Today's readings: Proverbs 8, 22-31; Romans 5, 1-5; John 16, 12-15.
Given our pressing daily concerns regarding the dignity of life, the promotion of fundamental rights and liberties, and the survival of multitudes under the threat of hunger or poverty, it may sound too abstract in present day culture to resume talk about the nature of God as a Trinity. For some, to do it is even archaic.
Yet today's liturgy is not 'head in air' talk about a God in the skies, even if the question 'Who is God?' continues to haunt humanity and theologians alike.
Controversial as it may sound to our secularised sensibility, Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar once said that the God of natural religion, once found in one form or another everywhere, has become definitively and uniquely located in Jesus Christ in such a way that the alternative now is nothing but 'the great void'.
Speaking about God has always been the task of theology. Yet words stop short of being exhaustive of the mystery we call God. On a subject like the Trinity, we tend to be more concerned with our questions about God rather than with God's answers to our quest. God is a mystery not because He is incomprehensible, but because He continues to enter our stories and become part of them.
Among the constant attempts to define who God is, and to answer the question of His whereabouts, it was mostly the great mystics who spoke appropriately and in a humanly sensible language. Theirs was the language of experience, always touching the cords of the human heart.
Balthasar was right when he affirmed that "the great lovers know mostly about God and must be listened to". Knowing God is not the same as knowing about God. St Augustine distinguishes between knowledge and wisdom where God is concerned.
It is mostly today's second reading from Romans that gives expression to our Trinitarian faith: "Through our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God... because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us". Our redemption is more than forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God; it is "entering the state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God's glory".
What does this mean in concrete terms? It means that novelty is possible in our humanity; that in the eyes of God no one is beyond redemption. Celebrating God's mystery in our daily concerns is translatable in Paul's words as "Our hope is not deceptive". It is an assurance not only that God is there, but that He can be experienced.
This is actually the complete truth towards which the Spirit is patiently but constantly leading us. True, along the way we are tempted to content ourselves with partial truths, giving in to discouragement. This is inherent to our faith, particularly when it is shadowy, doubtful, and shaky. Through the Spirit, our lives become the human story of God which started in Jesus the Son and proceeds to completion in time.
How are we transmitting all this today? The great challenge on a feast like today's is to discern God's footprints in present day human experience. God is not far or estranged from people's lives. Maybe it is the perception we have projected of God that remains aloof and hence irrelevant. But not the living God, who still surprises us in a culture which seems immune to any sense of wonder.
In the Gospel, Jesus says: "I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now". The time of the Spirit is co-extensive with history and with each and everyone's personal life. It is in time that we gradually grasp the infinite. Not that the infinite becomes our possession; instead, we are gradually led out of our poor selves to be redeemed, to be assumed in God's mystery which is our fullness and destination.
God's word invites us to enter into a relationship which may still be open to surprises.