The Most Holy Trinity - Fr. Leo
Each of us was baptized into God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This Holy Trinity is a mystery, so for us the spiritual life is living in mystery. Thinking about spirituality as mystery, confronts many people’s mindset in this modern age. This may help explain why people are moving away from organized religion and why religion doesn’t speak to our younger people.
There are two things that mitigate our living in mystery. One is our “Age of Reason.” We are living in a world where scientific reason is enthroned. We look at the body as something that functions. Each organ has its duty and medicine is to help it accomplish its task. However, what is the stress we create in our bodies that causes disease? Might our reasons for living and being, be a place to treat the body through treating the soul?
Strict reason leaves out things like imagination, play and love. The art of living has been traded for societal norms that ignores our individual and collective humanity. Love and art can not be reasoned out. They must be allowed to speak their voice. A voice I believe is in us and needs to be liberated.
Even the church is at fault by converting spirituality into dogma. Such a legalistic approach to living in mystery denies mystery itself. God cannot be named. God can only be experienced in the strings of the heart and soul. If we could bring the soul back into religion then people would join, because every person has a soul and seeks to nourish their soul in a loving community.
A second issue that may make spiritually irrelevant to some, is the idea that religion should fix everything. The world is not perfect. No person is perfect. But, that does not mean that life isn’t a profoundly meaningful existence. When we acknowledge Jesus as the second person in the Trinity, we are embracing that God is sharing our broken humanity and has shown us a way to heal through resurrection from the dead, not escape from the death.
Thus, a culture that seeks pleasure at the expense of meaning will not nurture the soul. Genuine spiritually will not thrive. However, I firmly believe that every human person, young and old, longs for soul-full living, and will seek the Spirit that brings us to share even now in the life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Today, let us remember that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is our creator, redeemer and sanctifier. God makes us divine as we learn to live a soulful life that allows reason and Spirit to live together. May God live in us, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen!