Dear Friends,
In our personal and communal Faith Journey, we need to learn to be at home with mystery, especially the magnificent Mystery of God. St Augustine offers wise advice: ‘If you think you have understood God, you can be sure that it is not God that you have understood!’ It’s not that we can’t grow in our knowledge of God through prayer, study or conversation but that we can never fully understand God as he really is. That’s fine because our God seeks an intimate, personal relationship with us.
Early on, I was taught that God is perfect and does not change. What does this mean when God became one of us, taking on our human nature in the person of his Son Jesus? Moreover, when Jesus returned to his Father, the Holy Spirit was sent to be our comforter, protector and guide. What a remarkable God who embraces so many of the situations which are changeable in our lives!
At least, St Augustine knew his own limitations in understanding the Trinity. You may be familiar with the story of Augustine walking along the beach when he came across a small boy with a bucket and spade, busily pouring water from the ocean into the hole he had dug. He asked the boy what he was doing and he replied, 'I'm trying to pour the ocean into this hole!' Augustine replied, 'You know that's impossible, don't you?' The boy smiled, 'I've got more chance of pouring the ocean into this hole than you've got of understanding the Trinity!'
The Trinity is the very mystery of God – not a puzzle to be solved but a mystery to be enjoyed! This gift that our God shares with us can’t be locked up in a word because no word or idea is ever enough. The titles Father, Son and Spirit all help us appreciate God's relationship with us - closeness, hospitality, warmth and welcome into God’s own life, expressed beautifully in the presider’s greeting at Mass - ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all!’
Our God is a ‘God who goes forth’, a God who cannot be contained or limited by time and space. In turn, Pope Francis exhorts us to be a ‘Church that goes forth’ – a Church that witnesses to the expansiveness of God, a ‘Church whose doors are open’ (Joy of the Gospel 2013, n46). The Parable of the Prodigal Son where the father keeps his door open awaiting his son’s return is a classic image of God the Father and the hospitality of God the Trinity offers.
An hospitable Church reflects the truth of God’s love extended to us in the coming of Jesus and the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit within each of us – our way of enjoying the Mystery and living in the life of the Trinity. This model of a ‘Church that goes forth’ needs to be part of our experience as an ‘open’ Parish Community. It is also the ideal model of a Catholic school (The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue 2022, n31,72).
Jesus gives our God a human face. Can we accept more fully God’s invitation to intimacy, to be drawn into the inner life of God, to see his smile and to smile in return, to enjoy friendship with God? Our mission is to give our God a human face in everything we do, so relax, be still, and wonder at the vastness and goodness of God. We have nothing to fear!
As our children receive First Communion and Confirmation in these days, we pray that they too will enjoy the mystery, which is God present in their lives! Fr Dave