During these past weeks we have been celebrating the Easter Mystery: how the Father saved us through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. I find it all a bit confusing. Could you help me to understand?
I. Situating the Trinitarian Faith of the Catholic Community
The mystery of the Trinity, rightly called the summit and source of the life of the Church, is celebrated in its central act – the Eucharist. There are three dimensions in this central sacrament viz., Eucharistia – the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered to the Father; Anamnesis – the sacramental memorial of the Paschal Mystery of the Son – Jesus Christ; and Epiclesis – the invocation of the creativity of the Holy Spirit.
II. Rootedness in Sacred Scripture and Tradition
Sacred Scripture is not primarily a doctrinal, nor even a theological text; it is more directly related to the Living Faith of the Church. These inspired writings try to articulate what has been communicated in Jesus Christ. The New Testament writers used tools which they inherited from the faith of Israel; still their task was not merely to repeat what had gone before, but to announce the radical novelty of the religious experience of the New Testament.
In the first place, their effort was effective. Sacred Scripture witnesses to the transformation of all human experience in Jesus Christ: They call to conversion; repeat the commandment of love; and impel to mission.
Furthermore, they also have a communicative meaning; they are the expression of a community alive to the realities of the Kingdom of God.
Finally, they form the consciousness of the Church into a distinctive Christian Identity. It shapes the Christian awareness of how God is present in and to them in Jesus Christ.
III. The Modality whereby this Salvific Event is communicated
The Scriptural narrative, can therefore be said to contain three levels of one history:
(1) In the first place, it is the History of the People of God, the religious biography of Israel and the Church.
(2) On a second level, Scripture explains the first – it is the Biography of God.
(3) On yet another level, Scripture is a Divine Autobiography, narrating God’s self- involvement in the salvation of humankind.
In brief, the names of the three divine persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, have a multi-layered significance: They determine the identity and history of the People of God; they narrate the story of God; and finally, they disclose God’s own self-expression as love.
IV. Levels of Participation!
It is to be further remembered that in the process of articulating the understanding of the Trinitarian faith in God, there emerge four levels of participation:
(1) There is a dimension of knowledge involved. In a sense, we know God better (naturally, without exhausting the mystery of the Godhead).
(2) This dimension of knowledge deeply affects the identity of those who assimilate such an understanding of God.
(3) Participation in this mystery results in the formation of a community; and results further in mission.
(4) In exploring, elaborating and celebrating the mystery of the Godhead, one is also inspired to transform the world in a certain way.
V. Jesus the Revealer of the Mystery of God’s Life
In the First Letter of John, we find the startling statement: “God is Love” (1 Jn 4:16). How are we to understand this love? The deepest response to this query is to be found in the Trinitarian understanding of God.
In the event of Jesus Christ, the mystery of the Triune God is manifested in its authentic depth as the mystery of our own salvation. It unfolds the meaning of love in its Trinitarian implications. God reveals Godself as triune, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, by saving us. The Father is “Abba” (God-for-us); the Son, the Word is Emmanuel (God-with-us) and the Holy Spirit is the Other Paraclete (God-in-us). This Trinitarian dimension of salvation ought to evoke in the Christian disciple a deeply-felt sentiment of thanksgiving to the Father: a commitment of discipleship to Jesus Christ; and an ongoing invocation to the Holy Spirit to accompany and strengthen us in our journey through life.
VI. Jesus Christ – God’s Answer to the Human Quest and Question
This brings us to the issue: How are we to understand the relevance of Jesus Christ to our lives as Christian disciples? In this regard, we have the insightful understanding of Jesus Christ given us by Karl Rahner: In Jesus Christ, we find God’s answers to the deepest problems which trouble every human heart. In other words, in the mystery of Christ, we find the paradigm of the way we should respond in our own lives.
The Incarnate Son of God identified with us -“in every respect [He] has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15) – and lived out in His own life the answers to the human quest.
