Trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity is like trying to fit the whole ocean into a tiny hole in the ground: it is a profound mystery. Today we reflect on how that mystery comes home to us, how God comes to live in us and transform us, to share his life with us.
One of my former Parish Priests used to tell a story about a Confirmation Mass in Ireland. Back in the day, before you could be confirmed the Bishop would ask a question from the Penny Catechism to make sure you were adequately prepared to receive the Sacrament. At one of these Masses a boy approaches the Bishop, and the Bishop asks the boy the cruellest question possible;
explain the doctrine of the Trinity.
The boy is nervous, and mumbles something, and the Bishop bellows at him
Speak up! I can’t hear you.
The boy, even more nervous than before, mumbles again, something indistinct, and the Bishop gets even more agitated;
I don’t understand!
The boy finally finds his nerve, he looks the Bishop in the eye and answers;
You’re not supposed to understand: it’s a mystery!
When I first heard the story, I couldn’t imagine anyone being that blunt with a Bishop; the story is a clever invention designed to make a point. There’s a similar legendary story about another Bishop, Saint Augustine of Hippo, and a different small boy. In the story, Saint Augustine was in the middle of composing one of his greatest works, the book de Trinitate, on the Trinity, when he took a walk on the beach and encountered a small boy who had dug a little hole in the sand. The boy was running between the waves and his little hole with a bucket, pouring water into the hole. Augustine asked what he was doing, and the boy said he was trying to put the entire ocean into the hole. Augustine said to the boy;
My child, you could never fit this great, magnificent ocean into that tiny hole!
The boy is said to have looked up at the greatest theologian of his day and replied;
Indeed, but I will sooner draw all the water from the sea and empty it into this hole than you will succeed in penetrating the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your limited understanding.
It is said that the child then disappeared, as if he had been an angel (or perhaps Christ himself) appearing to teach Augustine a lesson.
These stories are apocryphal, they probably never happened, but they teach us a valuable and humbling lesson; whenever we try to understand the Trinity, we are trying to fit the entire ocean into a little hole. This is the great mystery of the inner life of God which He has chosen to reveal to us, but it is beyond our ability to fully understand. How can God be both one and three at the same time? We cannot fully understand, and every example we use to describe Him will fall short.
Today’s feast day, Trinity Sunday, is one no preacher looks forward to; because we are asked to somehow explain this great mystery to our congregations. The joke in seminary was that the longer you listened to a homily on Trinity Sunday, the more likely you were to find an accidental heresy (a false teaching) on the Trinity. By that logic I should shut up now, having explained that God is both one and three, and say no more before I fall into some accidental error. Neither you nor I will be so lucky. Instead I want to tell you a parable.
Imagine a Glacier in the middle of a mountain range. On the other side of the mountains is a barren desert valley. As the glacier begins to melt, a stream forms, flowing down the mountains in an immense waterfall, flowing down to the foothills until it cuts a path and becomes a river that flows into the desert valley. When it reaches the low-point of the valley it begins to fill up, becoming an immense lake. Where there was a desert before there is now clean flowing water, and around the water grass begins to grow, and after the grass shoots spring up and grow into trees that provide shade, that blossom with beautiful flowers and bear delicious fruits. Animals come to graze in the fields, to drink from the water to and take shade under the trees, and birds eat the fruit and spread the seeds all over, causing more trees to spring up. What was once a dead valley, with nothing but sand and rock is now verdant and green and full of life.
In case you haven’t picked up on the metaphor; the Glacier is God the Father, the River is Jesus Christ His Son, and the Lake is the Holy Spirit. The three are one; the same water that is frozen in the glacier flows in the river and rests in the lake. And yet they are distinct; the glacier is not a river, the river is not the glacier, and the lake is not either glacier or river. United in the same substance, the water, but distinct from one another. It is an imperfect image, because it doesn’t fully explain the inner life and relationship between the three persons of the Trinity, but it does help us to understand why the Trinity matters for each one of us.
What about the valley? The desert that is utterly barren until the water flows into it? If you hadn’t already guessed, the valley is you and me. In the state of original sin, we are separated from God and, because God is life, we have no life in us. We are dead and barren. But Jesus says to Nicodemus in the first reading;
God loved the world so much that He gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not be lost, but may have eternal life.
The River that flows down from the high mountains into the valley is God, sending His Son to save us. He sees that we are without life and he sends Jesus to save us and to teach us.
Last Sunday we celebrated Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. Through Jesus, through faith in Him which is received in the cleansing waters of Baptism, the Holy Spirit is given to each one of us. He dwells in us; we become a temple for him to dwell. In the image of the lake, the water reaches the lowest point of the desert; Jesus reaches down into the depths of our Sin, into our death itself, and fills it with something else, with His own divine life, with the life that he shares with the Father, with cleansing water, with the Holy Spirit. The lake fills up the cracks and recesses of the desert, replacing what was dead with new life. The lake is not barren like the desert was, but it is life-giving. A soul filled with the Holy Spirit is gifted with new life. With virtue, with happiness, with the many gifts of the Spirit. Others want to drink from the same water and shelter under the shade of trees that spring up from it. We become beacons of life in a dead world and give life to others.
But today’s Gospel contains a warning. Unlike the progress of a river into a barren valley, this process is not irresistible;
Whoever refuses to believe is condemned already, because he has refused to believe in the name of God’s only Son.
We can put up barriers to the flowing of that life-giving river. We can cast stones into it so that only a trickle gets into the valley. We can build a dam, a wall between ourself and Christ, and refuse to let him enter our lives. These are sins, venial sins which impede the flow, and mortal sins which shut it off entirely. Unbelief, Uncharity, and Despair can stand between us and the eternal life God has offered us.
We have a choice. We can choose to accept the gifts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, to believe in Jesus, to hope for what he promised, and to love God and our neighbour, or we can reject these gifts. We can choose life or death. How do we choose life; how do we clear the path between the river and the desert valley? We do it first in Baptism; by letting ourselves be cleansed in the water flowing from Christ’s side. Then we do it in Confession, by accepting that we have failed and asking that great river to sweep our sins out of the way; to forgive us and to help us sin no more. Then we do it by virtue; by little acts that build up the life of Christ in us. By coming at least weekly to Mass to receive Jesus worthily in the Eucharist. By doing little works of mercy, little acts of genuine kindness; visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked. Most of all we do it in daily prayer; praising the Father, giving thanks for the Son, and inviting the Holy Spirit to come and live in us and change our lives.
We may not ever fully understand the mystery of the Trinity, doing so is like trying to fit the entire ocean into a tiny hole in the sand, and yet God has chosen to reveal the Trinity to us. The Father has chosen to send His Son to heal us, and through His Son has sent his Spirit to fill up the barren recesses of our broken souls. A spirit of new life, a spirit of rebirth, to make us whole, so that others can see our joy and desire to share in it.
All of this is summed up in a single short and beautiful prayer;
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, kindle in them the fire of your love, send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.
Sources:
'The child by the seaside' from Medievalists.net
'What a child taught Saint Augustine' from Aleteia
Readings for Trinity Sunday Year A:
Exodus 34:4-6,8-9
Daniel 3:52-56
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
John 3:16-18
All readings from the Jerusalem Bible,
Accessible at Universalis
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