PRE-PRAYERING
Mysteries of science, human relationships and literature attract us and our desires to solve them. It is in our minds and hearts that we are so driven to figure it all out. It makes God both an attraction and a frustration.  As with our figuring out the size of the universe or what makes our spouses or parents tick, God is a mystery who will never be solved. So where’s the attraction, the delight, the fun in that?

We pray for the grace God wants to give us to stay on task; the task is our being attracted within frustration. We can pray with the creational gestures of God which are like hints or invitations to keep on the journey.

We pray with the tremendous mystery of the Father, The Son and a Holy Spirit who while being one God are three persons laboring for our response and return. We pray for patience and faith to trust more exactly the God of mystery whose love for us is what we desire and fear. What just makes God tick?

REFLECTION
In our reading of mystery novels we find ourselves attempting to figure out very early in our delight, “who did it.”  As we meet each person in the narrative we size up mentally whether Mr. Green did it in the library with a candlestick or maybe not. The adventure of readings the clues keeps us turning the pages to the surprising end.

I could inform you that the persons of the Holy Trinity differ in processions and relations. One God, three persons equal and different. That does not keep you turning the pages very much, I guess. This Trinity within unity is a mystery beyond figuring out and yet is central to our belief. We bless ourselves using the person of the Trinity.  Jesus speaks often of himself as son and having a relationship with the Father and yet they are “one.”  Jesus speaks also of the Holy Spirit whose coming will bring joy even though he will no longer be around, physically.  Jesus ascends and the Holy Spirit descends and we profess our belief in it all without completely understanding.

Our First Reading for this feast is a section of a poetic description from the Book of Proverbs. Wisdom is presented as a person who boasts of being a partner in the process of creation. Before everything visible was, before anything attractive was, this “someone” existed with God who is eternal. God as craftsman, delighted with the play of this Wisdom and this Wisdom delights to be at play with the “human race.”

The opening line of the Gospel is of great comfort. “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.” We still cannot bear it, meaning understand or carry the infinite within our finite jugs. We carry some of it; we know father and son and something about breath or spirit. We know something about unity and what person might mean. We are humbled though by the size of our jug-minds. It is an insult when we do not get a joke or cannot figure out a crossword puzzle. We keep working at it though to conquer! When we do solve it eventually, we throw down the paper in triumph and disdain.

I was warming myself by the fire of the sun yesterday morning and pondering how that fiery mass is just the right distance from this “terresterial ball.”  If it were too close or too far, the play would never have begun. Just the right distance allows life, growth, progress and the invitation to figure it all out. Lots of luck! Now here’s the delight in the play of the Trinity.

God has to love us, because God is love and what something is, determines what it does. God can only do what God is and that is Love. This loving God knows how we toss away crosswords when all the blanks are full. The attraction is over and we say, “That’s done, where’s the next one?”  The play of God is not trickery or cruel. God, in love, comes close enough to delight us, attract us and keep us turning the pages. God does not stay so far away that we have no clues; just our finite jugs and we don’t even open the cover of the book.

We could say also that Jesus is the “history of God” and the Spirit helps us read, understand and live from it. What we do say is that there are some things we only play with, such as the experience of being loved by somebody. We cannot figure that out either. If we do, then it is not really love. Being loved goes beyond human reason, because love is deeper than tangible, visible; it is only acceptable.

The celebration of the Feast of the Trinity is a celebration of our being loved enough to keep us asking, searching, pondering, being warmed by anything which keeps us alive in faith, and interested in watching the play of God who delights amidst our “human race.” 

“O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth.” Ps. 8