[Hey, Church fans! Deacon John was preaching this weekend. So, here is this week’s offering. I still haven’t figure out how to download videos from BookFace now that they have changed their OS. Hopefully, I’ll have one for next week.]
It’s not easy to describe God. St. Thomas Aquinas famously quipped that it is actually easier to talk about what God is not, rather than what God is. It reminds us of the young boy who was drawing a picture in his catechism class. His catechist asked him, “Hey, Mick, what are you drawing?”
“I’m drawing a picture of God,” little Mick replied.
The catechist smiled sympathetically and said, “Oh, little Mick, no one knows what God looks like.”
To which he replied, “They will when I’m done!”
We cannot know everything about God, but through his Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, we do know something about God.
In pondering the reality of God, especially the mystery of the Trinity, it is helpful to take an approach that looks at the Trinity not in terms of a problem to be solved, but rather as a mystery to be lived.
“Mystery” in this sense is understood as a reality that is larger than you, of which you are a part and which is a part of you. Mystery in this sense is not understood in terms of analysis, but rather in terms of relationship.
Take your family for example. It is a reality bigger than you, of which you are a part, and which genetically, sociologically, psychologically and spiritually is a part of you. You don’t solve your family. You are simply part of your family and your family is part of you.
Now let’s take the Church. It too is a reality bigger than you, and by baptism, confirmation, and especially the Eucharist, the Church is a part of you. No matter how far a person might wander, he or she never stops being Catholic.
Finally, let’s talk about God. If there is any reality that is bigger than us, it is God. Yet, by grace we are invited into the relationship between the Father and the Son, much like we can be invited into any relationship. For example, when one is befriended by a married couple, they invite you into the dynamic of their married relationship. In a very real sense, you become part of their marriage. Now, in terms of the Divine dynamic of love, this relationship between the Father and the Son is what has been revealed to us as the Holy Spirit. Just like with the married couple, we are invited into the very relationship and reality that is God. We are a part of that relationship and it is part of us. We can say with certainty that we are literally a part of God, and through indwelling of the Holy Spirit, God is a part of us. This is heady stuff, but it is not so daunting if we understand it in terms of relationship. You don’t solve a relationship. You are part of a relationship and it is a part of you, whether it is with family, with Church, and especially with God.