Gospel Reflection for Trinity Sunday – 4th June 2023

Written by Fr Brian Maher OMI

Gospel Reflection for the Trinity Sunday June 4th 2023

It was the Beatles who told us that “Love is all you need”, while the great Tina Turner (God rest her dear soul) asked “What’s Love got to do with it?”.  In the haunting “I am a Rock” by Simon and Garfunkel we meet a person who has been hurt in love and now hides away, with his “books and poetry to protect him”, saying over and over in his head, “If I never loved, I never would have cried”. In a beautiful song with which every teenager can, I’m sure, identify, Janis Ian reflected that, “I learned the truth at seventeen, That love was meant for beauty queens…”. Shakespeare gave us Romeo and Juliet, the “star-crossed lovers” we have all heard of and, with his usual wisdom, he told us that “The course of true love never did run smooth”.

Some of us, I’m sure, were ‘forced’ to read ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte while in school, and probably missed a lot of what is, I think, the greatest novel ever written about love in all of its faces. If we didn’t read the book, Kate Bush retold it in her song “Wuthering Heights”, the line, “I hated you, I loved you too.” aptly capturing its many paradoxes.

In art, music, poetry, drama, film and prose, ‘love’ is the most often depicted subject and the least understood.

At another level, in psychology, anthropology, biology, sociology, and any other ‘ology’ we care to think about, scientists have sought to pin love down and dissect it. Yet, for all the clinical trials, surveys and studies done experts cannot even decide if it is an emotion, a physiological drive like hunger or thirst, a learned, cultural response to others, or simply a part of our evolution.

I think it is true to say that love lies at the heart of who we are and all we do. We think about it, write about it, fantasise about it, yet it baffles and confounds us at every turn. We say we “are in it”, or we “fall into it”, or we “make it” without any real idea what the “it” actually is! Just when we think we’ve “got it” it evades us again, leaving us starting over (a feeling certainly understood by all golfers!).

So what is it, then, living within us that constantly has us searching for love? We cannot see, hear, smell, touch or taste it, but we know we want it, need it, almost cannot live without it.

There are all kinds of answers to this question. Let me share with you just one of them, that of St. Augustine who said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” For me this has to be one of the most profound sentences ever written. Why do I say this? Because all of the art, music, poetry and literature; all of the analytic and behavioural scientific studies; all of our own longing and searching and starting over express what can only be described as a ‘restlessness’, a state of being ‘rest-less’, unable to rest, yet knowing it is possible, within our grasp..

Those who cannot or do not believe in God will dismiss this as psychological need or self-deception, and that is fine too. But the ‘restlessness’ within us remains and constantly seeks expression in everything we do, say, think and feel. Take away all of the imagery and poetry of creation in seven days, the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, apples, snakes and trees; go beyond all of the silly, useless arguments about whether they are ‘real’ or not, and we arrive at a simple, simple truth: We are made by God and we are made in his image and likeness, invited, (not forced ever, but invited) to share in our God’s own life.

Why this is I have no idea and I am certain that nobody who lived, is living or will live, will ever have the slightest idea. We will never be able to explain or ‘prove’ why our God would want to offer us this invitation. But if we can bring ourselves to ‘accept it’, ‘surrender to it’, be humble enough to see it as purely ‘gift’, we will discover that in doing so we find rest. We are made to be with God, and only in God will we be at rest.

Am I saying that we, believers, have attained this rest while non-believers have not attained it? It would be the sin or pride and arrogance to say this or even hint at it. Mystics of all Religions and none, find this place of rest at times. If we are lucky, in prayer, there may be fleeting moments of God when we, too, experience this rest, but they are only moments.

Why only moments? Because what we are talking about is ‘Love’, and as our artists, poets and composers tell us, love is something we can experience, yet is always, tantalisingly, just beyond us.

