Sunday Gospel Comment
Alberic Jacovone OSB
YEAR A TRINITY SUNDAY - 26.5.022 Ex 34,4-6.8-9; 2 Cor 13,1-13; Jn 3,16-18 Indestructible craving for the beyond Trinity Sunday -which we celebrate today- challenges us with the most humbling of all questions: for you and me, in year 2002, who & what is God? what images or symbols do we bring to describe God? Sadly, our language is so greatly limited by our poor human concepts. So, how can we articulate (let alone, comprehend) the enormous ‘otherness’ of our creator? No wonder St Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of our Theologians at the end of his life, kept lamenting that the many volumes he had written about God were nothing but "palea", a word which means ‘straw’. Yes, no matter how acute or knowledgeable our intellect is, when it comes to the mystery of God, we can only use humble human images of Father - Son & Spirit; (or bread & wine or any other human concept), We can never capture the wonder, beauty & uniqueness of God. Of course God is infinitely more than what our small minds can ever perceive or fathom... Even today, as we explore the universe, we realize how insignificant we are against the immense scenario of God’s creation. And yet, in spite of all this, not just now but from the dawn of history, people of all times and races we have been irresistibly drawn to contemplate God; indeed, when it comes to God, our sense of wonder never stops ticking and exploring. Indeed, all the religions of the world, different and contradictory as they are, are nothing else but a description of that irresistible craving for the beyond, which drives us all towards God. We want to know God and do all we can to keep open our relationship with Him. The God of Christianity. Our Bible -Old & New Testament- is made up of many books, which were written across the long span of a 1000 years; and so, it provides a variety of insights as to who God is and how we express our relationship with him, through longing & frustration, aspiration & despair. In the Bible, our response to God is motivated by two opposing forces, that are both fascinating & frightening, attracting & repelling. Essenti- ally, God comes across as One who is hidden in Mystery & who is Holy, a word meaning ‘cut-off & totally unlike us human beings. Before Him we feel both fearful & affectio- nate (Mysterium tremendum et fascinans). In the Bible at times, God comes across as a strict, demanding Master (the proverbial old man with long beard & big stick). This idea may be seen in the 1st commandment, which stresses that God is God: God & no other, God & forever, God unconditional & beyond manipulation: apart from Him anything else is an idol; God is beyond any stretch of our imagination... But on many other occasions, in the Prophets, the Psalms & the Gospels, we are reminded that God is intimate, caring, accessible towards us. He listens to the cry of the poor. His mercy endures forever and forever He at work: loving & forgiving, healing & redeeming, fulfilling & rewarding. And so, God is at the same time remote & near, merciful & demanding, unnameable and beyond our control, hidden in mystery... and yet intimate & immensely close to us. In the Bible, the word ‘Trinity’ is nowhere to be found, but its truth is there: in the sense that God is forever present as ABBA-Father, forever active as redeeming Word, forever hidden beyond our manipulation as Spirit. We Christians are baptized in the name of Father, Son & Spirit and for all our lives, we live in intimacy with Father, in the Son, through the Holy Spirit. Today at times, we address God, seeing in Him our human genes of masculine / feminine sexuality. This is silly: God is neither a He nor a She. ______________________________________ |
