In the name of the Father, and of the Holy Spirit and the Son, Amen! I wish I could send myself through these waves, lines or whatever, to have a long chat about this mystery, the Trinity with you. Instead, I send my best wishes and intentions in hope, spirit and imagination.
As you noticed, I have rearranged the Trinity a bit. I hope to clarify with words and images the why of my reformulation. “Clarity!” How do you usually accept mystery? Here goes!
You may say, and I hope often, “I love you”. Now those words started somewhere inside you. The more that “love” is experienced inside, you would eventually articulate it outwardly, words, songs, poems, gestures. Love cannot stay as a thought or feeling. It just has to come outside. The more intensely it is experienced, the more it “urges” expression. So far so kind of okay?
I am remembering, smilingly, the first time I verbally expressed love to my second girlfriend. (I’m not telling you about the first one.) So I said the big three words! Yup, right out loud. Her response convinced me I would never do that again. She, naturally, asked me “why”. Now I could more easily have told her why I “liked” her, but explaining the “why” of “love”! Impossible!
Liking is logical, reasonable, factual. Love moves from “like” and moves inside where logic takes a place on the bench. Her natural question left me wordless and left her laughing and a bit impatient.
Now to the mystery of God which I will explain clearly and perfectly, the Trinity! I have figured it out, but, but, unexplainably. You will find it difficult to understand if “love” has been sitting on the same bench for a long time.
It begins with the infinite, unconditional Lover. That’s a toughy and that Love cannot keep it inside the Divine Self. “Revelation” is the big Idea, it just has to be. The inside infinitely is “Creating”. So two big words, revelation and creating. This is Who God Does.
The Son is the fleshly expression. It is a word spoken in human terms. The Infinite came right out and said It. The urgency revealed and continues revealing. The Creator continues doing Its Being.
So far we have the Speaker and the Spoken. What is known as the Spirit is the Love within this Infinite and the finite. Assisting the Word’s being heard and lived. The urgency of Love is the completion of the revealing/creating
Love Who is God. The Spirit urges the continuing of the creative and revealing Love. The unconditional Spirit both urges expression and then assists the receivers of the creative revelation to allow that Love into the souls of the beloved. Confused yet?
I could not say in words my experience love for dear Beverly, I was and am too conditional. My words never could have totally convinced her, I am sure. She would want to have clarity, surety and more explanations. God as Speaker, Revealer, Creator, says it and does so through this Spirit. The Speaker, the Urgency for expression and then the Word, creation. The Urgency is as infinite as the Speaker and the Spoken. The Trinity is One Love having a lot of work to do, including our accepting the ongoing, always creating and revealing of being so loved and created. God keeps saying It and the Spirit urges our acceptance.
Dear Beverly, she never could understand me, and maybe you don’t either. It is all mystery. Yes, God so loves the world that God sends His Son into the world to let us know who we are and what we are to reveal and create.
Rev. Larry Gillick, SJ
I entered the Society of Jesus in 1960, after graduating from Marquette University High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and attending St. Norbert College for two years. I was ordained in 1972 after completing theological studies at the Toronto School of Theology, Regis College. I presently minister in the Deglman Center for Ignatian Spirituality at Creighton and give retreats.
I enjoy sharing thoughts on the Daily Reflections. It is a chance to share with a wide variety of people in the Christian community experiences of prayer and life which have been given to me. It is a bit like being in more places than just here. We actually get out there without having to pay airlines to do it. The word of God is alive and well.
