I was raised to have a clear understanding of myself as “Dan Conley’s daughter,” and “Ella McDonald’s grand-daughter.” As Dan Conley’s daughter I had a keen mind, a streak of perfectionism, and a love, love, love of books—like my father. As Ella McDonald’s grand-daughter, I had a love for cooking, for growing vegetables, and for going to church.—like the grandmother for whom I was named.
Looking at my life over these 75 years, I see strong influences of the identities I was taught to have because I am a member of my family.
These thoughts come to me as I reflect on “Trinity Sunday” and today’s readings. It can be easy to get into high theology for Trinity Sunday. I almost did. But, instead, this reflection will focus on what identity we have because we are heirs in the family of God-in-three-Persons.
One-Loving-God-in-Three-Divine-Persons
I am part of a team that teaches a catechism class at Stewart Home School. This spring we studied the Nicene Creed. Our students come to mass at Good Shepherd each Sunday. One thing we try to do is encourage and enhance their participation in the mass. So, March through May we read/said the Creed every week, then talked about a line or two each time.
The Nicene Creed we say is all about the Trinity. The week that we had the lines, “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father…” I did something that gave me a more solid sense of the Trinity.
I filled a larger pitcher with colored water to represent “God.” I labeled three quart jars “Father” “Son” and “Holy Spirit.” In class, I poured the colored water into the three jars. Consubstantial—meaning “of the same substance.” The same water was in the Father jar, the Son jar, and the Holy Spirit jar. ONE God in THREE persons. Consubstantial. The same. I could pour the water back in the pitcher, then back in the jars—nothing changed.
That same “substance” that God is made of is NOT colored water, nor anything tangible like that. The substance of which God is made is “being love.”
Admittedly, that demonstration does not illustrate that the Holy Spirit comes from the love of the Father and Son for each other. But, if we think of the colored water as “love,” it is a demonstration picture of One God in Three Persons—the Trinity.
The persons are separate, unique, and have their own individual personalities and tasks. Yet they are all also the same. The three readings today can help us see ourselves as children of this Holy God Family.
Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40
Here we have a picture of God, our Father, at his best. The Israelites have just escaped from Egypt. The Father has sent Moses and Aaron, backed them up with Plagues, given the Israelites the experience of the Passover, and led them by pillar of fire and cloud across the Red Sea. No Ten Commandments yet, nor thirst or hunger in the desert. God the Father has claimed his people—his earthly family—and all are rejoicing in it. All are resting momentarily in the loving strength of God.
What are some times when you have seen the mighty and loving power of God in your own life? We all have them. A glorious expression of nature? Divine Providence taking care of you? The natural love of family? Miracle event? Those thoughts and memories help me to remember that I am a child of God, a daughter in the Trinity Family. My Father takes care of me—as he takes care of you.
Matthew 28-16-20
Here we have Matthew’s picture of the Ascension. Here is Jesus, the Son, handing the torch of evangelization off to us. Here are words which are foundation for seeing Father, Son, and Spirit as ONE GOD.
Here the disciples become apostles, even though they both “worshipped” and “doubted.” I take that to mean, “even though they were like us.” I worship. But I question. Sometimes questions are “faith seeking understanding.” Sometimes questions are doubts seeking faith. Sometimes questions are challenges to faith or compliance with the responsibilities of faith.
Whatever the new apostles’ doubts, Jesus sends them anyway:
“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Then the last line is important for our understanding of the Trinity:
“And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Jesus, who lived as man on earth, is not just a man who lived on earth. He is also God—and so he can stay with us until the end of time. He can stay with us because he is the Son in the Trinity.
Romans 8:14-17
And now we come to why WE are also members of the Trinity family. Paul tells us,
“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit
that we are children of God,
and if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,”
The love between Father and Son, combined with the obedience of the Son to the Father accomplished the great Good News of the Gospel—that we, too, CAN BE members of the Trinity family, joint heirs of the Kingdom of God with Christ.
IF…..”if only we suffer with him.”
What does that mean? These words from Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy) from Vatican II jumped out to me this week to answer that question:
47. At the Last Supper, on the night when He was betrayed, our Savior instituted the eucharistic sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is eaten, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.
48. The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators; on the contrary, through a good understanding of the rites and prayers they should take part in the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration. They should be instructed by God’s word and be nourished at the table of the Lord’s body; they should give thanks to God; by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should learn also to offer themselves; through Christ the Mediator, they should be drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and with each other, so that finally God may be all in all.
Prayer:
Lord, I am your child. I have inherited a place and role in your Trinity family. I am an heir to your great Kingdom. Yet both Scripture and Church tell me: to claim my inheritance I must join what acts of love I can do to your great acts of love in your Incarnation, Life, Death, and Resurrection. You came that I might have life, and have it more abundantly. Yet part of the abundance is my joining your sacrifice so become more and more like my Father and my brother Jesus—accomplished in me through the Holy Spirit.
Lord, help me to take on that identity, use that Spirit, and continue your work on earth in my little corner of the world.
