Trinity

In a conversation I had today we explored what might help lift our Spirits and I recalled two important Christian practices.

Firstly, to “count your blessings” and find things in the next days to be grateful for.

Secondly, in the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola he describes times and spiritual states of desolation; when you are feeling low or distressed which can happen to us all. In such times, he says it is wise to remember times of consolation when you have experienced joy, or love, or comfort, or peace. This practice of remembering consolation is to consciously recall some good memories and like counting your blessings, it enables you to draw from the well of what can support and restore our spirits.

As I sit here, I can remember the joy of seeing my niece and her husband’s faces in Brisbane only a couple of weekends ago as they renewed their wedding vows in front of family and friends. I can recall the beautiful pink rose that bloomed only today in the garden. I can recall the deep conversations that I have shared recently and am thankful for people’s honesty and trust. As I keep remembering the list expands and I become grateful for members of the church and wider community who faithfully pray and serve others in humble and powerful ways.
Though we will not be gathering this Trinity Sunday we can still gather in Spirit as we have done last year and remember those good memories as we hold one another in prayer, meditate on the Scriptures and care for one another with phone calls and emails.

This week’s readings from Isaiah 6: 1-8 and John 3: 1-17 are stories of encounters with God that call us beyond what we know about God and ourselves. Isaiah and Nicodemus found that God was bigger than they imagined. So too the images of God as Trinity: God in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit stretched the imaginations and experience of the early faith communities. Now God was life-giving Spirit and Creator Father and God amongst the people in the person of Jesus the Christ.

The image of the trinity like the Celtic endless knot tries to say that we worship one God in community, known in different ways yet united in love and purpose. Yet we know that any way we name God does not fully contain the width, and height, and depth of the community of the triune God as our human language is limited.

What we do know is that like the ancient stories of Scripture God still meets us in our everyday experience and whether it is through creation, people, visions, images, or actions, in small and large ways we are changed, and called forth to live and use our gifts for the sake of others.

So, while we are in lockdown we can still pray, send our love, our kind thoughts, message of peace and encouragement and we can act in faithful ways.

Keep your Spirits up, count your blessings and remember the God who is named as Trinity in a myriad of ways such as Maker, Son and Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, and from a contemporary version of the Lords’ Prayer; Life-giver, Pain-bearer- Love-maker.
Or as the Celts might say from St Patrick’s prayer breastplate:

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three

Peace be with you.

Rev Lynette Dungan