FAMILY VIRTUES

One of the choices for the second reading for today’s feast of the holy family is from Colossians 3:12-17. It begins this way:

¨Brothers and sisters: Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another...¨

 Paul describes here the kind of virtue that it takes to make a family truly unified. Most of these qualities are pretty familiar: kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience and so on. But I would like to look at the first virtue on the list, “feelings of compassion.” Both of these words are very powerful in the original Greek.

First, some background on the word for ¨feelings¨ splanchna. The Greeks considered the internal organs of the abdomen (intestines, heart, spleen, etc.) as the seat of the strong emotions. We still describe certain situations as "gut-wrenching" or "heart-breaking." For the Hebrews, however, these inner organs were identified more with compassion and mercy. 

The Greek word for the parts of the body involved in emotions is the plural noun splanchna. The King James Bible translates it as "bowels," while modern bibles usually translate it, depending on the context, as "affection" or "compassion." In Philippians, for example, the  KJV has "If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels (splanchna) and mercies…" The New American Bible has "If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion (splanchna) and mercy… (Phil. 2:1)" So the writer of Colossians has chosen Greek's strongest word to express feelings of compassionate love, of being moved in the depths of ones "guts."

The second word, ¨compassion,¨ oiktirmou, comes from the verb oikteiro, which means, according to my dictionary “to have pity a feeling of distress through the ills of others¨. The noun form is used of God in Romans 9:15: ¨For he says to Moses: “I will show mercy to whom I will, I will take pity on whom I will.”

It is very easy, it seems tome, to feel “sympathy“ for someone, because you are standing safely outside of

the situation, a safe distance from their actual pain. But our word here, “empathy,¨ is different. When I feel empathy or compassion, I am  not just an observer sharing the other person’s pain. I am trying to get inside what that person is experiencing, and feeling it myself. 

So when the sacred writer combines these two words, splanchna and oiktirmou to mean ¨feelings of compassion,¨ they form a powerful picture of how we are supposed to act toward others: Allowing ourselves to be moved to the depths of our being by someone else’s suffering by identifying with that other person and feeling their pain as much as they feel it. 

And this little two-word phrase is at the head of the list of behaviors that it takes to make a healthy and life giving family.

So today we ask Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the members of the holy family, to help each of us to imitate their selfless love for one another in their family.

GOD´S FAMILY

 The first reading for the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle on July 3 was from the second chapter of Ephesians. Here Paul is addressing himself to Gentile Christians, that is, people who had been converted to Christianity not from Judaism, but from pagan religion. He is assuring them that the divisions between gentile and Jew that were in force under the Old Jewish Law no longer apply: all of us, he says, whether Gentile or Jew, are all one in Christ. We are no longer  strangers or aliens to one another. Here is the passage:

Brothers and sisters:

You are no longer strangers and sojourners, 

but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones

and members of the household of God, 

built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets,

with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.

Through him the whole structure is held together

and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord;

in him you also are being built together

into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Eph 2:19-22).

The first time I read this in the original Greek I saw that the writer was playing with a Greek root, but the play on words disappears completely when the passage is translated. I would like to share with you a glimpse of Paul's clever play on the word, oikos, which means ¨house,¨ or in its common figurative meaning, ¨family.¨ For example, you remember that Saint Luke tells us that the virgin Mary ¨was espoused to a man named Joseph of the oikos of David.¨ The ¨house¨ here is the ¨family¨ or lineage of David

With this in mind, let´s go through the passage and lift out each word which involves the root oik- (house,family). I hope that you´ll share some of the satisfaction that I feel as I bring to light the treasures hidden in this passage. 

Brothers and sisters:

You are no longer strangers and sojourners,

but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones

and members of the household of God, (okeioi) 

      [Another translation might be ¨you are members God´s family,¨ or even ¨you are relatives of God.¨ ¨Yes,¨ you might say to a friend, ¨I´m related to God.¨]

built upon (epoikodomethentes) the foundation of the Apostles and prophets.  

  [This rather long Greek word, a straightforward term used in house construction, lifts up the role of the apostles as the ones chosen by God to serve as the firm basis on which the Church will be built. ] 

Christ the capstone of the Church

with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.

