Most Holy Trinity

Sr. Phyllis Jaszkowiak
May 30, 2021

Today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Trinity.  What to say about the Trinity?  Three-in-one, One-in-three?  Three ways God shows itself as love present in our world, as Creator, Redeemer, Wisdom?
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The 14th Century Dominican Mystic, Meister Eckhart, once wrote:  “Do you want to know what goes on in the core of the Trinity?  I will tell you.  In the core of the Trinity the Father laughs and gives birth to the Son.  The Son laughs back at the Father and gives birth to the Spirit.  The whole Trinity laughs and gives birth to us.”  (NCR)
 
Julian of Norwich, a contemporary of Eckhart, saw the Trinity’s properties contained in a single hazelnut she held in her hand.  She also said:  “Just as the joyful Trinity created all things out of nothing, so also the same blessed Trinity will make well all that is not well.”  (NCR)
 
Beatrice Bruteau says it this way: “Friendship is the human image… of the Trinity, the mutual indwelling, the dynamic grace-giving sharing, of the strong bonding to be ONE.  We need to recognize and to practice it [Friendship] as sacred, as sacramental, as the Presence of God on Earth.”
 
Laughter, joy, creativity, friendship, love, that is the Trinity.  And today quantum physics would add energy – the energy which exists at the center of all created matter and the ground of all being from a scientific perspective.
 
Trinity is still a mystery, a mystery we cannot quite grasp, but somehow know to be true.  God, in all God’s fullness is within, surrounds, and lets each created thing – all people, animals, plants, earth – be its own self.  God’s energy urges all creation to be fully itself while at the same time to be there for the benefit of everything else.
 
Love, energy, friendship, joyful Laughter, holds it all together.  We, created humans, women and men, as well as all creation, have all that within us, and we walk within it.  We are meant to live that love.
 
Our world today sorely needs that love.  The animosity between Palestine and Israel, the ongoing wars in Syria and Yemen, the lack of dialogue in our US Congress, the disinformation on social media, the need for COVID vaccines in India, Peru and elsewhere, the grab for power or money or both, the growing gun violence in Portland, the destruction of creation, the dehumanization of all those who don’t agree with us, or who don’t look like us, racism, are all sins against the Trinity.
 
It is our task today to counter, work against, these sins so we can come to our true nature as beings created by Love and thus to love all creation.
 
As Sr. Carol Dempsey says, “Perhaps Julian got it right: An encounter with a hazelnut, with fields of energy all around us, with our inner core wherein rests holy energy, is an encounter with the transcendent one, forever transforming from within to create new life.”  (NCR)
 
Let us then go forward being open to the energy within to create new life wherever we happen to be.  Let us be open to the joyful laughter of the Trinity as God works through us to transform the whole of creation.  And let us joyfully say, AMEN!  ALLELUIA!
 
 
 
 
Sr. Carol Dempsey, OP.  All quotes marked (NCR) are taken from NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER article: TRINTY AS JOYFUL LAUGHTER by Sr. Carol Dempsey, OP..  National Catholic Reporter,  May 14-27, 2021.  Page 19
 
Beatrice Bruteau.  THE HOLY THURSDAY REVOLUTION.  Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York 10545-0308.  Published 2005.  P. 96.