Explaining the Trinity

Last weekend I went to my former church in the city because, well I happened to be in the city. There was a stampin' up party at a friend's house Sunday afternoon so we came in on Saturday and made a weekend of it.

Anyway back to church. The celebrant at Mass didn't have English as his first language and sometimes that is a benefit. I have to really pay attention and listen to understand what they are saying. The homily was about the Holy Trinity and how do we explain it. A lot of questions were asked: is God male or female? how can God be 3 separate beings and at the same time be one being?

During the homily an idea came to me. It seemed inspired. The body of the church is made up of people. The body of a person is made up of cells. There are currently approximately 6.5 billion people in the world. There are approximately 50-100 TRILLION cells in a human body. How many souls have lived, will live? Can't know. It has been said that everyone has a spark of the divine in them. Can each person be considered a cell in the wholeness of the Church? A cell of God.

God is the heart of the body, every bit of life blood comes from the heart. Jesus is the brain. All knowledge of God comes through knowing Jesus. We know with our brains. The holy spirit is the lungs "...he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22). A body cannot live without these three organs. They are separate but of the same body. I didn't want to think along the lines of transplants, it was too disturbing. But what about the people/cells that have gone astray. Those that have become a cancer in the body. Surgery is the answer, the removal of the offending cancerous cells. Then Matthew 5:29 came to mind, "And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell." This was BIG for Matthew because he repeats himself in 18:9.

Later in the week I was listening to a radio show and they mentioned the mistake of pantheism, a doctrine that identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God. My inspiration was not divine it was my own false idea. It was incredibly humbling.

I thought about the mystery of the Trinity all week. I am still thinking about it. I thought about it when E and I were eating bananas. Did you know bananas grow in three sections, much like an orange? I tried to use a banana to explain to the Holy Trinity to a 3.5 year old. I know I was thinking out loud, but it got another sign of the cross out of him.

St. Patrick and his 3-leaf clover is probably about the best you can do to explain the mystery of our faith. I have seen the The Skeptics Annotated Bible site and would love to explain the Trinity to people who use that site to mock Christian beliefs (they also have an annotated Quran and Book of Mormon) but I don't think a banana is going to do the trick.