Through him the whole structure (oikodome) is held together

        [The noun (oikodome) is the word for a ¨structure or a building.¨]

and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord;

in him you also are being built together (sunoikodoemsthei) 

        [The prefix sun - or syn- means ¨with.¨ So ¨built together ¨gives me the picture of all of us             being intimately unified by belonging to the great project of ¨building" the Church of                 Christ.]

into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

The first time that the root oikos occurs in this passage, it is used in the figurative sense of household or family. The other four times it is used literally, borrowing imagery from architecture or construction.

But the first time that the word is used, with the meaning of ¨family¨seems to me to color the whole rest of the passage with the warm glow of God's love for his family united in him and which includes you and me. For me this passage invites us to reflect on the Church not in terms of a building, but as God´s close family in which each of us is loved with a warm, intimate and infinite love.

Now you may want go back and read the passage as given at the beginning of this post and notice how that first word, okeioi ("members of God´s family") colors the rest of the passage, reminding you that you are a member of God´s vast family and loved by him as his very favorite family member.

FAMILY AND TRINITY

 

GOD AS FAMILY

 

I spent the past week visiting with relatives, from ages two to eighty-some. It was all about love. I think that the following post from a year ago is a good reflection on my experience.

Sunday May 30 is Trinity Sunday. The past few years on this Sunday I've re-used ideas from Richard Rohr's book, "The Divine Dance," an excellent treatment of the central but mostly-ignored mystery of our faith. By definition, you can never fully unpack the significance of this mystery, so I just keep rereading my previous reflections, always finding new insights. The following includes some thoughts I first posted in June, 2013. 

Did you ever try to define “family?” It’s not easy. Not just because of the current cultural upheaval that’s re-shaping the concept of family for good or for ill, but simply because the notion of “family” is not easy to define. Everyone knows what we mean by the word, but it’s hard to capture the concept or reduce it to a definition. That’s because you have to understand “family” with your heart, not your head.

A kid who is being gypped by not having a supportive family around him cannot give you a precise definition of a supportive family environment, but he feels the experience deep in his gut. In a lot of ways, then, it’s legitimate to say that the notion of family is a “mystery,” something you understand, but will never understand fully because it’s too big to grasp.

GOD AS FAMILY

Of all our beliefs as Christians, the one that means least to many of us is the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, three persons in one God. By calling it a “mystery” we’re saying that we’ll never come to a complete understanding of it. We are NOT saying that we can’t understand anything about the Trinity -- we can and do understand plenty about it. To prove my point I’d like to present one way of unpacking a little bit more about the Triune Godhead: To say that “God is Trinity” is to say that “God is FAMILY.”

That’s why it’s easier to understand the Trinity with your heart than with your head. We all know what a family is. We’ve all experienced family, we’ve been born and grown up in one, and perhaps have started families of our own. Yet there is no perfect definition of a family.

There are so many things that make up a family. It’s the house or apartment to which we retreat every day to relax and be ourselves. It’s a place exclusively ours, where we can talk, laugh and cry. Family is above all our father and mother and the love that unites them. Family is the children, the table at which we eat, and the dusty photo album filled with memories of members long gone.

So, what if we say that God is FAMILY? Then we’re saying that God is love, warmth, closeness and relationship.

God the FATHER is God and his omnipotent power and vigor to create, to bring life to the universe. God the SON is the reflection of God, God’s self-revelation to us, the Word become flesh. God the SPIRIT is the love that unites the Father and the Son and extends to us humans – which brings us to the really good news.

GOD’S OPEN FAMILY

Especially during the COVID confinement past 14 months or so, many of us have experienced how ur human families are often rather closed, like a possession we guard jealously, something special intended only for people related by blood. We’ve all heard people say “Well, that’s different because she’s family and he’s not.” But now think of the family of God, the Trinity. This mysterious, intimate relationship of God’s family has been opened through Christ to include us humans. We too are God’s family!

God has often revealed himself through human experiences. The entire Hebrew Scriptures are based on

the notion that God acts in history. Today, perhaps more than ever, we need to see this Triune God through the experience of the family. The family continues to be the first place we experience love, it is the best (or the worst) school of religion. I think we could say that your knowledge of God depends very much on your experience of family.

The Holy Trinity, like the family, is above all a mystery of love. In a family we meet all kinds and degrees of love: The love of friendship, of husband and wife, mother-love and father-love, love of brothers and sisters, and simple charity. And the fusion of all these loves we call the love of family.

In the same way 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.

MAKING THE TRINITY REAL

If God is a Trinity of distinct persons, then God is relationship. 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.

"We are family"

THE OTHER SHOE

This post is Part Two of last week's reflection on God and Prayer. In that post I quoted Fr. Francois Varillon's objections to our thinking of God as the Universal Fixer whom we call on only when we admit that we can't do a certain thing by ourselves. But we mustn't understand this to mean that we should never ask God for anything in prayer. So, let me drop the other shoe concerning what we traditionally call "prayer of petition".

First of all, Jesus himself tells us  "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" (Mt 7:7). But Jesus also teaches us the right frame of mind to bring when approaching prayer. One time his disciples noticed him praying fervently by himself. Afterward one of them asked him "Lord, teach us to pray." His response, you remember, was "When you pray, pray like this: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ..." 

Let me quote a footnote from the New American Bible:  "In answer to their question, Jesus presents them with an example of a Christian communal prayer that stresses the fatherhood of God and acknowledges him as the one to whom the Christian disciple owes daily sustenance (Lk 11:3), forgiveness (Lk 11:4), and deliverance from the final trial (Lk 11:4)."

You can't miss Jesus' starting point for prayer: We are not entering into a business transaction with some Supernatural Repairman with whom we negotiate a price for some service or other. Rather we are to pray to "our Father." Our Lord immediately puts prayer in the context of a family.

In a family we don't negotiate or contract with a parent or a sister or brother, but instead we simply ask, "Could you please help me with this?" or "Would you mind giving me a hand?" So think about the child Jesus growing up in the holy family's home in Nazareth. (By the way, today, March 19, is, appropriately, the feast of Saint Joseph,) The Christ child must have asked his mother and his father Joseph for things the way any child would.  

If the human Jesus first experienced "asking his father" in the context of a loving family where he was confident of being loved and accepted, then we can begin to see the kind of asking that Jesus is talking about when he teaches us to pray "Our father," and when he promises that if we ask, we will receive. 

Jesus' God is not a repairman with whom we negotiate for help, nor an accountant who is keeping a carefully detailed balance sheet of our sins to see if we are worthy of being loved. Jesus' God is his "Abba," "my father and your father. (Jn 20:17)" And our Lord clearly wants to share that relationship with us: "I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us (Jn 17:20-21)."

So much for the "useful God" and "useful prayer!"

Happy Saint Joseph's Day!

GOD AS FAMILY

 

Sunday May 30 is Trinity Sunday. The past few years
on this Sunday I've re-used ideas from Richard Rohr's book, "The Divine Dance," an excellent treatment of the central but mostly-ignored mystery of our faith. By definition, you can never fully unpack the significance of this mystery, so I just keep rereading my previous reflections, always finding new insights. The following includes some thoughts I first posted in June, 2013. 

Did you ever try to define “family?” It’s not easy. Not just because of the current cultural upheaval that’s re-shaping the concept of family for good or for ill, but simply because the notion of “family” is not easy to define. Everyone knows what we mean by the word, but it’s hard to capture the concept or reduce it to a definition. That’s because you have to understand “family” with your heart, not your head.

A kid who is being gypped by not having a supportive family around him cannot give you a precise definition of a supportive family environment, but he feels the experience deep in his gut. In a lot of ways, then, it’s legitimate to say that the notion of family is a “mystery,” something you understand, but will never understand fully because it’s too big to grasp.

GOD AS FAMILY

Of all our beliefs as Christians, the one that means least to many of us is the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, three persons in one God. By calling it a “mystery” we’re saying that we’ll never come to a complete understanding of it. We are NOT saying that we can’t understand anything about the Trinity -- we can and do understand plenty about it. To prove my point I’d like to present one way of unpacking a little bit more about the Triune Godhead: To say that “God is Trinity” is to say that “God is FAMILY.”

