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May 30, 2021: The Mystery of Relationships

 

I heard about this recently. A man had his 2nd shot of the vaccine at the vaccination center. After which he noticed that his vision was quite blurred during the drive home. When he got home, he called the vaccination center for advice and to ask if he should go see his doctor, or go to Emergency at the hospital. He was immediately told NOT to go to a doctor or a hospital but instead, to just return to the vaccination center immediately and pick up his glasses that he left there.

 

I don’t mean to make fun of vaccinations, but the whole thing seems to “come down to” what today’s feast is all about. You see, this is one of most complicated doctrines of our faith: God is three, three in one. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 

Probably the best way to understand trinity is to think of God (all three) as a verb, a motion . . . more than nouns: an old man with a long white beard, a younger man from Nazareth and a dove. So set those images aside for a bit.

 

Think of trinity as “relationships.” The relationship between the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. Meister Eichart was a priest and mystic from the 14th century, the same time that Trinity Sunday was established as the first Sunday after Pentecost. Eichart wrote, “The core of the Trinity is the Father laughs and gives birth to the Son. The Son laughs back at the Father and gives birth to the Spirit. The whole Trinity laughs and gives birth to us.”

 

Or think of a different trinity, one that we are involved with. The Father (or Creator as the first reading describes God) loves the world (that’s you, me, nature, everything) and radiates love to us. So a good way to think of God is being FOR us. That is, God is our biggest cheer-leader, our biggest fan.

 

And to demonstrate that love God the Creator (or Father) birthed a Son (the Christ). And where is that Christ now? . . . in us, with us (as the gospel today said), alongside us. And IN everything, Christ dwells in everything. Including us. Like Paul was saying to the Romans it the second reading, “We are led by the Spirit and so we are children of God.” We are sons of God, we are daughters of God. Paul continues, “We are children of God and joint heirs with Christ.”

 

And our response is to love the Christ IN us and to love the Christ IN everything else . . . including loving God the Father (Creator) back.   It’s all about a relationship.   God loves Christ. Christ is in us. We love each other, that is, we connect, and we love God back, again a connection . . . and it’s all about love.   God the Father FOR us, God the Christ IN us. God the Spirit CONNECTING us.

 

What does this relationship mean? It might mean that we don’t simply stick with our own pre-conceived notion of who God is. Is God a Father? Yes. Is God Creator? Yes.

Is God love? Yes, is God a Mother? Yes, for example when Jesus describes God like a woman who had 10 coins and lost one. Actually if we took a poll and wrote down all the images of God that we can come up with right here . . . all of our responses would only be a drop of water in an ocean of who God is. But sometimes we get stuck and demand, that MY image is the only image. Or we get stuck with images of Jesus . . . he had white skin, he had olive skin, he had long hair, he had short hair, he had brothers, no those were cousins. Or the Spirit (this is the hardest one) is the Spirit a dove? an energy? a glow? a person?   I say to all those “Yes, yes and yes.”

 

Here’s how it works: I have rule that some sequences of three numbers obey — and some do not. Your job is to guess what the rule is. I’ll start by telling you that the sequence 2, 4, 8 obeys the rule. [Show the numbers on a poster board]  Now it’s your turn. Think of another sequence of three numbers that satisfy the rule. Now tell them to someone next to you. [I allow some time for this task.]

 

OK, now I need someone to tell me a sequence. I ask a kid [a planted response] he/she says “1,2,3.”   Perfect. The rule was simply: Each number must be larger than the one before it. 5, 10, 20 satisfies the rule, as does 1, 2, 3 and -17, 14, 845. Children can understand this rule.

 

But many people assume the answer is to double the double the previous number or to take the first two and multiple them to get the third. The simple answer is the second is bigger than the first and the third bigger than the second.   We can get our brains “locked” into a way of thinking.

 

This happens with images of God, or in religious practices. It also occurs in politics. Or with issues, such as what to do with the January 6th insurrection. We want to be right. Well an important area that all of us want to be right with, goes back to the story I told at the beginning: vaccinations. Who should get them? Are they safe, especially for pre-teens? If I had COVID do I need a vaccination? We all want to do the right thing. And in right relationship with each other.

 

But I especially want to reach out to those who haven’t been vaccinated and are really feeling pressure and guilt over this. Please know that you have my support and love. I am vaccinated and had no trouble with it. But our parish is about relationships and we want you to have all your questions answered. So after Mass today we have a doctor here to do a Q&A with all of us . . . those vaccinated and those not. Please stay around for a bit and listen or ask questions.  

 

Another famous mystic from the 14th Century is Julian of Norwich. She wrote of the Trinity, “Just as the joyful Trinity created all things out of nothing, so also the same blessed Trinity will make well all that is not well.”  We don’t want all to be well that is not well . . . in mind, body of spirit, let’s beat this COVID together.    

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