-

 


Tomorrow is what's known as Trinity Sunday, probably the most confusing festival of the church year. We celebrate a God who is one Person and at the same time three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It's an idea that became codified pretty early on in the history of Christianity, but theologians have struggled down the years to explain it to lay people. For an exhaustive (and exhausting) exploration of the subject, you can check out the Creed of Athanasius, which includes such riveting prose as:

"...we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is; such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost."

He goes on in that vein for several pages.

The concept even appears in my work-in-progress, Book 2 of the Feathers of a Lion series, in which 18 year-old Oriela is preparing for Baptism (for the reason it's only happening now, see Book 1, Zani.) A Dominican friar has the unenviable job of explaining basic dogma to this uninitiated teenager, and after he gives her some of the Athanasian treatment,

“Oh! Is it like this?” said Oriela. “God is an actor, and He wears three Masks. Like the way sometimes Silvio is Salvan Mandragora the jester, sometimes Zani the servant, and sometimes Alichin--whatever he is--but it’s always Silvio in the Mask. Is that what you mean?”

Fra Tomaso cocked his head. “Not exactly, but it will do as a start. It’s no worse than San Patrizio’s shamrock leaf.”

Saint Patrick famously attempted to illustrate the concept to the heathen Irish by holding up a shamrock, a plant where three leaves are attached to the same stem, begging the question whether, when you pick one, you have plucked one leaf or three. 

 


I like the Russian icon pictured up top, painted by Andrei Rublev, which depicts at the same time the three angels who visited Abraham and the Holy Trinity. Father MacFarlane of St. Barnabas' Episcopal Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, said he favored this depiction because it shows that "the life at the heart of the universe is a shared life." 

As an Eastern Orthodox image, it doesn't try to explain the whole thing in detail but lets the mystery be a mystery. There are some things about the universe that we can't codify, and we don't have to. It's okay not to have all the answers.

That's all I've got this week. If you have any more coherent thoughts on this subject, I'd love to read them. That's what the comments section is for.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sermon on the Good Shepherd

-
Image
Ancient shepherds were pretty bad-ass, when you think about it, even though they held a very low status in society. Imagine being all by yourself with a hundred head of   pretty foolish livestock to protect. Imagine you don’t have a gun, just a rod and a staff—basically a couple of big sticks—and your flock is in constant danger from wolves, and lions, and rustlers who try to jump the portable fence you’ve put up for the night. Imagine there’s no closing gate to this temporary enclosure, just you with your two sticks, sleeping in the opening, so anything coming to trouble the sheep will have to go through you. And then when day comes, your job is to call each sheep by its name—and every one of them has a name—and lead them all to good pasture, walking in front, where you’re the first to face any hazard. Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.   All who came before me  are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whe...
Read more

Listening in Tongues in Venice

-
Image
Tomorrow is the Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit infused the Apostles and, by Luke's description, lit up their heads with "tongues" of fire. Above is one Eastern Orthodox artist's idea what this might have looked like. Just before the flames, there was a sound of a strong wind. Strange weather, all in all. I love this story. I get to read it tomorrow when St. Andrew's Episcopal Church meets for the first time in person on church grounds (still staying outside) since the Covid thing drove us from the premises and onto Zoom. We'll still be masked in the parking lot, but we're allowed to sing with our masks on, which is a new privilege since last Fall's outdoor service at two parishioners' house.  In past years, I've had the fun of reading it in Italian at St. Paul's in Concord. While St. Andrew's doesn't do the multiple languages thing, I'm still looking forward to it. You see, something like it actually happened to me onc...
Read more
-
Image
  “There was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out…”                                               Mark 1:23                                                   We don’t call them demons anymore When you’re raving, howling out your reality To the pious void. In our less benighted time, This is not an unclean spirit but a case Of schizophrenia, a distressing medical phenomenon Treatable with the new alchemy of neurotransmitters. You don’t Need an exorcism. Take your meds. Be silent and come out. And yet, There is some verity that will not be quieted, even With Lithium. The words Of the rebuked disorder are Recorded for the ears of generations. While those in their right m...
Read more