That’s why it’s easier to understand the Trinity with your heart than with your head. We all know what a family is. We’ve all experienced family, we’ve been born and grown up in one, and perhaps have started families of our own. Yet there is no perfect definition of a family.

There are so many things that make up a family. It’s the house or apartment to which we retreat every day to relax and be ourselves. It’s a place exclusively ours, where we can talk, laugh and cry. Family is above all our father and mother and the love that unites them. Family is the children, the table at which we eat, and the dusty photo album filled with memories of members long gone.

So, what if we say that God is FAMILY? Then we’re saying that God is love, warmth, closeness and relationship.

God the FATHER is God and his omnipotent power and vigor to create, to bring life to the universe. God the SON is the reflection of God, God’s self-revelation to us, the Word become flesh. God the SPIRIT is the love that unites the Father and the Son and extends to us humans – which brings us to the really good news.

GOD’S OPEN FAMILY

Especially during the COVID confinement past 14 months or so, many of us have experienced how ur human families are often rather closed, like a possession we guard jealously, something special intended only for people related by blood. We’ve all heard people say “Well, that’s different because she’s family and he’s not.” But now think of the family of God, the Trinity. This mysterious, intimate relationship of God’s family has been opened through Christ to include us humans. We too are God’s family!

God has often revealed himself through human experiences. The entire Hebrew Scriptures are based on

the notion that God acts in history. Today, perhaps more than ever, we need to see this Triune God through the experience of the family. The family continues to be the first place we experience love, it is the best (or the worst) school of religion. I think we could say that your knowledge of God depends very much on your experience of family.

The Holy Trinity, like the family, is above all a mystery of love. In a family we meet all kinds and degrees of love: The love of friendship, of husband and wife, mother-love and father-love, love of brothers and sisters, and simple charity. And the fusion of all these loves we call the love of family.

In the same way 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.

MAKING THE TRINITY REAL

If God is a Trinity of distinct persons, then God is relationship. 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.

"We are family"

ST PAUL'S TIMELY ADVICE

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Three days a week I teach my New Testament class via Google Meeting. It's been going fairly well. I often have on the screen the live images of all twelve sophomores at once, so I can monitor who's dozing off, or who's sneaked away.

At the end of class yesterday I spent a couple of minutes asking them  how they're doing, and what they do to pass the time. (Video games, sleeping and eating, in case you're wondering.) I feel really sorry for these teenagers who need to be outside getting exercise and blowing off steam. As I listened to them I realized how really hard it must be for them and for the members of their families to stay out of one another's way.

After class was over, I found in my mailbox a letter from a friend who mentioned that she's taking advantage of this period of being shut-in to spend more time with her husband. In an ordinary week their work schedules keep them from seeing much of one another. I found that a very uplifting little  thought, realizing that she and her husband have decided to profit from this awful crisis to grow in their love for eachother.

Then, at Vigils this morning (on the feast of St. Mark -- happy feast day, Br. Mark!) we heard the following words of encouragement addressed to the Christians of Ephesus. I think they're valuable for us to hear during these days:

I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Eph 4:1-ff).

This turns out to be a very good list of things to do to make Christ present in your home by the way you treat one another:

humility
gentleness
patience
bearing with one another through love
striving to preserve the bond of peace.

Maybe you can work on one of these this week, and even invite someone else to join you in making the risen Lord present in your home despite the closed doors.

Stay well!

LIFE IN THE ROCK TUMBLER

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These have been in a tumbler

This past Tuesday, one of the young monks handed me a small tin that he’d found while cleaning out Fr. Mark’s room. The round container that might have once held hard candies now held eight smooth pebbles of different kinds. They looked interesting enough to pass on to one of our school’s science teachers who, I knew, was an amateur mineralogist.

So, I showed them to John, and watched his reaction as he picked up the stones one at a time and easily recognized each like an old friend: “Oh, this is hematite. Nice!” Then he remarked, “This one’s been in a tumbler,... and so has this one,... and this one, too. See how nice and smooth they are? But this piece of iron ore is still rough.”

