I mentioned yesterday that I'm reading Fr. Michael Gaitley's new book, The 'One Thing' Is Three: How the Most Holy Trinity Explains Everything. SO GOOD. So. Good. Beauty! Glory! Wisdom! Ahhhh... mmmm. (contented sigh).
So far, he's doing a brilliant job of bringing the reader a little closer into the mystery of the Trinity. Fr. Gaitley is simply blowing me away with his ability to teach theology in understandable terms, while still elevating the soul into a place of wonder and awe and gratitude at the immense beauty and love of God. The Trinity is something we often tend to shy away from speaking about, or even trying to think about. The whole 3-in-1 thing can kind of give us a headache, you know?
But as several of my professors drilled into my head in college (and as Fr. Gaitley points out), "mystery" doesn't mean that it's totally off-limits to us. Sure, it cannot be fully and totally understood, but we are still able to know something of it. As I'm reading this book, I can't help but be amazed at how understanding just a few things about the Trinity has the possibility to be completely life-changing. This isn't just some pie-in-the-sky theology with fancy words that no normal person can understand, as Fr. Gaitley himself describes... it has a very real bearing on our spiritual lives, on our relationship with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and with each other as well.
I realized this very early on in the book, when I reached this passage:
"In our heart of hearts, what do we long for above all else? Love. We all want to love and to be loved. Specifically, we long for the communion of love. Look around - our culture makes it so obvious. Almost every song on the radio is about love (or a counterfeit of love). So much of what people say, do, and wear is really just an effort to be lovable, attractive, and accepted. Indeed, we hunger to be in communion with others and seek it out in so many forms, be they good or bad. For instance, we seek it in friendship, family, Facebook, fantasy, or fornication. With desire, we may run to these things while with fright, we run away from what seem to be the alternatives (loneliness and alienation).
"Given our situation of being communion addicts, God is the perfect fit! He himself fits the hole in our hearts, for we pine for the communion of love, and God himself is the Communion of Love. We've often heard the 'good news' that Jesus died for our sins - thank God and amen! But perhaps we haven't yet come to realize the good news that's just as good, namely, that God is Trinity. Put differently, he's the Communion of Love that we long for."
More to come on this beautiful, central truth of our faith!
By the way, you should listen to this new song by Audrey Assad... I'm trying to figure out a way to describe it, but the best I can do is that it will resonate with you, if your soul has ever been wounded by beauty or love (in a good way): http://soundcloud.com/levvmusic
No comments:
Post a Comment