WE CAN NEVER SAY THE FINAL WORD ABOUT GOD

WE CAN NEVER SAY THE FINAL WORD ABOUT GOD

IT IS A FACT THAT the more we are acquainted with people, the more we grow to realise how little we know them. Family friends continue to surprise us, reminding us that they are always more than our understanding of them. We can all give instant impressions of people after knowing them only for a week, but if we are honest with ourselves we have to admit that our clarity is born of ignorance. At this juncture, we come to realise that understanding people is a lifetime's task.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, when it comes to understanding God, we become paralysed by the sheer magnitude of the mystery. The more we discover about God, the greater becomes the mystery of His presence and love. Mystery means that we can never say the final word about God; there is always more to discover, there is always more to share, there is always more to experience. In this sense, therefore, God invites us never to abandon the endless task of growing to understand the power behind the world we live in. And that's the love, respect and humility we can express to Him.

The Trinitarian God or God as Trinity is a difficult expression, which we normally do not use in our daily conversation. These words tell us about God who is one who shows himself to us in three persons – The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We had the Solemnity of the Holy Spirit, the Pentecost on Sunday, May 20, 2018. This is not a grammar that some people have created in the past. Jesus himself is the principle entrance into this mystery of God. He told his disciples: "Go … make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

Many people in different ways and capacity have tried to explain the Trinity. Some used the example of triangle; others a leaf that has three angles, and others the three figures/stones used in the village to put pots on fire for cooking. Or water which you can get in a form of a steam, ice or falling rain. In fact, today I have a story about explaining the Holy Trinity that happened in Zaire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

It was in 1980, as usual people had come together to share the Gospel as they did every week. There were about 15 people present. After the opening hymn, the catechist excused himself saying: "The Trinity, oh, it is too great a mystery to be explained. I don't know what to say. Instead, we are going to go over the songs for the Mass on Sunday." At this point, an old man said he had something to say. He did not know how to read or write, but he said, "I have often thought about the Trinity, God one and three, so I know how to explain it." Everyone was surprised, some were laughing and others were wondering what this old, non-entity, uneducated man was going to say. The old man continued, "If, at mid-day, I return to my hut, my small house, and I close the door and the one window I have, you know what I see? I see the rays of the sun going everywhere. They are all the same. Then, I know that the sun exists, and I feel the heat, which warms me. And that's Trinity: The sun is the Father; the rays are the Son whom the Father sends; and heat, which warms me is the Spirit." The three are impossible to separate them."

There was a deep silence in the room, and all were nodding their heads for approval and appreciation. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all three persons reveal the fullness of the unity of God's love. It is an expression and revelation of love. And in fact, we experience that love when it is communicated in simple ways through the people of grace we meet in our lives. We are all children of that one God, and love should be an essential aspect for our continued growth as Christians. Love which is the nexus of unity, of oneness. We are not to retire from the task of helping to make our family and community a place where God's love exists; because none of the Trinity retires from the task of loving us. God's love is sure and everlasting; thus, our responsibility is to share it with others.

If we look around today, we find the love, the unity and the oneness celebrated in the Trinity is somehow fading away or rather it is being refused by us, human beings, who are created in image and likeness of God Himself. Stories of kidnapping and ritual killings, armed robberies, herdsmen's cruel attacks of innocent people because of their faith in Trinitarian God, abuses of minors (children), human trafficking, drug abuse and arms trade, which are outrageous these days are a sign of the times that the sense of who God is in the Trinity, has not reached or touched the core of our heart. Or may be we simply ignore Him. We pray for those with wicked heart that God who is Love expressed in the Trinity, may remove their hearts of stone and instil in them the hearts of flesh. That the Trinity may transform their lives so that they may become fully human whose lives will be ruled by love. Only then can the vision of Jesus Christ be realised in its fullness: "Go … make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." The procession we had on Tuesday, May 22, 2018, from the Major Seminary of Ss. Peter and Paul to the Secretariat is, indeed, a powerful expression of our solidarity for those who are persecuted and martyred because of their strong faith in the Trinity. This is our expression of love, unity, oneness in Trinitarian God!

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