Contemplative Haven

Our love should be a repentant love, a love that expiates infidelities past and present; a grateful love that renders thanks to our great Benefactor, the devoted Co-worker who labors without stint and without rest…

Such love will lead us to imitate the Most Adorable Trinity in the measure in which this is compatible with human weakness…

Temples wherein the thrice Holy One resides can never be too rich in beauty, too glorious in sanctity. It is remarkable that when our Lord wished to propose to us an ideal, a model of perfection, He pointed to God Himself: “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” At first sight this ideal does seem too high. But when we recall that we are the adopted children of God and that He lives in us in order to impress upon us His image and to collaborate in our salvation, then we realize that a high rank imposes obligations, noblesse oblige, and that it is no more than our plain duty to approach ever nearer the divine perfections. It is chiefly in view of the fulfilment of the precept of fraternal charity, the love of our fellows, that Jesus Christ demands of us to keep before our eyes this perfect model, the indivisible oneness of the Three Divine Persons: “That they all may be one, as thou, Father in me and I in thee; that they also be one in us.” What a tender prayer! St. Paul echoes it later on begging his dear disciples not to forget that since they are but one body and but one spirit, and since they have but one Father who lives in all just souls, they should preserve the unity of spirit in the bond of peace.

[Excerpt from: The Spiritual Life. A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology, by the Very Reverend Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S., D.D., pgs. 53-54]

I’ve been feeling rather sad about something since listening to our Trinity Sunday homily.  In discussing it here I do not wish to do so in a judgemental way, or without bearing in mind that a ten or twenty minute homily is not adequate for an in-depth teaching on any subject.  Still, I do not think it is a case of being either unduly harsh or simply overly-sensitive. 

The homilist began by saying that the mysteries of God, the Holy Trinity for example, must be accepted on faith alone because we will never be able to understand them.  Would we wish to adore a God Who could be fitted into our finite understanding?  He said that today (Trinity Sunday) was not the time to try to delve into the mystery of the Trinity.  Case closed.  There was no mention of any possible experience of the Trinity beyond our understanding, beyond the rational, no reference to the possibility of direct, mystical experience of the Trinity. 

On my previous post, Ann, of Poetry, Prayer and Praise left the following comment: 

“If I may say….it is by the gift of faith alone – and a blessed one at that – we come to accept these teachings which our intellect cannot wholly grasp. A lot about God is mystery – including the three persons, and no-one will fully or can fully understand or know God until we are with Him and see Him as He really is.

Having said that, Julian of Norwich has thrown light on this mystery in a very beautiful way, as have other saints, all of which makes me even more excited at the thought of what wonders await us all.”

Perhaps our homilist was himself attempting to express what Ann has done so beautifully in her comment, but there is a significant difference.  Ann leaves us on a note of wonder, with the desire to deepen our limited understanding by reading the experiences of the saints, by gaining knowledge of what is possible for us through knowledge of the lives of those who have deepened their mystical experience through openness and receptivity to the Holy Spirit.  There is no “case closed” with Ann.

I could not help but feel that our homilist had put up a wall to the mystical and had perhaps constructed, or at least reinforced, that wall for many in the congregation.

Where was the encouragement to read the lives of the saints?  Where were the references to St. Teresa of Avila, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Julian of Norwich… on the subject of the Trinity?  Where was the advice to read such as Father Thomas Dubay or listen to his audio teachings?  Where was the mention of strengthening and deepening our contemplative prayer life in order to strive to reach the altogether possible-on-this-earth Transforming Union?  Any or all of these types of encouragement could have been given in less than five minutes.

And most importantly, where was Mary, our teacher and portal par excellence into the mysteries of the Holy Trinity? 

“I beheld the working of all the blessed Trinity, and in this beholding I saw and understood these three properties:  the property of fatherhood, the property of motherhood, and the property of the Lordship in one God.  In our Father almighty we have our keeping and our bliss as regards our human substance, which is ours by our making without beginning.  And in the Second Person, in wit and wisdom, we have our keeping as regards our sensuality, our restoring, and our saving:  for he is our Mother, Brother, and Saviour.  And in our good Lord the Holy Spirit we have our rewarding and our recompense for our living and our labors which will far exceed anything we can desire, owing to his marvelous courtesy and his high plenteous grace. 

For our whole life is in three.  In the first we have our being, and in the second we have our increasing, and in the third we have our fulfilling.  The first is kind, the second is mercy, and the third is grace.” 

[Julian of Norwich:  Revelation of Love] pg. 129