Holy Trinity

 

That God is One and Three is a unique faith conviction of Christians. I have been praying about the Trinity all week. Yesterday I used Romans 8:14-17 for prayer. St. Paul tells us that we have received the Holy Spirit through whom we can call God "Abba!" and become brothers and sisters of Jesus.
The word "spirit" is used five times in that short passage. The Greek word for "spirit" is "pneuma." It also means "wind," "air," and "breath." So anyone hearing this passage in the original Greek would have that rich four-fold meaning swirling around in their heads and get a more powerful sense of the Holy Spirit's action within us.
On Easter evening in John's Gospel Jesus breathes on the disciples and says "Receive the Holy Spirit." The Risen Jesus also breathes the Holy Pneuma into us. This Holy Spirit fills us and unites us to the Risen Jesus who takes us as part of himself into the Father. This enables us to call the Father "Abba," ("Papa" in Aramaic) the same loving name that Jesus used for God. But it is not only in name but in reality that God is our "Abba." The Holy Spirit inserts us into the intimate circle of knowing and loving that is the family life of the Trinity.
(The tiny dots that you may notice against the sunset are mayflies.)