Too little have I walked by the sea and spent time in its presence, contemplating the vastness of it. The sea is ever present yet there is always something new to discover. There is a powerful beauty about the sea that draws you to it as you sit quietly hearing its rhythmic movements calling you. We want to be beside it and enter into it even though there is something daunting, something quite dangerous about it. Despite all at humanities disposal the sea remains untameable and undomesticated – you can lose yourself, your life, in it and be carried off by it into unknown depths.
The sea is a reflection on the mystery of God. When I stand by the sea, I can see but a part of the immensity of it all. When I try to comprehend the totality and depth of the sea, my mind fails me – and this only one small part of God’s creation.
The sea, after its divine originator, is a mystery we are drawn to contemplate. However, when we speak of God’s mystery, it is not in a sense that “It is all so mysterious that we can know nothing” but it is a call to enter into the mystery that is God. Despite the vastness of the Ocean, there is something beautiful about paddling in the Sea, about swimming in it and being held by it as we float in its movements.
The Mystery of the Trinity is the mystery of God’s inner life, the inner life of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is a mystery we are able to enter because of Christ’s Incarnation and Ascension. Christ carries our humanity into the heart of the inner life of the Godhead. We are invited and drawn into the dynamic of that mystery. The Deacon or Priest at Mass, when preparing the chalice, says “By the mystery of this water and wine, may we share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” If we sit and contemplate this mystery we can begin to hear something of its rhythmic movements calling and its untameable energy.
What has been revealed of that inner life, in that divine communion is the total and free self-giving of each person of the Trinity to the other. The dynamic of this mystery is where true beauty, joy, peace, and personhood are found embodied in a free flow of divine love, which is life itself. It is that mystery we are called to participate in. In our sinful humanity we recognise the opposite of those things in our lives; fear and not love, taking and not giving and where barriers are erected and secrets are kept. It is our participation in the divine mystery where healing and realising something of that free flowing love is made possible.
It is the willingness to enter into this mystery where true life is found that should mark the people of God in their own inner life and in the life of the Church. Only then can we hear clearly, and more readily engage, in the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations baptising them into the inner life of God who is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.