This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.
Michael Commane
Sunday June 16 was the feast of the Blessed Trinity. Belief in the Trinity is a fundamental teaching of all Christian churches. It’s one of the most important feasts in the Christian calendar.
While there is no explicit mention of the Trinity in the New Testament, early Christians tried to understand the relationship between Jesus and God.
It has a long history behind it, a topic that has been discussed over centuries and at many church councils.
It’s part of the syllabus on every course in theology and it’s a topic that is considered extremely erudite.
I can still remember in theology class lecturers grappling with the topic and I recall priests being in horror at having to preach about the mystery in sermons at Mass.
Maybe I am a just a simple ageing man who does not understand, but over the last few years I have been enthralled with the idea of the Trinity.
The Trinity is one of the great mysteries and challenges of Christianity.
I see it as something that has to do with people striving to live in perfect relationship with one another. God is so perfect that there is a relationship of perfect equality within the Godhead.
I can only speak for myself, but the trajectory our lives take is a topsy-turvy one and part of that confusion and wonder and failure is always linked to how we form relationships with other people.
Sometimes relationships are wonderful but they can also be disastrous. It’s a pity that when we use the word relationship today we seem to concentrate on the sexual/romantic aspect. But we have all sorts of relationships. We have them with our employers, our employees, our parents, our friends, our enemies. There are business relationships. Take a moment out and think of all the different types of relationships you have.
There are relationships of power and control.
The Trinity has to do with such a perfect relationship that it involves perfect equality – perfection at its best. In other words, God.
I experienced a wonderful example, a tiny glimmer or hint of what the Trinity is about.
Some weeks ago a man came to me and asked me if people gathered at Mass would remember in their prayers a certain person. I assured him we would. I wrote down the person’s name and then realised it was a famous name. Or more accurately, she was the wife of a famous person, who had been a taoiseach. He and I got chatting, and the curious person that I am, I asked him if he was related to the deceased couple. No, he wasn’t. He had been the taoiseach’s Garda security detail for all the time he had been in office.
It was a such a lovely story. I have no doubt the man went off about his business and would have had no idea the profound impression he had made on me.
What a hint, what a reminder of the Trinity.
To remember with such fond kindness, the person for whom you worked and his wife, is indeed something special.
In early June a German politician was murdered. The alleged perpetrator is a member of a far-right grouping. Commenting on the murder German president Frank Walter Steinmeier said that where language is vulgarised, a crime is never far off.
Mr Trump, Mr Salvini, Mr Farage please take note.
Right now our world, all of us could do with a dose of Trinitarian reality. Healthy relationships make for a better world.
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