We are made for Love. Deep within us we know this and we search for it. In a limited, always human and flawed way, we can both give and receive it. Our pride, selfishness, ambition, jealousy, greed, anger and all of those other negative parts of ourselves will always prevent us fully capturing it. Our restlessness, our guilt or shame, our embarrassment at things we say and do, all simply express what we know is within us, but we haven’t yet grasped.

St Augustine’s simply statement, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” says it perfectly. It is, for me, so powerful because it expresses not just the truth of where ‘restfulness’ lies, but how we can reach for it.

“Come to me, all of you…” said Jesus to his disciples, “…and I will give you rest.” The rest Jesus offers is the rest of knowing we are loved…… no matter what.

If you are still reading to are probably wondering where the Feast of the Blessed Trinity fits into all of these meanderings. What of the Father, Son and Spirit? What about the Gospel?

The truth is that everything I have said is about the Blessed Trinity because everything I have said is about ‘love’.

God IS love. Three so simple words, hiding the greatest mystery of our Universe.

And God is Trinity – three distinct persons united in perfect harmony, peace, rest and joy. Nothing can disturb their love, nothing can lessen it, nothing can interfere with it. There is nothing in God except love.

Unlike our love, in God there is no selfishness or ambition or jealousy or greed or pride or anger – nothing but love. It is not what God does. It is who God is!

Is it in today’s Gospel? In the first six words, there it is, clear and unambiguous: “God loved the world so much…”. Put a full stop after that and ponder it…forever.

“God loved the world so much….” It is the “so…” which says it all. God loved the world…eternally, infinitely, without measure, everything created… That much, and more, is what “so much” means.

It is who God is – love, and only love and always love…as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be…LOVE.

We will never comprehend this. In us, no matter how hard we try, love will always be shaded by other, more negative, “stuff”.

BUT…… and this is the important point, in each of us there is also “the image and likeness of God.” We don’t have to earn or deserve this. Miraculously, it is how we are created. St. Augustine says it, “You made us for yourself, O Lord…”

And because we are made in the image and likeness of God, when we love another person, or experience the love of another person, even in our flawed and weak way, we see within ourselves a tiny hint of a love that is possible, but always beyond us. That is why we are restless and impatient and always searching for more – because we know that there is a peace and a unity and a joy and a rest that is within us…… and just beyond us!

It is why we sing about it, draw and paint it, write and make films about it. Because we know it is there, within us, calling to us, inviting us closer and closer. It is the Kingdom of God, which Jesus ushered in and which the Spirit guarantees.

It is God – Father, Son, and Spirit – never alone or lonely. Simon and Garfunkel’s, “I am a Rock” is an extraordinarily sad and depressing song. We are not made to be alone. “I touch no one, and no one touches me. I am a Rock. I am an island. And a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.” This is never who we are, and never where we will find happiness, peace or rest – and we know it.

God is not alone. God is Trinity – three persons perfectly in love and loving. It is the image of the Blessed Trinity we find within us when we love or allow ourselves to be loved.

Isn’t it amazing! The incomprehensible mystery of the Blessed Trinity; what we were probably taught not to even think about because it is so much a mystery, actually lives within us! The Blessed Trinity is all around us. In parents who love and in children who are loved; in couples who love and are prepared to publicly witness to that love in marriage or partnership; In doctors and nurses and carers on every type; In migrants, who risk and often lose their lives in search of a better life for their families.

In truth, the Blessed Trinity sits beside us in Church today, offers us a sign of peace and hopefully smiles with us..

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Our hearts can and will rest in the Lord. Our home is to be within the love and life of the Blessed Trinity. It is what we were created for and what we are invited to.

Why would we ever be afraid of a God who loves us this much?

Many thanks,

Brian.

Gospel for Trinity Sunday June 4th  2023 – John 3:16-18

God sent his Son so that through him the world might be saved

Jesus said to Nicodemus:

‘God loved 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.

No one who believes in him will be condemned;

but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already,

because he has refused to believe in the name of God’s only Son.’

The Gospel of the Lord.

If you have any comments, questions or thoughts on this scripture reflection, please feel welcome to email me at b.maher@oblates.ie