Today, as we celebrate the Trinity, we remember that our God is love that is shared, communion that is given. This feast is not an abstract dogma, but an invitation to live love in movement, to let ourselves be enveloped by the dance of divine life that invites us to participate.
In those days Jesus said to his disciples: “Many things remain to be told you, but you cannot bear them now; when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but he will speak from what he hears and will communicate to you what is to come. He will glorify me, for he will receive what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. Therefore I have told you that he will receive and take of mine and declare it to you.” Jn 16:12-15
This Gospel of John is an excerpt from the “Sermon on the Supper”. Jesus announces to his disciples that the Spirit will be sent to them, who will make clear to them all the things they cannot yet understand.
In the theological reflection on God we encounter human limitation. The people of Israel know this very well, that is why they do not dare to make images of the divinity, because there is no image of anything on earth that can even remotely resemble the essence of God.
An invitation to meet the Trinity.
The first invitation is to detach ourselves from the images that pigeonhole us and reduce the mystery. To ask the Spirit to explain it to us from within, and to teach us to live from the experience of a God the Trinity. Because what we know of God is thanks to Jesus. And in Him we know Him in three ways1 :
1- Like an irresistible WIND that pushes the history of the world from within, as when the sails of a ship swell from within and it begins to sail. We have called it “the Spirit”, the wind of God. And we have “seen” it blowing powerfully in Jesus himself, and we have seen it blowing powerfully in the first Christian community. And we continue to feel it blowing in the love and enthusiasm of so many good people who sustain the world and keep us in faith and hope.
2. In Jesus, that formidable wind was WORD. For us, all of Jesus is Word: when he heals and when he speaks, when he sympathizes and when he gets tired, when he dies and when he triumphs, we see above all THE WORD. And not only by what he says but also by what he does, by his way of being and living.
3- And then comes our stupendous surprise: when God speaks of himself – in his Word, which is Jesus – he does not speak of the Infinite, the Eternal, the Creator, of all those marvelous things that we imagined. He speaks of ABBÁ, of mommy-daddy indispensable, daddy, mommy, which is the same as speaking of the doctor who is contagious because he cures his sick, which is the same as speaking of the shepherd who risks his life for every sheep.
The Trinity is the expression of God’s joy
The second invitation is to go a step further, after contemplating what Jesus showed us, we are now invited to enter into that mystery. The image that can help us is to contemplate the Trinity as a divine dance of three persons. 2 who love one another and embrace each other so fully that each of them becomes “one” with the others.
This means that God is not only dialogue (verbal communication, shared word), but total communion and communication: each person exists only to the extent that he walks (advances) towards the other, occupying his place and dwelling in him. In other words, the Trinity is an itinerary from one person to the other, presence of one in the other, communion of the Father with the Son in the Spirit. Each person exists in himself by receiving and sharing being from and with the others. Therefore, the Trinity is the supreme form of communication, of the presence of each person in the others. The Trinity offers a model of social communion for the world, that is, for men and women, the elderly and children, all in the great dance of Life.
We are part of God’s “dance”. God’s desire is that men and women join in the Trinity’s dance of intimate love, addressing one another in love, so that we realize the fundamental interconnectedness of one another. Certainly, God has invited us to participate in this divine dance; but we have hesitated: we do not know whether or not we want to accept God’s hand to dance with him. It is we who have to make the decision, to decide the degree of intimacy with which we want God to dance with us and to what extent we want God to lead our dance.
To what does this feast of the trinity invite me?
What does this mystery of the Trinity say to me today? Not as an abstract idea, but as a concrete invitation to live in communion, shared love and openness to others. Because this God the Trinity is not contemplated from afar, but invites us to participate in his eternal dance of love.
I invite you to stop for a moment and ask yourself:
- What images of God do I need to renounce in order to enter freely into this mystery?
- Am I willing to let myself be carried away by its music, to enter into that divine dance where the Father, the Son and the Spirit love and welcome each other so fully that they become one?
- What place do I want to occupy in this dance that sustains and gives meaning to life?
May this feast help us to live more in the key of communion, of encounter, of mutual presence… to move to the rhythm of the Love that gives Life.
