Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20
For the visually-oriented among us, the mention of the Trinity conjures the 15th-century Rublev icon. That depiction of the Trinity conveys a silent stillness surrounding the three figures. They are not looking at, but into each other with an unqualified dignity, respect, and loving gaze. The fourth side of the table is open signaling an invitation for us to enter. As members of Christ’s body through Baptism, we participate in the divine nature and dance of the Trinity. We are not merely invited to watch the dance, but to dance the dance. We’re tempted to analyze and explain the Trinity by our intellect, but mystery can only be encountered by the heart.
God’s mystery in the Trinity rests in mutuality: three perfectly handing over, emptying themselves, and then fully receiving what has been handed over. In the Trinity, God models relationship for us as Christians and monastics. The first reading from Genesis sets the tone for how we encounter God. God is one, yet God creates, sustains, orders, preserves, provides, and loves. God blesses all creation. God engages with all that exists. Trinity is a paradigm of what it means to be human and to relate humanely to others. To say that God is Triune is to mean that God is social in nature. It is also to say that those made in God’s image are likewise intrinsically social. If we believe in a Trinitarian God, then we must hold fast to the truth that God is community—a completely loving, mutually self-giving, endlessly generative relationship between equal partners.
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| The Rublev Trinity Icon |
Henri Nouwen called the Trinity a “House of Love”. He wrote that in that household there is no fear, no greed, no anger, no violence, no anxieties, no pain, even no words, only enduring love and deepening trust.1 Could that description be any further from the truth of the outer and inner world in which we find ourselves today? In his book, Putting on the Mind of Christ, Jim Marion suggests that the Kingdom of Heaven is Jesus’ way of describing a state of transformed consciousness modeled in the Trinity. The Kingdom of Heaven is a metaphor and not a place you go to, but a place you come from. It’s a new way of looking at the world, a transformed awareness that turns this world into a different place. The hallmark of this awareness is that it sees no separation—not between God and humans, not between humans and other humans. Jesus’ teaching to “Love your neighbor as yourself” is an admonition to love the other as a continuation of our very own being. It’s seeing that your neighbor is you. There are not two individuals, one seeking to better oneself at the expense of the other, or to extend charity to the other. Each is equally precious and necessary. This is the template for the sacred alchemy of the Trinity which is imprinted on our soul.2
In Chapter 54 of Dame Julian’s Showings, we find the best description of our union inside of the Trinity. Julian writes, “God makes no distinction in love between the blessed soul of Christ and the least soul that will be saved.”3 She is saying that God can only see Christ in us because we are the extended Body of Christ in space and time. Christ is what God sees and cannot not love and draw us back into the Divine Dance of Love. Julian continues: “And I saw no difference between God and our substance, but, as it were, all God; and still my understanding accepted that our substance is in God, that is to say that God is God, and our substance is a creature in God. For the almighty truth of the Trinity is our Father, for he made us and keeps us in him. And the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother, in whom we are enclosed. And the high goodness of the Trinity is our Lord, and in him we are enclosed and he in us.”4 True union does not absorb distinctions, but actually intensifies them. The more one gives one’s self in creative union with another, the more one becomes one’s self. This is reflected in the Trinity, perfect giving and perfect receiving.
An African proverb states: “I am because we are.” Unlike Western society, it is not the individual but the community that is of critical importance. We’re seeing this value in action right now with so many changing their habits, lives, and livelihoods at great personal cost for the sake of the global community.5 An extension of this understanding can be found in that of Ubuntu. “A person with Ubuntu (full humanity) is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good...."6 What Ubuntu underscores is “‘the vital importance of mutual recognition and respect complemented by mutual care and sharing in the construction of human relations.’7 Ubuntu is manifested in self-giving and readiness to cooperate and communicate with others.”8 This reminder that “I am because you are,” seems particularly important for our times, especially in this country. Even before social distancing began, loneliness, and the anxiety and depression that often accompany it, had reached epidemic proportions and I imagine those numbers will only increase with so many people being isolated by our circumstances.
Our Epistle reminds us that Paul was no stranger to the joys and challenges of community life. He had lived with the community in Corinth for a couple of years and corresponded with them by letter on at least five occasions. He ends this painful letter with an appeal to order, mutual agreement, and peace. He offers them and us a Trinitarian perspective regarding community life. Believers do not belong to themselves, but to Christ, and relations among believers must reflect the One to whom they belong. He reminds them and us that when we cease to belong to Christ we give ourselves to inappropriate anger, destructive hatred, and perhaps worst of all for monastics, the poison of self-absorption. We revert to living from a place of scarcity, invariably protecting and defending what little we think we have or are, projecting our problem on someone or something else, rather than dealing with it in ourselves. Having someone to hate or blame is a relief, because it takes away our inner shame and anxiety and provides a false sense of innocence. As long as the evil is outside of us, we can keep our focus on condemning or changing someone else, rather than ourselves, which gives us a false sense of moral superiority and outrage. We don’t have to grow up, let go, forgive, or surrender—we just have to accuse someone else of being worse than we are.
When we move away from the need to protect our own power, we mirror the Trinity where all power is shared, where there is no domination, threat, or coercion. Jesus took this difficult path to know the depths of suffering and yet to forgive reality for being what it is. Through great love or great suffering, the Spirit can teach us the paradox of conversion and transformation. Paul voices his assurance that we do not face this challenge alone, but with the love and grace of God, and the Holy Spirit’s power to create communion. Resurrection for us is not an isolated miracle as much as an enduring relationship. Death is not just the death of the physical body, but all the times we hit bottom and must let go of how we thought life should be, and surrender. We are going through many deaths these days. They are tipping points, opportunities to choose conversion. Death is final only for those who close ourselves to growth and new life.
Benedict insisted that we must learn to listen to what God is saying in our lives. The good zeal, the monastic zeal, commits us to human community, immerses us in Christ, and surrenders us to God, minute by minute, person by person, day after day. Benedict reminds us that sanctity is the stuff of community in Christ and that any other zeal is false. As we move forward, we need to not be afraid of darkness, of change, of uncertainty, of the things that look like they’re going in the wrong direction. Often what we face is the thing that needed to happen in order for there to be clarity. Jesus’ life and ministry reveals that God uses tragedy, suffering, pain, betrayal, and death itself, not to wound us, but to bring us to God. There are no dead ends. Everything can be transformed, and everything can be used. Trust that even when it seems that our world is moving backward—away from justice and peace. Even this tension can serve to move us in a new direction. +Amen.
1 Henry Nouwen, Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons, (Ave Maria Press: 1987). p.19.
2 Jim Marion, Putting on the Mind of Christ, (Hampton Roads Publishing: 2000).
3 The Fourteenth Revelation, Ch. 59 (Long Text). See The Revelations of Divine Love of Julian of Norwich, trans. James Walsh (Harper and Brothers: 1961), 162.
4 The Sixteenth Revelation, Ch. 86 (Long Text), Colledge and Walsh, 342–343.
5 Laurenti Magesa, What Is Not Sacred?: African Spirituality (Orbis Books: 2013), 195. As cited by Hayes, p.45.
6 Desmond Mpilo Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (Doubleday: 1999), p.31.
7 Mogobe B. Ramose, “The Ethics of Ubuntu,” The African Philosophy Reader: A Text with Readings, eds. P. H. Coetzee and A. P. J. Roux, 2nd ed. (Routledge: 2003), p.329.
8 Magesa, What Is Not Sacred?, p.13.
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