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May 30, 2021

Most Holy Trinity

How often do we say the name “God”? We use the name of God in texting OMG - Oh My God, in our prayers, at Mass and sometimes in swearing. Soldiers may utter the name of God on the battlefield. Jewish people long ago had a great reverence for God’s name. They believed “the name of God” had power. In the Bible, “Elohim”, a name for God, occurs frequently throughout the Torah. “Adonai”, my Lord, is also used. But the sacred name “Yahweh” is not pronounced, written YHWH with no vowels, it can be uttered only once a year by the High Priest in the sanctuary of the Temple, the Holy of Holies. We have lost the sense of awe, wonder and fear when using the name of God. On this Memorial Day weekend, we celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, the fundamental belief of our Catholic faith. With Jews and Muslims, we believe in One God, but Christians hold God is Three Persons in One God.   

Our 1^st Reading, the Book of Deuteronomy, gives us a Jewish appreciation of God creator and of God who reveals. Jews value their experience of God who converses with them. “Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire and live?” Their paramount experience of God is the Exodus when God hears the cry of the Israelites. God sends Moses to lead the Hebrews from bondage and slavery in Egypt, God enters covenant with his chosen people and God gives them the 10 Commandments.   

Our 2^nd Reading, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, articulates our Christians sense of relationship in God. We are led by the Spirit of God as adopted children and through the Spirit we cry out “Abba, Father”. We are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus commissions his disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. A behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

We must be reserved in saying things about God. We know God less with our minds and more with our hearts. As Moses says: “This is why you must now know and fix in your heart, that the Lord is God in the heaven above and on the earth below, and there is no other.” St. Augustine pondering the mystery of the Trinity noticed a boy scooping water in a bucket and pouring the water into a hole on the beach. He asked the boy what he was attempting to do. The boy explained that he was filling the hole with water from the sea. Augustine realized his own folly of trying to probe and understand the Mystery of the Trinity. Our minds are ill equipped. Our human words are inadequate. After whatever we can possibly say about God, our words and prayers must end in humble silence.

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