The Mystery Above All Mysteries

I am keenly aware that there are a variety of viewpoints on “religion,” and the following remarks might well be lost on some. Don’t worry! If you get it, fine! If you don’t that’s O.K., it probably wasn’t meant for you.

In times of stress I find it important to go back to the basics of our faith. In the 14^th C. Dame Julian of Norwich wrote, “The Trinitie is God, God is the Trinitie, the Trinitie is our Maker, the Trinitie is our keeper, the Trinitie is our everlasting lover, the Trinitie is our endless joy and our blisse, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and in our Lord Jesus Christ, and this was showed in the first vision and in all the others. For when Jesus appears, the Blessed Trinitie is understood and made clear to my sight.”

I had long needed a father, but I found my own earthly father so distant that it impeded my search for a relationship with our heavenly Father. But at the moment of my conversion it was God the Father who spoke audibly to me seven times commanding me to do a difficult thing; a reparation for damages done to a shopkeeper some years before.

It was then that I quickly discovered that Jesus, who died to redeem me from my sins, was alive and present with me. By grace, some weeks later, the Holy Spirit in His goodness came storming into my life. At the beginning, my experience was unreflectively Trinitarian. My understanding of the Trinity was experiential, but after much reflection, while I “know” more, the Trinity still remains a mystery.

The mystery was heightened by Jesus who proclaimed, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me” John 12:44-45]. It is in Jesus, that God the Father, and the Spirit are made manifest. I do not find mystery troubling. There is a joy and wonder knowing that God is much greater and more complex than I am.

Like Julian, the “Trinitie” became my everlasting lover. The doctrine of the Trinity finds its clear expression in The Creed of St. Athanasius. “The Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.” For the full explication look up The Creed of St. Athanasius on the internet.

Among other things The Creed of St. Athanasius says delightfully, “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.” The experience of the God the Trinity precedes the understanding of the doctrine. We meet God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and discover His amazing love for us; then we spend the rest of life puzzling out His incomprehensible nature.

My reason for sharing this is no mystery. In the midst of all the current stress and conflict in the world, step aside with me and ponder greater things. Ponder the great and mysterious love of God the Trinity for you, and take time be lost for a little while in the Mystery of the Glorious Trinity.