Hobbyist's rock tumbler

We spoke for a couple of minutes about rock tumblers, cylinders into which you place rocks and then rotate (usually with electric power). By knocking together, the rocks eventually give each other a smooth, polished finish.

As I left the science classroom, I realized that living in the monastery is like living in a rock tumbler: you knock against your brothers so often, in so many circumstances, that after awhile your sharp points and knife-like edges get knocked off or worn down without your even noticing it.

It occurred to me that this is why it’s so much better for a new monk to have classmates and agemates in the monastery -- they bump against one another and form each other into smoother monks. Then I suddenly remembered a final remark that John made about using a rock tumbler; as I was leaving his classroom he added “It takes forever!”

These guys must be novices!

Oops! I began to wonder how many edges and sharp points I still have after fifty-five years in the rock tumbler? I know there are a couple of brothers who help me to wear down those little points of pride and angles of impatience. It’s not, I concluded, just the new guys in the monastery that need to be smoothed out. I’m not yet as polished as the Lord wants me to be.

When I’m done, He’ll take me out of the tumbler and welcome me into the Kingdom. Meanwhile, we rock on together.

.

   

Will our monastery ever look like this?

VILLAGERS' VISION

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UNHAPPY HOMECOMING

The gospel reading for today (Friday) is the story of Jesus’ not very successful return to his native village of Nazareth:

Nazareth today

Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue.
They were astonished and said,
“Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?
Is he not the carpenter’s son?
Is not his mother named Mary
and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?
Are not his sisters all with us?
Where did this man get all this?”
And they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them,
“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and in his own house.”
And he did not work many mighty deeds there
because of their lack of faith. (Mt 13:54-58)

 

IS HE NOT THE CARPENTER’S SON?

Nazareth, scholars tell us, was not tiny, but it was still a village; and in those days in that part of the world, everyone in a town that size would have know everyone else. That’s both the good news and the bad news. Of course it’s great to live with neighbors who know you pretty well, but in the reading we see the down side as well: When you think you know someone well you tend to take them for granted and even feel you have the right to write them off.
The villagers said among themselves: “We know this Jesus, he’s the son of Joseph the carpenter; we’ve known him his whole life.” And, Matthew tells us, “they took offense at him.” The Greeks says “They were scandalized by him.” A skandalon is a stumbling block. Their supposed familiarity with Jesus became a stumbling block that tripped them up so that they could not understand his words clearly nor see the wonders he was performing. 
THE “VILLAGERS’ VISION” PROBLEM

I was thinking today that right now I’m living in a little village here in the middle of Newark; 12 monks, 575 students (we started school on Monday) and, say sixty faculty and staff. The question is: Do I have the same problem as those villagers in Nazareth? Let’s call it “villagers’ vision.” Do I tend to write people off because I’ve known them so long and I think I know them so well? What an awful thing to do to someone, especially to a brother!

There’s a prayer that goes something like, “God, grant me the grace to see myself as others see me.” Well, to counter my own “villagers’ vision” I tried a revised version of this prayer:  “God, grant me the grace to see my brothers as YOU see them.”

AS GOD SEES HIM…

What would have happened if the villagers of Nazareth had been granted the grace to see Jesus as His heavenly Father saw Him? How differently would they have listened to Jesus! What a joyful welcome and what awestruck attention would they have given to this Person whom they saw was the Son of God.

Let's face it, when you’ve lived with someone for forty or fifty years you figure that you know them, especially their foibles and faults, but you seldom try to see them through God’s eyes. 

So this afternoon in my village of Newark Abbey I tried to overcome my “villagers’ vision” by attempting to see each of my brothers (or colleagues or students) as someone whom Jesus loves so much that He’s willing to die for them, as someone who is infinitely precious and loveable in God’s eyes. It was actually a beautiful exercise – I tried it on a couple of my brothers at mass this afternoon. How different someone looks when you see them through God's eyes! How different their words sound!

