Homily Thoughts for Trinity Sunday, June 7, 2009
Someone said that any God small enough for me to understand is too small to be God. That fits my thoughts as we approach the celebration of Trinity Sunday in the Catholic Church and I reflect on the Creed we recite.
Does it mean we believe there are three Gods? No!
Does it mean we believe there is one God who manifests in three different ways? No!
Do we believe there is one God and three distinct persons? Yes!
How do I “explain” that? I can’t!
The Creed raises more questions than it gives answers. It refuses to allow me to settle for simple obvious answers that I can wrap my mind around. Instead, it confronts me with mystery.
Do we believe Jesus is God? Yes!
Do we believe Jesus is fully human? Yes!
How can that be? I don’t know!
The Creed raises more questions. It refuses to allow me to settle for simple answers and confronts me with mystery.
Is mystery something I can’t figure out and should forget about? No! Mystery means not that God is not knowable. It means God is infinitely knowable.
The Creed refers to God as "He." Does that mean God has a gender? No! Do we have gender? Yes. What does it mean to be gendered? People argue about this.
Am I and other people bothered by the constant use of "He" to refer to God? Yes! Of course some are very comfortable with this. It's a problem for some. Again, God is mystery. I can't reduce God to my concepts of male or female. By the way there are many feminine descriptions of God in the Bible. e.g. God's compassion refers to wombs.
The Creed also affirms some things:
God is a Community of love between three persons. Some ancient Greeks described this life by the word, perichoresis. It means a dance of life. (To try to explain this would require wading through mountains of Greek philosophy about what it means to be a person. What is a nature?) An English theologian, Gerald Vann, once said, “Wonderful is the person who can live without other persons. More wonderful than God.” Even for God, especially for God, what it means to be a person is to be in a community of love with other persons.
The creed affirms that we believe in a communion of saints, a community of love.
We believe in the forgiveness of sins. We have to believe in the forgiveness of sins to continue to live together. We believe in life that never ends, that finds its fulfillment with God.
I don’t begin to understand any of these things. They raise more questions than answers. But they guide me. Wrestling with them shapes me and has helped me be who I am. Today, I am reasonably happy with who I am and the direction that life seems to take. There is a huge bright light at the end of it all.
Does it mean we believe there are three Gods? No!
Does it mean we believe there is one God who manifests in three different ways? No!
Do we believe there is one God and three distinct persons? Yes!
How do I “explain” that? I can’t!
The Creed raises more questions than it gives answers. It refuses to allow me to settle for simple obvious answers that I can wrap my mind around. Instead, it confronts me with mystery.
Do we believe Jesus is God? Yes!
Do we believe Jesus is fully human? Yes!
How can that be? I don’t know!
The Creed raises more questions. It refuses to allow me to settle for simple answers and confronts me with mystery.
Is mystery something I can’t figure out and should forget about? No! Mystery means not that God is not knowable. It means God is infinitely knowable.
The Creed refers to God as "He." Does that mean God has a gender? No! Do we have gender? Yes. What does it mean to be gendered? People argue about this.
Am I and other people bothered by the constant use of "He" to refer to God? Yes! Of course some are very comfortable with this. It's a problem for some. Again, God is mystery. I can't reduce God to my concepts of male or female. By the way there are many feminine descriptions of God in the Bible. e.g. God's compassion refers to wombs.
The Creed also affirms some things:
God is a Community of love between three persons. Some ancient Greeks described this life by the word, perichoresis. It means a dance of life. (To try to explain this would require wading through mountains of Greek philosophy about what it means to be a person. What is a nature?) An English theologian, Gerald Vann, once said, “Wonderful is the person who can live without other persons. More wonderful than God.” Even for God, especially for God, what it means to be a person is to be in a community of love with other persons.
The creed affirms that we believe in a communion of saints, a community of love.
We believe in the forgiveness of sins. We have to believe in the forgiveness of sins to continue to live together. We believe in life that never ends, that finds its fulfillment with God.
I don’t begin to understand any of these things. They raise more questions than answers. But they guide me. Wrestling with them shapes me and has helped me be who I am. Today, I am reasonably happy with who I am and the direction that life seems to take. There is a huge bright light at the end of it all.
Labels: Homily Notes for coming Sunday
posted by Fr. Larry Voelker at
8:53 AM
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