Weren’t the readers wonderful yesterday? (yesterday being Trinity Sunday, May 22, 2005.) Both Bridget Adams and Carol Gavareski did an outstanding job. One can sense that these are readers who prepare themselves prayerfully. Deacon Larry preached his best homily yet; it was full of ideas that I need to think about it and couldn’t remember; if I was braver, I would ask him for a copy to post here. He started with picking up Fr. Dave’s theme from last week - this idea of breath. Jesus breathed on those in the upper room. God breathed on the clay to create human life. He ended with a thought about the Holy Spirit at its best in us. I was thinking about this and then I read Alice.
Ever read Alice? Alice Camille who
writes “Exploring the Sunday Readings.” They are in a pile by the front door. I
DO have a copy of that and here’s her reflection on John 3:16-18 for Trinity
Sunday:
"God, the divine Son, and the church imbued with the power of the Holy
Spirit – now there's an indivisible Trinity worth celebrating! We usually think
of the Trinity as a pure expression of God apart from us: what God sees in
heaven’s mirror first thing in the morning, so to speak. But it’s hard to speak
of the Holy Spirit without including ourselves, since the activity of the
indwelling Spirit takes place within humanity. God may be in his heaven, and
Jesus once walked on earth, but the Spirit lives in the church today.
To speak of the Trinity without adding ourselves, therefore, takes something essential out of the story. We know God as Trinity precisely because Spirit has been given to us; otherwise we’d speak of the Great Duality and never guess that God has chose to take up residence in the world at our address."