Over the years I've reflected many times on the two topics of the Holy Trinity and the Kingdom of God. (You can use the "Labels" list in the column to the left of the screen to click on each of these topics for a more thorough treatment of each.)
On this Trinity Sunday, June 15, I'd like to reflect on how similar these two mysteries are. I hope my brief summaries of the Trinity and the Kingdom will be of some help.
GOD AS TRINITY
The Holy Trinity is the complete expression of God’s Love. When a family is faithful, their love transforms itself into the image of the Holy Trinity on earth. The Holy Trinity, like the family, is above all a mystery of unity. Love is union. Two spouses who love one another are united, and two distinct persons who become one: “And the two shall become one flesh.” This unity and diversity of two-in-one helps us to understand the Trinity: Three in One, three distinct persons in a unity of love.
The Holy Trinity, like the family, is a mystery of fruitful love and unity. The man and woman who love each other participate in the creative power of God, in the Love that gives life. The child is the living image of the parents’ love, just as in the Trinity, where the Son is the perfect Image of God.
If God is a Trinity of distinct persons, then God is relation-ship. To make it sound more real you can say that God is family. If that’s so, then you need to approach the mystery of the Holy Trinity with more than just your mind -- you need an open heart. To grasp more about the Trinity you have to be ready to receive God into your life, this God who is boundless, unconditional love.
God is family. We are all family. Think of that the next time you’re thinking ill of someone, especially someone who hates you. No matter who that person is, you have to say to yourself, “I better be real careful because after all that person is family.”
If your God's love has boundaries around it and is limited to only certain people, then that is not the Triune God of the Christian faith, but a God with boundaries. A god with boundaries is obviously not much of a God, but rather an idol.Our belief in the Trinity, in God as Family, challenges us to open our hearts in LOVE to all of creation. Sure we may fall short of this, but the Trinity is like that -- something we never quite get completely.
On our end, we can deflect or interrupt the Flow of love in our lives, we can isolate ourselves from the divine circle dance, but the Spirit is always working to draw us back into it. THE KINGDOM
In the gospels Jesus tells his disciples, “The kingdom of God is among you.” The kingdom that Jesus began is a whole new way of relating with God and with one another, that is, a whole new way of filling the space between us.
The kingdom exists not so much inside each of us as in the spaces between each of us. We get to decide the character of each of those spaces. I freely choose how to fill that space between me and a student, say, or between me and a street beggar, of between me and a brother monk, and so on.
The Kingdom, then is all about relationships of LOVE. And the Trinity, too, it turns out, is all about relationships of LOVE.
The two deepest mysteries of our faith, then, are about the same thing: LOVE:
THE HOLY TRINITY: God's mysterious internal life of the mutual love of three persons and infinite love for us creatures.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD: The Love that comes about in the spaces, the relationships between God and us and our neighbors.
La Santisima Trinidad - C. Cervantez
The Holy Trinity is the complete expression of God’s Love. When a family is faithful, their love transforms itself into the image of the Holy Trinity on earth. The Holy Trinity, like the family, is above all a mystery of unity. Love is union. Two spouses who love one another are united, and two distinct persons who become one: “And the two shall become one flesh.” This unity and diversity of two-in-one helps us to understand the Trinity: Three in One, three distinct persons in a unity of love.
The Holy Trinity, like the family, is a mystery of fruitful love and unity. The man and woman who love each other participate in the creative power of God, in the Love that gives life. The child is the living image of the parents’ love, just as in the Trinity, where the Son is the perfect Image of God.
If God is a Trinity of distinct persons, then God is relation-ship. To make it sound more real you can say that God is family. If that’s so, then you need to approach the mystery of the Holy Trinity with more than just your mind -- you need an open heart. To grasp more about the Trinity you have to be ready to receive God into your life, this God who is boundless, unconditional love.
God is family. We are all family. Think of that the next time you’re thinking ill of someone, especially someone who hates you. No matter who that person is, you have to say to yourself, “I better be real careful because after all that person is family.”
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Our belief in the Trinity, in God as Family, challenges us to open our hearts in LOVE to all of creation. Sure we may fall short of this, but the Trinity is like that -- something we never quite get completely.
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| La Santisima Trinidad - C. Cervantez |
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