Redwood Journal

The Most Holy Trinity ~ Solemnity ~ Bible Readings for Mass: I: Proverbs 8: 22-31; Responsorial: Psalm 8; I: Romans 5: 1-5; Gospel: John 16: 12-15

The Most Holy Trinity is deeply holy and mystical solemnity that we are called to share in the church this Sunday. One God, three persons, distinct, equal and One. Great minds and holy souls have sought to understand and explain God whom we worship and love.

The simple mind and little faith of this writer will not even attempt to teach or explain this great mystery. I can only share what I have experienced from my over fifty years of seeking to follow God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As a young man with no real religious education on matters of faith I was extraordinarily ignorant of things pertaining to soul and spirit. Yet God’s mercy sought, as God seeks us all, me. What began in the Redwood forests of northern California continues to this day.

In our short Gospel reading we can hear Jesus teaching us of the coming of the Holy Spirit, sent by God the Father to teach and guide us into all truth. And, in holy joyous deed the Spirit of God quietly yet dynamically works to bring us each closer, deeper into the eternal embrace of our Heavenly Father through His Son, Jesus.

I was introduced to God, to my Savior through the faithful, gentle and, stubbornly persistent witness of a co-worker in the state park where I lived and worked. As my faith journey began I realized many would be the questions and very few would be the answers I had. As I learned to pray and ponder this exciting mystery I struggled to understand. And the mystery of the Holy Trinity was an early source of great wonderings. But one Spring day as I worked and hiked the trails of my responsibilities I saw something.

Trilliums were a familiar plant friend among the cool moist floor of the Redwoods. I knew them well and appreciated their beauty. But as I saw them that day they witnessed to me of our common Creator. As their name implies their three fold leaves with the beautiful three-petal flower would become an early lesson from the gospel of Creation. One flower, one plant, three part…but…One. From the soil of the forest floor my heart was introduced to God, The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. As promised in our reading from the Gospel of John the Holy Spirit was leading me into Him who is Truth.

The lessons continued and continue to this day. I would meet the Blessed Holy Three in One in the storms and challenges of work and life again. Water, in which I would be baptized, In the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, was another holy lesson in which I would be immersed. Water, H2O, is easy to understand. Or is it? What is the seeming magical power of this simple formula that can quench our thirst like nothing else? How does the sound of a flowing stream or crashing waves move our souls, to rest or to grow? Water, one, yet found in three forms. Frozen, liquid or vapor, yet all and each…water. It is also water that reveals to us the hidden beauty of light as it refracts light beams into the rainbow of promise found only in God.

Depending where we are in life our understanding of these things will vary. Some can explain water, or lecture on the trillium in botanical detail. Many of us may have but limited knowledge. But every human soul, regardless of our intellect, education, faith or place in life can and will relate to each of these gifts of creation given by God. And each one of us is created and called by God, not to just try to understand but relate to God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That relationship to God is AWOKEN through the Holy Spirit who brings us to be immersed in the waters of baptism. We then are called to grow in REALIZING God in and through or lives. This will bear the fruit of our WITNESS for the fullness of who is God.

AWAKEN ~ Life at times can be very wearisome, if not exhausting. Our need for rest and renewal is designed within our body, soul, and spirit. The Trilliums of Spring need a long season of dormancy in the dry and warmer days of summer and early Fall. Sometimes we may feel stuck in our places or times of being dormant. But in God’s season His angels call us: Awaken! Be! Become! That person whom God created and calls you to be be! We must allow the seasons of holy darkness and even perhaps the sense of being buried or forgotten. There are times when we must renew, in spirit our drenching in baptism’s holy waters. It is to awake from our sleep to new and holy graces of God the Father, the forgiveness in His Son and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

REALIZE ~ God! Most of us are not called to be great academics or leaders of intellectual spirituality. But each of us is called, by Him who walks with us, to realize God in and through our lives. When I encountered my simple lesson of the Trilliums I did so while trudging a trail I walked numerous times a day. My day-to-day work required those steps. But God was leading. And when, where the time was best God allowed me to realize His holy Presence anew. So it is with each of us. Every day of our life, as we awaken to being with God we should anticipate the Father’s love, Jesus’s merciful call and the Holy Spirit’s whisper of hope and Truth.

WITNESS of God ~. One cannot encounter the cold waters of a swim or the warm flow of a cleansing shower without witness to the experience. And our relationship with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the same. When anything in life is experienced we will respond and we will witness, good, bad or indifferent to what we have encountered. This brings us to ask ourselves, what is our witness of God? If we experience a restaurant where the service is poor and the food is lacking in quality and the prices are high will our witness to the eatery likely bring others in? if our relationship with God is lacking in service, if the meal offered by our Lord is not what we might want, if the cost seems too high what will our witness to God be?

If our witness is lacking for God it is not because of God. The Father gives us His best, His Son, empowered by the Holy Spirit the Holy Trinity seeks us to come and be, come and become who we are created and redeemed to be. What holy surprises await? What untold graces of God’s love seek to awaken us, to be realized in ways far greater than our hopes and need to be witnessed to, in the Name of the Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit?

“O Father who sought me, O Son who who bought me, O Holy Spirit who taught me.” ~ Douglas Hyde, Songs of Connacht, Volume II