Wednesday, June 11, 2014

In a Word: A Kiss

I was asked, “can you think of a way to write something about the Trinity in one page?” My initial response was a firm, resolute, “No.” But, it appeared that I could do it in a single word. A Kiss. God isn’t just about “Him” or the “Big Guy in the Sky”. God is a working relationship, all the time. In this respect, we are like God, because we are in a relationship all the time: a relationship of family, of a community, and right now, of author and reader. We are always in a relationship-but the ones we have as humans aren’t always what we’d call “working.”

Take families, for instance. Families come in all shapes and sizes, but there is one constant: families take work. Sometimes we try to avoid this work though. We may try to simply float as a family, like a group of people living in the same house, going through the motions, neither loving nor hating, just being there. We can also be dysfunctional. We live with unspoken anger and unacknowledged misunderstanding running rampant, like little vermin ants that you wish the exterminator would just get rid of. Those ants constantly ruin everything you do, and force you to think about every little  thing, lest it be sacrificed to the ants. But, there is another time, a time of being a genuine family when, even if for one small instant, everything comes together in love, cooperation, like-mindedness, and common purpose. Those “shining, redeeming moments,” we might say. Our communities take the same work that a family does-our Church takes the same work.

But I mentioned a kiss as that one word. Why? Well, a saint from the 1100’s describes the Trinity this way. St. Bernard of Clairvaux described the Trinity as a relation of Love that is expressed in a kiss. The Father is one who kisses, the Son the one who receives the kiss, and the Holy Spirit is the kiss. The kiss is not just a symbol of love; it is the embrace of love itself--the love of a mother and a child, the bond of a husband and a wife, the loving gratitude of a son for his parents. A kiss isn’t just a symbol; it is an act, and a reality, a moment.

God, likewise, isn’t just a symbol for what we think is right. God is an act of love, and when we let the Holy Spirit into our hearts, like we celebrated last Sunday on Pentecost, God is part of that love. A kiss is work. It takes cooperative and communal effort. But, it is also love, a love worth enjoying. God, the Trinity, is in a word:a Kiss.

Christopher Manderino - Coordinator of Youth Ministry