VII. The Father: God – for -us
In the Old Testament, the title “Father” is used seldom for God – according to Joachim Jeremias – only fourteen times. Compared to this comparatively rare occurrence, it is astounding to find that in the Gospels, God is called “Father” one hundred and seventy times. The term also has a fresh significance, expressing a new relation to God. This is expressed in the appellative “Abba,” which Jesus used to address God the Father. It was the babbling sound used by little children, just learning to speak. In the words of Joachim Jeremias: “With Abba we are confronted with something new and unheard of, which breaks through the limits of Judaism. Here we see who the historical Jesus was: the man who had the power to address God as Abba and who included sinners and publicans into the kingdom by authorizing them to repeat this one word ‘Abba’ dear Father.”
VIII. The Holy Spirit: God – in-us
One finds a variety of different theologies of the Holy Spirit (pneumatologies) in the New Testament.
1. In the Synoptic Gospels, the focus is on the Holy Spirit and the Messiah (Jesus Christ):
2. The Acts of the Apostles, instead, reveal the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church insofar as she is a community, i.e. in its charismatic aspect. The event is the fulfilment of the messianic promise of the mission of the Holy Spirit.
3. In the Pauline Letters, the Holy Spirit is truly God; He is the pledge and guarantee of the final fulfilment of God’s promises; He is the principle of faith, the principle of union of the Church and dwells in the faithful as in a temple.
4. Finally, in the Gospel of John, the Holy Spirit is the “Other Paraclete” who helps the Christian to personalize the message of Jesus Christ.
Consequently, in the words of Jacques Guillet: “To know the Spirit is then, first of all to experience His action, to allow oneself to be influenced by Him, to make oneself docile to His desires: it is to want to make Him always more and more consciously the source of our life.”
IX. The Trinity ever retains the Character of Mystery
However, even though revealed and reflected upon in the course of Tradition, the truth of the Trinity remains a mystery ever open to new efforts of human understanding, but, in the final analysis, an absolute mystery handed to us in freedom and love for our divinization. This dimension of mystery is of the essence of the Trinity, and so it will remain a mystery for all eternity.
This is highlighted in the incident narrated about St Augustine of Hippo who had spent over 30 years working on his treatise on the Holy Trinity, endeavouring to articulate an intelligible description of this mystery of the faith:
He was walking by the seashore one day, contemplating and trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity, when he saw a small boy running back and forth from the water to a spot on the seashore. The boy was using a sea shell to carry the water from the ocean and place it into a small hole in the sand. Augustine approached him and asked:
“My boy, what are you doing?”
“I am trying to bring all the sea into this hole,” the boy replied with a smile.
“But that is impossible, my dear child, the hole cannot contain all that water,” said Augustine.
The boy paused in his work, stood up, looked into the eyes of Augustine, and replied: “It is no more impossible than what you are trying to do – comprehend the immensity of the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your small intelligence.”
Augustine was taken aback by such a keen response from that child, and turned his eyes from him for a short while. When he glanced down to ask him something else, the boy had vanished!
X. Trinitarian Spirituality
Catholic Trinitarian Spirituality can be succinctly described as the daily life-style of the believing Catholic. It is the way a Christian lives in a definite historical situation according to his/her vision of faith, that is, according to his/her personal assimilation of the mystery of Jesus Christ under the direction of the Holy Spirit. As such, Catholic Trinitarian Spirituality has an eminently personal dimension; each Catholic will live “The Way” and conduct his/her life-style in a manner which is peculiar to him/her alone, although there will be common patterns of Catholic living.
However, when one pursues an End, three principal dimensions need to be kept in mind, viz. the Goal itself, the Way to the Goal; and finally the Means whereby one realizes the Goal. It is the Catholic belief that God Himself has charted out these three dimensions, by involving Himself in our lives. According to Catholic Faith:
1. The Goal addressed to us is that one is called to build the Kingdom of God as Children of the Father.
2. The Way to be followed involves Christian discipleship in Imitation of Jesus Christ.
3. The Response involves a life which is open to the workings of the Indwelling Spirit in us.
This triple movement pertains to what is lived and breathed, eaten and drunk in the Eucharistic Liturgy. In the words of the doxology: “Through Him, with Him, in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honour is yours Almighty Father forever and ever.”
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