We have all wrestled with the question: “What is God really like? If you are confused, it is a perfectly normal reaction. It is impossible to fathom our infinite God.
The ancient Jews had an idea. Realizing the impossibility of comprehending God, they would not even speak the word “Yahweh,” God. They used a substitute word, “Adonai,” to emphasize their awe before God.
Jesus knew he could not give his disciples an explanation. Instead, he spoke of relationships and reassured them that the Holy Spirit would guide them “into all truth.” in other words, the mystery of God does not preclude that we can grow in our understanding of relationship with god as Abba, Jesus the word made flesh, and the holy spirit.
Our God is revealed in John’s letter as “love” - a unity of three persons in relationship. In very early Christianity, origin of the use of the word “person” came from ancient theatre where one actor wore several masks for the different persons he played. So, God could be said to be one, yet somehow three persons. That we are made in his image means that we are rational, relational and loving.
Today’s feast also reminds us that we cannot be rugged individualists; that is against our relational nature. We are children of our father; therefore, we are brothers and sisters to one another, interrelated with our God and our families, friends, church community, and the world.
So, how do we grow in our understanding of God? Doctrines and dogmas can help us to begin to learn about God being a three-person community of love, but it is only in experiencing God, experiencing his love for us as persons that we finally “get it.”
I am not one who grows from reciting litanies to our lord composed by someone else; I am one who grows in understanding God’s working in my life in litanies of my own gratitude. That builds relationship.
I thank God in my own words for the wonderful people that are in my life. I see the love, the goodness, the generosity, and the compassion of the Trinity in you. You lead me into closer relationship with our God, and I hope that I am helpful in your growth.
I thank God for the gifts that I have . . . and do not have. Thank you, Lord for seeing the sunrise - or the sunset. Thank you, Lord, for being able to see. Thank you, Lord for the health that I have enjoyed, and thank you, Lord, for sickness that I have not had and how I have grown from what I have had.
As we grow in experience of God’s love for us, we are moved and enabled to love and care about others. God intends Trinitarian love to flow from God to us, but also to flow out from us to all whose lives we touch. Our God’s credibility is dependent on whether love and unity are seen in us to attract non-believers to god and to our community.
Let us not fail to acknowledge the many blessings and grace that the triune God makes present to us each day as part of the divine desire to fill us with the fullness of divine life and draw us into the unity with the three and the one.
