons in God. Doesn’t that sound weird! I have prayed to God the Father, or God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit at different times, and just God a lot of the times, or Lord—not really certain that it was a conversation with to One of the Person’s of God. I have felt, but cannot define or clearly explain those unique Personhoods in God. Strange to say, at different times in my life I felt closer to one of the Three Persons than the other two Persons–sometimes I would pray to One to help me know and love the Other.
God the Father was a challenge for me when I was a youngster; since my father suffered emotional illness and was tyrannical and abusive subject to explode for no reason. To see God as Father was quite a struggle. It wasn’t until many years later that I understood that my father suffered from undiagnosed- untreated post traumatic stress syndrome that caused his rage. It was a result of his Army service of nearly 5 years during World War II. Like many, he came home a very different person than the innocent young man who went off to foreign lands like Burma and the Aleutians, and killed men—sometimes in accident—also innocent women and children. He also saw many of his friends killed in the “arenas of war”, and would choke back the tears when he spoke of his lost “buddies.”
What helped me to understand dad more was my time in the Air Force. It was during the Viet Nam War when I was attached air medical evacuation unit. We received numerous “body bags” and saw the death count stack up. Although I was not on the firing line as the millions fighting in that war, seeing such atrocious carnage helped me to better understand my father’s depression and pain.
Such encounters with the price of war led me to a deeper questioning of God in all that suffering that included the loss so many millions of lives, many innocent lives in the body counts. I certainly understood with pride for our military the necessity of World War I and most importantly WWII. We cannot begin to comprehend what would have become of our nation and the world had not our brave men and women fought the evil forces in those wars.
There are also battles and wars in the last century and this one as well that are more nuanced, whereby power based-greed ignites the worst in nations that seek to conquer other nations disregarding the cost. Sadly, we can tend to rationalize our evil choices and eliminate our responsibility for our actions–we tend to blame the horrid results on God.
It was when I entered the seminary that I became convinced I would get the answers about God in all the suffering. Perhaps even the secret handshake. Studies would surely provide answers to the meaning of many of the mysteries of our faith like the Immaculate Conception, Virgin Birth, Transubstantiation, God and innocent suffering, and even the Trinity.
After participating in a two year graduate course on the Trinity reality set it. Some of our greatest theologians and saints have stated the same answer for centuries. God is Three yet One is a mystery beyond our human understanding. What a downer. However through it all, I did grow in my spiritual need for all Three Persons.
One approach to the mystery that I took many years ago is the primary message of the Trinity: God chose to create all things in relationship to others and God chose to reveal who God is. Three Persons in relationship to one another and available to be present in each of us is our lesson on how to live and how to love. All the cosmos is related. The earth and tides to the moon, the moon to the earth, the sun keeps us alive, what we exhale plants need, what plants exhale we need, and so on. That is how God is—relational love and interdependence.
We were made to be relational beings and to live in unity, love, and trust.
Because we are by nature, driven toward relationships, we are also driven to be liked and accepted. Sometimes when we fail to live rightly, like love in families for example, factions begin –sides are chosen, harsh judgments are made grudges are harbored, and family unity falls apart. For in those arid relationships-dying ones—there the love of seeing God in one another also dries up along with mutual respect and personal dignity. Persons no longer see each other as made in the image and likeness of God.
However, when we see ourselves in relationship to God, to Jesus Christ, who came to show us how loved we are by God, we open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. God is the loving Father who wants us to know divine love within us, to see our lives as sacred. When we do so comfort and peace evolve along with respect for differences, we see that all life is sacred.
God is both close to us and beyond us, Intimate and Transcendent—beyond our human limitations. As we try to explain the activity of the Trinity in relationship to us for example, in Baptism we receive Their Life all three Persons the One God. We are made new again in innocence like the beautiful babies and children we Baptize at our Masses. We ooh and ah over their wonderful innocence expressed in their faces and gestures and find joy being around them—we soften and melt—well most of us do. I believe God does so with each of us—even the crustiest older men. That parental and fraternal and relational sanctity with God is why we are baptized into defending all life so greatly, to see life at the moment of conception as sacred, and all life—human, plant and animal as entrusted to our sacred care by God.
As He tells us in our gospel: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age”. (Mt 28:20) We are given His Presence so that others can find Him in us. Blessings, Fr. Gordon