Archbishop of Sydney

Trinity Sunday

Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
Prov 8:22-31; Rom 5:1-5; Jn 16:12-15

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
6 June 2004

“I bind unto myself today.  The story name of the Trinity” is the opening of a well known religious poem to the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The assistant organist informed me that there is a traditional Irish musical setting for it and the words are ascribed to St. Patrick himself.

It speaks of “The three in One and One in Three of whom all nature hath creation, Eternal Father, Spirit, Word,” and then moves on to each of the Three Persons.

 The Father is acknowledged as “the power of God to hold and lead”; the Holy Spirit described as “the Wisdom of my God to teach” and Jesus as “the Word of God to give me speech”.  For the poet, as for us, Christ is central. “Praise to the Lord of my salvation: Salvation is of Christ the Lord”.

We need the Spirit of Truth, promised by Jesus in today’s Gospel to approach of the Mystery of the one true God.  Our language does not fit exactly when we talk of God.  While every person is different from every other person so that no person is exactly like every other person, when we speak of three Persons in the Trinity we are stretching human language almost to breaking point as we strive to express briefly Jesus’ teachings on His Father, the Spirit he promised to send, and his own life, teachings and redemptive activity.

The Old Testament Book of Proverbs has many interesting, indeed prophetic references to the Wisdom of God, who was there at the beginning, before earth came into being.  Before the hills, Wisdom came to birth.  Wisdom was there when God fixed the heavens firm.  Wisdom was at God’s side, a master craftsman “at play everywhere in his world, delighting to be with the sons of men.”

This ancient teaching, where wisdom is sometimes personified as feminine, is a marvellous foundation for understanding the reality of the Holy Spirit, God with us.

There have always been disagreements about the nature of God, but these are subordinate to the claim that Christians have special insights into what God is like.  Mystics, philosophers and ordinary people of reverence in every age have longed to know about the Mystery behind everyday life.

We are tempted today to follow those around us and regard God as not very important, or too difficult a question to concern us.  This is not a Christian option.  God is mightily important.  Jesus taught that the first commandment was to love God, which he listed before the commandment to love one another.  He insisted that the only way to love God was through loving one another, that we must strive to respect and serve all comers, but God still comes first.

There is only one true God; by definition, the Creator of universe.  Therefore while Jews, Muslims and Christians differ somewhat in their description of God, there is only that one God to worship.  It is old fashioned pagan nonsense that each tribe, or people, or religion has its own god.

These three great religious traditions all believe that God is spiritual, neither male nor female, not material.

Since God is spiritual Christians use symbols to try to explain the mystery, but Jews and Muslims are forbidden to do this.  Therefore representations of God as an old patriarch, with broad shoulders and a long beard can be misleading, although representations of the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire, or even the dove of peace are more helpful.  Paintings or statues of Our Lord are quite different, supremely useful, because Jesus was really a man.

Christians believe that there are three persons in the one true God, a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We also know that the Second person, the Word of God, became man through the Virgin Mary and took on a human nature.  Another peculiarity is that one of Jesus’ preferred terms for God was “abba”, which we translate as “father”, although ‘dad” would be closer to the mark.

It is interesting to try to work out why God came among us as a man and not a woman and why Jesus called God father, rather than mother or some impersonal title.  Radical feminists see this as an extreme example of male chauvinism, simply untruths made up to emphasise male dominance.

We believe these teachings are truthful, give us accurate insight into the nature of God.  It is for this reason that we ponder why God did it this way.  In fact significant consequences follow in the way we understand e.g. the relation of God to nature, the nature of the ministerial priesthood and the relationship of God and the Church community.

God is the great mystery of love and intelligence.  Jesus’ teaching about Father, Son and the Spirit of truth, which the Church codified into our succinct doctrine of the Trinity, explains that relationships of love are at God’s heart.

This is more useful to understanding God than St. Patrick’s shamrock - one shamrock with three leaves - because Jesus’ most remarkable claim is that God is predictable, lovable and loves each one of us, especially when things are bad.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.