From a distance

 How we imagine God has a profound impact on how we see ourselves. I am reminded of Bette Midler’s Song, “From a distance God is watching us” This may be a popular image of God who is portrayed as one who seems to leave us to our own devices and notices the distances between us even though we hope and peace. In this song we can notice how this may be our common experience of seeking to cross the divides that can separate us from each other.

The Trinity calls us to ponder more deeply how God seeks to communicate with us daily. While this tells us that God is three distinct persons (hypostases) but one in essence (homoousion) that was declared at the Council of Nicaea in 325. Yet we can be left scratching our heads about what impact this has on our own lives. We can seem to be placed at a distance from the God who seeks to draw us closer.

Yet at the heart of the teaching on Trinity is the proclamation that we are all called to be in a life-giving relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. How we enter this mystery of this relationship lies at the heart of our lives. The image that stays with me is that we are invited into a Divine Dance. This invitation notices that there is a dance, a dancer and a dancing. When we are caught up amid this movement it is important to notice the dynamics at play. We are caught up in a divine embrace that calls us to enter this movement in our own lives. No longer do we just sit as passive observers on the sidelines we are called to step forward and join in the dance.

We can see this in St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians where he notices that we are called to grow in a happiness that will draw us into the heart of this relationship where he uses the greeting that we hear so often at the beginning of Mass, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all and we respond and with your spirit. This shows us how we are called to grow in the perfection of the love of the Trinity by helping one another. There is a call to be united in peace that will sustain us.

Moses encounters this when he holds the ten commandments in his hands that we are called to enter a relationship with God that does not just focus on the Law but to seek the heart of the Lawgiver. As Moses, says, “A God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger and rich in kindness and faithfulness.” This is where we are called to respond not by pointing to each other’s sins but as God’s desire to adopt us sons and daughters in faith.

God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son not to condemn the world but so that through him the world might be saved.

Over the next week every time we make the sign of the cross, we can start to notice how God desires to meet us at our meals, in our work, in our relaxation, in our prayer and in our homes. God seeks to cross that divide. We seek to be people of faith who are drawn to the heart of the Trinity as we say, “Glory to be the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”