As I was in hospital on Trinity Sunday, I did not get the chance to write a reflection on this Holy Day.
+In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.Amen.
God above, next and in us !
A priest in Germany climbed the steps of his pulpit on Trinity Sunday in order to say that he was not going to preach.
"Today, we are covering such an absolute mystery, which we as people of God dont understand. Unfortunately I am unable to preach about it.
If we act like this priest, I guess we are not allowed to preach at all. It is always about the mystery of faith, which we cannotunderstand.But we do need it in this life we live. We dont preach about the mysteries in order to understand them with our interlect, but in orderto believe them in our hearts. Words often fail. They cannot solve the mysteries, but are pointers or roadmaps to the mysteries of our God.If we can say what is meant by the Holy Trinity, then we grasp the love of God even better.
You will not find the word " Holy Trinity" in the Bible. Jesus, in fact has never used this name to mention God.He preferred to call God "Abba", dear Father.Then He also spoke about the Holy Spirit, whom He would send as helper
and comforter.Jesus Himself was called "the Son of God " by His disciples. So in the Gospels we read about God as Father,Son and Holy Ghost.
If Lectors in Religion or Chatachists have to speak about the three in one God , they usually make use of visible cymbols.They take three matches, joined together and light them. There is only one flame and there are three matches. Or they give
the exmple about the couple with their first child:father, mother, child. Drie persons in one family. Three persons connected with each other. Three persons interconnected, in the same community, through the same love. And yet three.
With these exmples one wants to show that there is unity in diversity. But that cannot touch our hearts. This three in one God tells us something about the love of God for us.
In any case the names Father, Son and Holy Ghost are very familiar to us. We pronounce them when we make the sign of the Cross. This sign we make before each prayer, before each Eucharist, in all the sacraments. Also on the Confession of our Faith.This begins with God , the Almighty Father, Creator of heaven and earth.
God, as we do believe, is the beginning of everything. He is the first one. He was there before the Creation.He created out of love. The Creation is a gift from God. God creates continually. He keeps everything in existance.But everything God created is away from Him. God, in a way, gives the creation to itself. He is not a space architect or Kosmos engineer.He does not come continually in between processes of creation and so called laws of nature. God put the creation there, which is different from Him. In a way in front of Him, but allows the creation to organize itself. The creation has her own process. God does not bind Himself to the creation, but is connected with it in Love. He creates man as assistant creator. The Creation is gift, but then also an assignment. I.e people are responsible for it.They have to honour the creation, to protect it and to complete it.
How God performed the Creation remains an unsolvebel secret for everybody and for always.Human sciences have already spent centuries searching for an anster to how the universe was created.
But science and believe in God's creation can go together. The scientists describe the evolution, but they cannot explain it. The Bible believes that God is the Creator, but does not tell us how God creates. The Bible is not a science manual.
The Bible believes that there is a Personal God, Creator of the Universe. Our Confession of Faith about the Almighty Father, Creator of Heaven and earth. He carries us all in allcompassing love.
We could say that God the Father is above everything and everybody. But this great , mysterious God has come to us in Jesus. A man of flesh and blood, just like us, but He became the unique "Son of God" Love to the bitter end. The final end death on the Cross, but also the final aspect of being lifted up, as being raised from the dead by God.
Because God is love , He is also in us. In the depth of our soul He is present as the Holy Ghost. This is the way we may believe.
This is the Spirit of God , which was sent to us, which dwells in us and guides us, which makes us enthousiastic, dynamic and strong and makes us live according to Jesus's wishes.
That is God, three in one: God above us, next to us and in us. This God may bless us " the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Father Ed Bakker
Anglican Catholic Church / Original Province
Mission of Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne
Bendigo
Australia
