Is He Real? Is Any of it Real?

Feast of the Holy Trinity

This Sunday, the second reading will be from Roman 8:14-17, but I highly recommend reading the rest of this week's readings, as this week's reflection really is on all three readings.

So… is God a figment of our imagination? I dare say he can’t be, and that our God is the only true God for this reason: Who would invent a God that was a sequence of mystery-wrapped-enigma-paradoxes?

Wouldn’t a smart person invent a God who he could clearly describe to other people?

If I was going to invent a God for a religion, that’d be the first thing I’d make sure of - that I could tell people who god was.

We Christians cannot even tell people with clarity who God is, or what he is like. If we’re being honest, we make statements like, “He is both perfectly merciful and perfectly just.” Then we have to answer the question, “how does he do that, you can’t do both at the same time” by shrugging and saying, “He’s God; I’m not.”

God is not like any god that humanity has invented for itself before or since.

How are we to relate to him? It’s a question worth asking. He’s an infinite God; where do we even begin?

For that, we look back to the Old Testament  and then to the New Testament, because he tells us, so that our finite minds do not get overwhelmed too quickly.

God chose the nation of Israel from out of all the nations, and all of its children, to be blessed and receive a promised beatitude that they had never seen or imagined. Note that the promised blessing is extended to the children, on the assumption that there would be children.

The Church is the New Israel, and is the chosen people of God in our day in history.

So, too, are we chosen to receive a promised blessing, and in the gospel, Jesus give instructions to the eleven faithful disciples that makes plain that there will be generations of spiritual children that come after the first hearers of his words.

By our Baptism, we are engrafted into the Body of Christ, and made children of God.

And just like the Israelites of old, who received the Law to guide them, we have received the Holy Spirit and the Church to guide us and help us to understand his will for our lives.


Let’s pray:

God our father, our brother, our friend, we praise you for being the true God, the only mighty God, who has brought into being all of reality and sustains it all through your singular power and ability. Thank you for not leaving us helpless to try to contemplate your majesty and perfect will for our lives unaided.