It was Sunday Morning and being from India and from a non-Christian background, little Ana asked if she could accompany the California family to Sunday Mass. They all thought it would be a great idea. When the California family returned home from Mass they asked Ana what she thought of the service. In her accent from India she replied, “I do not understand why you don’t include the West Coast in your prayers”. Baffled by her comment, the family asked Ana what she meant… She said, “It was when you were brushing yourself like this (making the sign of the cross) and saying…. in the name of the Father, the Son, and the whole East Coast Amen…. I think you forgot the West coast too…” This weekend, we celebrate Trinity Sunday – One God in 3 distinct persons – a Father, a Son and the Holy Ghost each different but all one God. Perhaps you may not be aware but the word “TRINITY” is not found anywhere in the Bible. The word TRINITY actually comes from a discipline called ‘SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY’. Systematic theology is an attempt by Christian theologians to craft a coherent understanding of God and the works of God. The word Trinity was born to try and feebly explain something that no human mind can quite comprehend. ONE GOD IN THREE DIFFERENT/DISTINCT PERSONS……. As complex and challenging for the human mind to grasp this concept of ‘TRINITY’ is, there is one thing that is so obvious and comprehensible, it’s perhaps often overlooked. You ask what? Our God is a community of three different and distinct persons. A father, a son and a Holy Spirit. There is NO seniority, No exclusions, and no favoring of any one person. There simply couldn’t be because it would suggest that somehow God would be against Himself. Perhaps a good lesson for us on this Trinity Sunday might be to realize that everybody shares in God’s nature and there is, as St. Paul says, no distinction between Jew, Greek, Gentile, free or slave. Through baptism, a spark of the divine resides within in us and like the Trinity, made of three different and distinct persons, underneath our differences, colors, likes and dislikes, we are all part of the one Godhead. Just as the Father is not the Son, or the son not the father, nor the Son/Father the Holy Spirit, God is all three at one and the same time. A mystery, yes, but a lesson for all that in Christ, there is no south, north, east, or “west coast.” We are truly unique and different and yet, one and the same. Fr Roach
