Can we name God?

Whenever we celebrate Trinity Sunday we can struggle to gain a complete understanding of how God can be three persons equal in nature and divine in Majesty. Words can struggle to paint the picture of how we can come to be drawn into a relationship with God which articulates who we are called to become. We can witness this ongoing dialogue with God which cannot be contained by our own descriptions. This occurs in Genesis where God is seen as breath poured out on the world who brings life into being. God breathes out and creation is born. We see this in Abraham's dialogue with God in trying to understand "I am who I am". Moses also seeks to be drawn into the relationship as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Throughout the narrative which is contained within scripture, we come to a belief of how that self-revelation of God changes the lives of the people who listen and who are caught up in the mystery of God.

Then as Christians, we enter into the relationship which the person of Jesus had with Abba, God the Father. It is by being drawn closer to the words that Jesus used in His prayers and in His teaching that we start to discover how this relationship embraces all of us. The words that He chooses are not just words to be used in a private conversation but a level of intimacy to which all are invited. There is a revelation that we are not called to establish our own language but that we are called into the same relationship which Jesus has with the Father. We see this not only contained in our scripture but also in our liturgical action when we are formed and reformed into the mystery of that relationship through the words we encounter on His lips. In our own prayer, we join with Jesus in praying as He prayed.

This can often cause us some confusion in a world where the identification of God with a particular gender can cause resistance among some who find difficulty which sees our theology understanding of the Trinity as predominantly masculine. Yet one only has to look at the history of many of the Fathers and Mothers of the Church who can see both feminine and masculine dimensions to that relationship with God. Even in the picture of the Prodigal Son painted by Rembrandt we see this portrayed both in the hands and the face. Yet no picture can adequately paint our image of God or how our relationship is called to enfold us with light. I think essentially we need to acknowledge that our prayer is called to be both effective and affective. In our effective and liturgical prayer, we are caught up in the mystery of the dialogue of Christ in drawing us into a relationship with God the Father through the presence of the Holy Spirit. In our affective and personal prayer, we are called to discover for ourselves how God names us and draws us into a life-giving relationship. I think it is this difference which enables us to become prayerfully present in all things.