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The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
| | Readings for June 3, 2012
The celebration of the Most Holy Trinity is a reminder for me of one of the challenges of being a person of faith. The challenge is being able to live with paradox and to remain faith filled. The concept of a Triune God is not logical. How can one being also be three in one? I remember the stories from my Catholic grade school years which tried to explain the Trinity. There was the story attributed to St. Patrick of him using a three leaf clover to explain how the Trinity is three in one God. In second grade this story was helpful but as I grew up and my understanding of our faith grew, it wasn't enough. I had questions but heard no good answers. Now I hear the Trinity described as Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer. But l am left wanting to understand more. What has helped me to understand the Trinity in a way that makes sense for me was hearing a story attributed to St. Augustine.
Apparently St. Augustine also pondered the nature of the Trinity. The story goes something like this. St. Augustine was walking on the beach contemplating the mystery of the Trinity. Then he saw a boy in front of him who had dug a hole in the sand and was going out to the sea again and again and bringing some water to pour into the hole. St. Augustine asked him, "What are you doing?" "I'm going to pour the entire ocean into this hole." "That is impossible, the whole ocean will not fit in the hole you have made" said St. Augustine. The boy replied, "And you cannot fit the Trinity in your tiny little brain." The story concludes by saying that the boy vanished as St. Augustine had been talking to an angel. There are slight variations of this story but the bottom line is always the same, the Trinity is not something to for us humans to fully grasp.
What is comforting for me about this story and the lesson it contains is that I will never be able to fully comprehend the Trinity and that's OK. The Trinity is one of the major paradoxes of our faith. The challenge is to be able to hold that paradox and be comfortable with the not knowing. Holding this paradox, accepting it, and being comfortable with it are what I believe, a faith filled person is called to do.
So much of our faith involves being at peace with not completely understanding but still accepting and prayerfully holding paradoxes. I am reminded of some of the paradoxes of our faith; a virgin giving birth; the death on a cross providing redemption for all; a resurrection and ascension. Working as a chaplain I am often confronted with the question of why do bad things happen to good people and often the reverse, why do good things happen to bad people and not me? To continue to do the work I do, I have to accept that sometimes I don't understand and never will but I have faith and my faith allows me to hold these paradoxes and continue to work as a person of faith.
Roger Vandervest is a deacon at Ascension and works as a board certified chaplain at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
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| Lectio Divina... | | "Lectio divina is a slow, contemplative praying of the Scriptures. Time set aside in a special way for lectio divina enables us to discover in our daily life an underlying spiritual rhythm. Within this rhythm, we discover an increasing ability to offer more of ourselves and our relationships to the Father, and to accept the embrace that God is continuously extending to us in the person of his son, Jesus Christ."
Father Luke Dysinger, O.S.B
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| About Living the Word | |
LIVING THE WORD...opportunity, challenge, commitment
Opportunity: Living the Word is an opportunity for us to grow in our knowledge and love of God through the prayerful reading and study of the scriptures.
Challenge: Living the Word is a challenge to make more time for God in our daily lives. We challenge ourselves to come to Mass each week ready to hear God's Word proclaimed and to take that Word to the world!
Commitment: Living the Word invites us to commit ourselves to spending time with God's Word several times each week. As we read and reread these scriptures, think about the words we read, and bring these words to prayer, we encounter Christ, God's Living Word.
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| What is a Lectionary? | |
A lectionary is a list of scripture readings (also called "lections," from the Latin lectio) selected for reading at worship services; it is also the book containing the actual readings. The term is most commonly used in the Catholic Church for the Lectionary for Mass, which contains the readings prescribed for the Masses for Sundays, feast days, weekdays, sacramental celebrations, funerals, and Masses for special occasions or particular devotions-basically, any Mass.
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