Dear Friends,
The sturdy looking man came out of the examination rooms as I came into the lobby of the medical office.
“Good morning!” I said, trying to be friendly. “Good session?”
“Wonderful!” he replied. “At 90, I’m healed of my lingering neuropathy.”
“Thank God!” I said.
“There is no God,” he shot back. “There’s nothing out there (pointing skyward). I have a PhD in physics from MIT. Believe me—I know there is no God out there.”
Then he went on his way. Poor fellow! Is he in for a surprise!
On this Trinity Sunday, I invite you to affirm with me that there is indeed a God, not just “out there," but a loving God who touches us to our depths, and who invites us into life as God’s adopted children. We belong to God as we belong to a family.
The concept of the Trinity can test our patience in an age that expects the immediate usefulness and relevance of every idea. But we cannot fully or instantly grasp the meaning of God.
God cannot be defined by our need. God does not fulfill our personal or political agenda.
God simply is. God is connected to us, irrefutably and wholeheartedly.
The boundaries of our language give us no once-and-for-all way of giving clear, unequivocal expression to who God is, but when we switch to the categories of love, ah! That’s different. Think of the people you love and who love you. God’s love is their love exponentially multiplied. We are enfolded in God’s love.
On this Trinity Sunday, let’s speak love words to God and about God to others.
Let us thank God for welcoming us into the family of God, for wanting us, and being our inspiration, our hope, our enlivener into eternity
The late American Benedictine Macrina Wiederkehr prayed to the Trinity this way:
You are extravagant with your love.
You drown me with devotion and understanding.
You leave me breathless, thoughtless….
When I hold nothing, I hold You.
When I hold You, I hold everything. (Seven Sacred Pauses, 2008)
Holding God, being held by God, we move into an unknown future.
~ Sister Joan Sobala
