Trinity Sunday - Fr. Leo
When I thought about peaching this Sunday, I asked myself, How can I make the Holy Trinity more accessible, or helpful to us in our spiritual lives? My first thought, was the community we express in making the sign of the cross and saying, “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
God is our Father (Creator), Son (Redeemer) and Holy Spirit, (Sanctifier). Knowing one aspect of God sheds light on the others. For example; As get to know Jesus through praying the scriptures we also get to know the Father whose love is incarnate in Him. When Jesus tells the parable recorded in Luke’s gospel about the father who has two prodigal sons, our trust in the Father who seeks the good of his sons, deepens. Our trust grows in the love of God the Father and Son who only want what is best for us.
As we feel that love in praying with the scripture, it is the Holy Spirit that is that insight and feeling in our mind and gut! Just as there is a certain spirit we feel when we are with certain people, our sense of God in our hearts when we pray is a spirit too, the Holy Spirit.
When St. Paul writes in Romans, “If God is for us, who can be against us,” he makes it clear, that God’s love has one desire, to live in us. God wants us to be able to say with St. Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Thus the unity of the Trinity is to be our unity as well.
Christ want’s us to share in his divinity. We are to become one in Christ and in Christ, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is where Andrei Rublev’s Icon of the Holy Trinity is so helpful. The Icon is in St. Petersburg and is life size. Standing in front of it you can see a blank space on the table where a mirror once hung. Thus standing in front of the Icon you would see yourself at the table sharing in unity with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
So each time we make that wonderful sign of the cross, let that prayer be an opening our hearts that we may experience God loving us in our deepest of hearts. Making he Sign of the Cross is a prayer of renewing ourselves in the God who created, sustains, and sanctifies our days. May we all be blessed, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.