As time goes on this exercise will, I’m sure, challenge my imagination occasionally, but it will just as surely fill my heart with God’s love for the funky familiar folks around me, and help me to accept and appreciate my fellow villagers exactly as they are. Heck, if God loves them exactly the way they are, who am I to not love them as well? 
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FAMILY MATTERS

Yesterday was the last day of school, and tomorrow is graduation. Wednesday night a few hundred people and I watched a sneak preview of the 90-minute documentary about our monastery and school entitled “The Rule” (which I’m sure you’ll hear more about in future posts.) On Thursday night we had the Senior Banquet, where I got to meet the families of our graduates.

FAMILY WEEK

A theme that kept coming up over and over was “family.” I saw all kinds of families this week: intact ones and broken ones, nurturing ones and toxic ones, happy families and gloomy ones.

One thing that really struck me was the fact that we don’t use the metaphor of “family” a lot in describing our school or our monastic community. The reason is, I think, because it’s understood, we don’t need to say it out loud. Students will use the word now and then about school, but for the most part they use synonyms, various individual aspects of the concept such as caring, support, being brothers, or a sense of common identity.

Did you ever try to define “family?” It’s not easy. Not just because of the current cultural upheaval that’s re

-shaping the concept of family for good or for ill, but simply because the notion of “family” is not easy to define. Everyone knows what we mean by the word, but it’s hard to capture the concept or reduce it to a definition. That’s because you have to understand “family” with your heart, not your head.

A kid who is being gypped by not having a supportive family around him cannot give you a precise definition of a supportive family environment, but he feels the experience deep in his gut. In a lot of ways, then, it’s legitimate to say that the notion of family is a “mystery,” something you understand, but will never understand fully because it’s too big to grasp.

Coincidentally, last Sunday, May 26, Trinity Sunday I preached about his very concept. I’d like to share my sermon notes with you here because I think they may be of some help to someone.

GOD AS FAMILY

Of all our beliefs as Christians, the one that means least to many of us is the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, three persons in one God. By calling it a “mystery” we’re saying that we’ll never come to a complete understanding of it. We are NOT saying that we can’t understand anything about the Trinity -- we can and do understand plenty about it. To prove my point I’d like to present one way of unpacking a little bit more about the Triune Godhead: To say that “God is Trinity” is to say that “God is FAMILY.”

That’s why it’s easier to understand the Trinity with your heart than with your head. We all know what a family is. We’ve all experienced family, we’ve been born and grown up in one, and perhaps have started families of our own. Yet there is no perfect definition of a family.

There are so many things that make up a family. It’s the house or apartment to which we retreat every day to relax and be ourselves. It’s a place exclusively ours, where we can talk, laugh and cry. Family is above all our father and mother and the love that unites them. Family is the children, the table at which we eat, and the dusty photo album filled with memories of members long gone.

So, what if we say that God is FAMILY? Then we’re saying that God is love, warmth, closeness and relationship.

God the FATHER is God and his omnipotent power and vigor to create, to bring life to the universe. God the SON is the reflection of God, God’s self-revelation to us, the Word become flesh. God the SPIRIT is the love that unites the Father and the Son and extends to us humans – which brings us to the really good news.

GOD’S OPEN FAMILY

Our human families are often rather closed, like a possession we guard jealously, something special intended only for people related by blood. We’ve all heard people say “Well, that’s different because she’s family and he’s not.” But now think of the family of God, the Trinity. This mysterious, intimate relationship of God’s family has been opened through Christ to include us humans. We too are God’s family!

God has often revealed himself through human experiences. The entire Hebrew Scriptures are based on the notion that God acts in history. Today, perhaps more than ever, we need to see this Triune God through the experience of the family. The family continues to be the first place we experience love, it is the best (or the worst) school of religion. I think we could say that your knowledge of God depends very much on your experience of family.

The Holy Trinity, like the family, is above all a mystery of love. In a family we meet all kinds and degrees of

love: The love of friendship, of husband and wife, mother-love and father-love, love of brothers and sisters, and simple charity. And the fusion of all these loves we call the love of family.

In the same way 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.

MAKING THE TRINITY REAL

If God is a Trinity of distinct persons, then God is relationship. 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 bcause 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.

Members of the Family