There have been three periods in my life of “thinking about Who God is.” The first one was childhood and the teenage years, when I accepted what the Church taught about God being, well, a little bit scary.
If you didn’t do what He wanted, there was terrible punishment awaiting you in the next life. Of course, if you did what He wanted, Heaven was going to be a perfectly beautiful place, but you had to watch out. On the Great Day, you wanted to be a sheep, not a goat, and the possibility of being a goat made you tremble.
The next period was my time in the seminary and my earlier years as a priest. Vatican II had happened and the forecast seemed to change for the better. Sure, there was still a location called Hell, but the emphasis shifted to a loving Father, a faithful Son and a supportive Holy Spirit Whose main idea was to get you into Heaven.
I liked that change in the theological weather very much indeed. Funny thing, though, when we were trembling, the churches were full and the confession lines were long. All of these sunnier ideas made it much easier to find a seat at Mass and made your wait for confession a whole lot shorter. In fact, the priest (for instance my newly minted self) was to be found sitting in the Penance Room reading a book and waiting for you. These developments kind of made me wonder, but oh well.
Finally, there is the third period: Now, when I am a cranky old priest, muttering to myself – often – that maybe we’d better go back to scaring people again because those changes from the ’60s seem to have backfired!
During which of those three periods have I been right? To the amazement of my now-cranky self, the readings today on this Feast of the Most Holy Trinity tell us, clearly and beautifully, it was that second period. God, they tell us, is Love. He and she who abide in love, abide in God. That sunnier attitude certainly hasn’t made things perfect, and as a matter of fact, has caused disconcerting problems, but that’s because we are so dopey.
Endurance, Character, Hope
As St. Paul tells us in today’s second reading, we are not going to find ourselves in a world without plenty of “affliction,” but that affliction, if we listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, can produce endurance, character and hope, and that hope will never let us down. We’ve been justified by faith and that faith will lead us to peace in any storm in which we may find ourselves. Just like the Apostles on the stormy lake, Jesus is right there in the boat with us and we are all on the way to a bright shore just ahead.
In our Gospel today, Jesus tells the Apostles that “Everything that the Father has is Mine and (the Holy Spirit) will take what is Mine and give it to you.” Our lives could not be more hopeful than that. This is what the Lord is not just dangling in front of our eyes if we’re good, but that which He wants to give us from the depth of His Sacred Heart and what the Spirit will deliver to us. If our will is clouded and sinful, we can lose all of this, but the will of the Lord is that we have His peace and carry it straight into Heaven where He’s waiting for us.
This is how it is for us now, and it has always been that way as our incredibly beautiful first reading tells us. This passage from the Book of Proverbs is one of the most breathtaking sets of words in the Bible, and it is perfect for telling us Who God – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is now, and always has been from the beginning of time.
Before there were depths on Earth, before the foundation and springs of water, before the mountains or the hills were there, God was there and He loved us with a love beyond all telling. We were beside Him as His “craftsmen,” and were His delight, day by day, as the Holy Spirit played with us before Him on the surface of the Earth. He delighted in us then, and He delights in us no less now.
Who then is God? Someone to fear? Hardly. He is the same One described in Proverbs: A Father looking with love at His children as they played; a loving older Brother, who leads us in building our world like the carpenter He was; and a loving Sister, playing with us in the sunshine of our world.
This is the One we are celebrating today as this Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. He is not Someone Who is trying to keep us in line by scaring the pants off us. He is not Someone Who is a cranky old priest wishing it was still 1956 (Of course, it would be really wonderful if the churches were full again, for Heaven’s sake. Literally).
God is Our Father Who has always loved us and always will; He is our Brother Who would die on the cross for us again tomorrow; and God is our loving Sister Whose happiest task is rejoicing with us on the face of the world – and God is waiting for us with love in an even better world to come.
Readings for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Proverbs 8: 22-31
Psalm 8: 4-5, 6-7, 8-9
Romans 5: 1-5
John 16: 12-15
Father Anthony F. Raso is the parochial vicar at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Dyker Heights.