While the Scriptures traditionally speak of God as Father, we know that in God there can be no gender differences and we call God “Father” in the sense of the parent who gives life and nurtures. Nonetheless, God as Father is the originator, the source, the conserver of all life, of all that exists. “In God,” according to the Acts of the Apostles, “we live and move and have our being.” The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said that “the world is charged with the grandeur of God.” Through the Father, our God is to be sought and found in all things, which He has created and keeps in being (from the simplest minerals which are alive with atomic energy, to the most gifted and creative human being, to the outermost galaxy). And so we have the lovely prayer of Moses in Exodus 34, “Let my Lord come with us.”
Jesus, born of Mary in Bethlehem, is the Word made flesh, the Son of God. In Him there is the mysterious combination of the divine and the human in one Person. Jesus was totally God and totally human – not half and half. This is a truth as far beyond our comprehension as the Trinity itself. Jesus is the revelation, the unveiling in human form of our God. The message of this revelation is purely and simply to let us know that God the Father loves us with an overwhelming love. John 3 tells us, “God [Father] loves the world so much that he gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not be lost, but may have eternal life. For God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but so that through Him the world might be saved.” God is not concealed behind the humanity of Jesus, but is seen precisely in that humanity. Jesus, it appears, is most clearly revealing the heart of the Father when He is at His most human. We see the Father most clearly in Jesus in His compassion for the weak, the needy, the marginalized; in forgiving the sinner and His enemies; in healing the physically and mentally sick; in integrating the social outcast back into the community; in His unconditional acceptance of all, regardless of class, race, religion, or gender. Yes, our Father really loves the world and that has been shown to us by the Only Begotten in Jesus.
Finally, we see God as indwelling Spirit. The Spirit is described as the Love that is generated between the Father and the Son. The meaning of “the Spirit” in practice means that God is indwelling in all creation and revealing Himself through it. Wherever there is Truth or Love or Beauty, there is God. Every act of truth and integrity, every act of love and compassion, every act of human empathy, every act of solidarity, forgiveness, acceptance, and justice in people is the Spirit of God working in and through us. When such actions appear in us, they are a sign that we are open to the Spirit and that the Spirit is working in us and through us. Let us pray today with St. Paul (as he says in Second Corinthians 13): “Try to grow perfect; help one another. Be united; live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you…” St. Paul then adds the lovely greeting we often use during the Mass: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
[The image above is taken from the Hours of Etienne Chevalier, a Medieval illuminated manuscript, commissioned by Etienne Chevalier, treasurer to King Charles VII of France, by the miniature painter Jean Fouquet. It shows a lavishly decorated palace hall with an orange angel-bordered aureole enclosing a bright yellow light emanating from each Person of the Trinity, seated on a monumental triple throne. Each Person of the Trinity is illustrated exactly the same. Identical. Same importance. We are part of the row of people at the bottom of the illustration, watching the Trinity, Our Lady on her throne, the angels, the saints, the bishops, the kings. To live the message of the Gospel means that we have to move from the shadows of darkness into the light illustrated so beautifully here. It almost looks like a sun. In prayer, we open ourselves to the light of the Trinity, a bit like sunning ourselves in the warmth of the sun, the gentle and bright light which illuminates and warms us completely.] Patrick van der Vorst
