HOMILY – JUNE 16, 2019, TRINITY SUNDAY
Did you know that the Trinity has the potential to change our relationships, our culture, and our politics for the better? Think about it – the mystery of Trinity is in the code of everything that exists.
The mystery of love, the mystery of the flow of love that is the essence of the Trinity is something we can never completely understand. The essence of Trinity is the continuous flow of love, an outward expression of each aspect of that love.
Let’s use the analogy that comes from St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) to help us picture this. He described the Trinity as a fountain fullness of love. Picture three buckets on a moving waterwheel. Each bucket fills (ideally from the top for the most effective process) and empties out, then swings back to be filled up again, just as God the Lover, empties into the Beloved, nothing held back. The Beloved empties into the Loving Spirit, nothing held back and the Loving Spirit empties into the Lover, nothing held back. The reason they can empty themselves is because they know they will be filled again. The essence of the universe is infinite love.
Thus divine love gives everything it’s dignity. Sometimes that dignity is easy to understand. Sometimes it isn’t. For e.g., Dignity is the name of the Catholic group for gay and lesbians for a reason – to stress the value of all people whatever their sexual orientation. Think of the different races and the dignity they deserve and how many white people work hard to deny them their rights, leading to many having poor nutrition, education and working conditions.
Jesus modeled how to face others, looking out to them with love, whoever they were, whether they were criminals or outcast for some other reason.
We can translate that in our day to, for example, women who have abortions, Many of them see it as a loving thing to do. The same with divorce. If we show the same kind of love Jesus did, it could lead to the transformation that real Christianity calls for.
One way to express the opposite of love is that if someone doesn’t believe that the center of the universe is infinite love, that person lives in a scarcity model where there’s never enough – food, money, security and so on to go around. That person can’t risk letting go because they’re not sure they’ll be refilled. If they’re protecting themselves, they can’t let go in love. Sadly this is the pattern of almost all human institutions.
On the other hand, think of people you know who are marginalized, oppressed, “p0or,” “ mentally disabled.” Don’t you often see that they have the divine qualities of emptying themselves out of love? They want to be in mutual relationships. They find little ways to serve others.
Whatever is going on in God is, as Richard Rohr calls it, “a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between Three - a circle dance of love. God is Absolute Friendship. God is not just a dancer; God is the dance itself. This pattern mirrors the perpetual orbit of electron, proton, and neutron that creates an atom, which is the substratum of the entire physical universe. The author of the very beginning of the bible got it right, writing that “Everything is made in ‘the image and likeness of God’ (Genesis 1:26-27).”
People filled with the flow of love will always move away from any need to protect their own power and will be drawn to solidarity with the powerless, the edge, the bottom, the plain, and the simple. They have all the power they need—and it always overflows, and like water seeks the lowest crevices to fill. No wonder Christians begin their spiritual journey by being dipped into water.
From elementary particles in the atom, through atoms in molecules, molecules in cells, cells in organisms, organisms in societies, to social actions and even ideas—all of them being organized as systems--the Trinitarian image, as a Community, has been present and growing.
The conclusion for the religious person should be that the world is God’s most personal work, therefore something for us to know and admire and revere, to take part in, to contribute to creating—since it is made as a self-creating universe.
When it comes to our image of God. Instead of the idea of the Trinity being a theological conundrum, it could well end up being the answer to Western religion’s basic problem, that rules are all that matters. Instead it’s really all about relationship. That is the essence 0f Love! This is participating in the divine life. How do you do this is your life? Where and how do you see and admire it somewhere else?
Maria Thornton McClain, RCWP
June 16, 2019
Did you know that the Trinity has the potential to change our relationships, our culture, and our politics for the better? Think about it – the mystery of Trinity is in the code of everything that exists.
The mystery of love, the mystery of the flow of love that is the essence of the Trinity is something we can never completely understand. The essence of Trinity is the continuous flow of love, an outward expression of each aspect of that love.
Let’s use the analogy that comes from St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) to help us picture this. He described the Trinity as a fountain fullness of love. Picture three buckets on a moving waterwheel. Each bucket fills (ideally from the top for the most effective process) and empties out, then swings back to be filled up again, just as God the Lover, empties into the Beloved, nothing held back. The Beloved empties into the Loving Spirit, nothing held back and the Loving Spirit empties into the Lover, nothing held back. The reason they can empty themselves is because they know they will be filled again. The essence of the universe is infinite love.
Thus divine love gives everything it’s dignity. Sometimes that dignity is easy to understand. Sometimes it isn’t. For e.g., Dignity is the name of the Catholic group for gay and lesbians for a reason – to stress the value of all people whatever their sexual orientation. Think of the different races and the dignity they deserve and how many white people work hard to deny them their rights, leading to many having poor nutrition, education and working conditions.
Jesus modeled how to face others, looking out to them with love, whoever they were, whether they were criminals or outcast for some other reason.
We can translate that in our day to, for example, women who have abortions, Many of them see it as a loving thing to do. The same with divorce. If we show the same kind of love Jesus did, it could lead to the transformation that real Christianity calls for.
One way to express the opposite of love is that if someone doesn’t believe that the center of the universe is infinite love, that person lives in a scarcity model where there’s never enough – food, money, security and so on to go around. That person can’t risk letting go because they’re not sure they’ll be refilled. If they’re protecting themselves, they can’t let go in love. Sadly this is the pattern of almost all human institutions.
On the other hand, think of people you know who are marginalized, oppressed, “p0or,” “ mentally disabled.” Don’t you often see that they have the divine qualities of emptying themselves out of love? They want to be in mutual relationships. They find little ways to serve others.
Whatever is going on in God is, as Richard Rohr calls it, “a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between Three - a circle dance of love. God is Absolute Friendship. God is not just a dancer; God is the dance itself. This pattern mirrors the perpetual orbit of electron, proton, and neutron that creates an atom, which is the substratum of the entire physical universe. The author of the very beginning of the bible got it right, writing that “Everything is made in ‘the image and likeness of God’ (Genesis 1:26-27).”
People filled with the flow of love will always move away from any need to protect their own power and will be drawn to solidarity with the powerless, the edge, the bottom, the plain, and the simple. They have all the power they need—and it always overflows, and like water seeks the lowest crevices to fill. No wonder Christians begin their spiritual journey by being dipped into water.
From elementary particles in the atom, through atoms in molecules, molecules in cells, cells in organisms, organisms in societies, to social actions and even ideas—all of them being organized as systems--the Trinitarian image, as a Community, has been present and growing.
The conclusion for the religious person should be that the world is God’s most personal work, therefore something for us to know and admire and revere, to take part in, to contribute to creating—since it is made as a self-creating universe.
When it comes to our image of God. Instead of the idea of the Trinity being a theological conundrum, it could well end up being the answer to Western religion’s basic problem, that rules are all that matters. Instead it’s really all about relationship. That is the essence 0f Love! This is participating in the divine life. How do you do this is your life? Where and how do you see and admire it somewhere else?
Maria Thornton McClain, RCWP
June 16, 2019
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