AIM: To elucidate
the mystery of the Trinity through our experience of prayer.
Out of a thousand people selected at
random, how many of them pray? Surveys
show that the number is far higher than those who attend church. There are
probably few people who have never prayed, at some time in their lives. Prayer
is as natural as eating or sleeping, and almost as universal.
A few years ago I made my annual retreat
in a Trappist monastery south of Rochester ,
New York
During World War II, which I
experienced as a teenager, there was a saying: AThere are no atheists in the
foxholes.@ When the bullets are flying, and
mortars exploding, even your atheist will pray.
But what are we really doing when we
pray? At the simplest level we could say that we are trying to get in touch
with God. Before we start, however, we already have some concept of God. This
is different for different people. For Christians, the primary source for our
image of God is Jesus, the man who is God: completely human, as we are; yet
also completely divine. Moreover, prayer doesn=t really start with us at all. We
could not even begin to pray if God had not already implanted in us the desire
to reach out to him, and if he did not assist us as we try to do so.
The simple act of praying has a
three-fold pattern. First, God is the one we are trying to reach out to when we
pray. Second, we already have some idea or image of God before we pray; and for
Christians this is Jesus Christ. And third, it is God himself who gives us the
desire to pray, and helps us as we do so.
We find a similar three-fold pattern
in today=s first reading. Moses speaks there
first of God=s work in creation: AAsk now of the days of old ... ever
since God created man upon earth.@ Second, this creator-God is no
remote AGreat Architect of the Universe,@ uninvolved in his handiwork. From
all the nations of the earth, Moses says, God chose one people to be especially
his own. He delivered this people from slavery in Egypt
In our second reading Paul calls this
response Aa Spirit of adoption.@ He explains this as the ability to
address the God who is both creator and deliverer as Father. The word Paul
uses, AAbba@, was in his language the intimate
word for father, something like our word, ADaddy@. The ability to address God in that
way, Paul says, is not something we can attain of ourselves. It is God=s gift. AYou received a Spirit of adoption,
through whom we cry, >Abba, Father!=@
Paul=s words reflect the same three-fold
pattern we saw in our first reading.
First, we see God as creator of all that is. Second, this creator-God
chooses one people for his own, and becomes their deliverer and lawgiver.
Third, he himself enables them to respond to creation and deliverance with the
obedient love of children, expressed in the intimate form of address: AAbba, Father.@
This three-fold pattern becomes
explicit in Jesus= parting command to his apostles in today=s gospel. AGo, make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit.@ Jesus= words tell us that the God who is
one is also three. This is the doctrine of the Trinity. The Catechism calls the
Trinity Athe central mystery of Christian faith
and life ... the mystery of God in himself@ (No. 234).
When the Catechism says that the
doctrine of the Trinity a mystery, this does not mean that it can be understood
only by learned experts. True, those experts have written countless books about
the Trinity. But the simplest believer without any formal education can still experience
what those books are trying to say simply by turning to God in prayer. Even
children have the three-fold experience of God with which we began.
Imagine a young girl kneeling by her
bed at night. Before she starts to pray, God is. Second, the child has
some idea of this God before she kneels down. This is based on what she knows
of Jesus Christ. And third, the One who inspires the child to pray, and helps
her to do so, is God himself. The child is experiencing Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit even though she may never have heard those terms or be too young to
understand them.
When we read that the doctrine of the
Trinity is a mystery, that does not mean that only learned experts can
understand it. It means that all anyone can know of God C learned theologian or simple
believer C is only a tiny part of the full
reality of God. The language of the world=s greatest poets, and the ideas of
the Church=s most learned philosophers and
theologians, can never capture the richness, the depth, or the majesty of God.
We come closest to penetrating the mystery of God not through study and
learning, but through love: not just a warm feeling, but an
attitude of the will that takes us out of ourselves and impels us to
active service of God and others.
The anonymous author of the classic
medieval work on prayer, The Cloud of Unknowing, has said it best: ABy love God may be caught and held;
by thinking never.@ To which we may add the beautiful words of St. Jean Vianney,
the curé or parish priest of Ars in France in the first part of the nineteenth
century; no theologian, but a man on fire with the love of God.
AIn the heart that loves God,@ Jean Vianney said, Ait is always springtime.@
No comments:
Post a Comment