Trinity Sunday (the Sunday after Pentecost – late May to mid-June) is the point in the year when the Church celebrates the Trinity: God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Thoughts for Trinity Sunday (a very personal reflection)

by Howard Fitall

After some four thousand years of puzzling mis-perception, our understanding of the nature of God is still a deep, deep mystery.

For the Christian and, indeed, all who have inherited the Judeo scriptures, there can be no doubt that God is the Creator. The Creator of a universe whose make-up and expression is a cause for intense awe, wonder and sheer joy at its beauty.

That realisation of God as Creator, together with our understanding of the astonishingly fine limits within which it was made, has major implications for our understanding of God. For intelligence, as we know it, to come into being, God had to restrict what we would call omnipotence.This gives us a major clue into exploring the nature of God.

This tells us that God is prepared to ‘self-sacrifice’ for our ultimate benefit. Another way of looking at this is ‘self-emptying’, given the technical term ‘kenosis’.

Thus, combining the understanding of the ancients withthe understanding of the sciences, we may consider a major part of this creating activity as the work of "God the Father".

However, a fascinating aspect of both Old Testament and Apocryphal writing is the ascribing of feminine attributes to the "Spirit of God" or the "Spirit of Wisdom". This concept of the Spirit, particularly the image of a wise woman managing her household in such a manner as to produce an extremely high quality of life, has struck me most forcibly. For here I can visualise God being extraordinarily wise in the detailed structuring of the fundamentals of the Creation.

These fundamentals are arranged in such a way as to enable the maximum expression of Creation’s immense potential. A potential culminating in intelligent life – US!

Here, once again, we catch a glimpse of a self-emptying God, standing back and allowing the Creation its full and free reign!

Such an attitude carries an immense cost. The cost of risking the self-destruction by the most precious part – the ‘intelligent’ beings – US.

To give us the maximum help, in the most useful manner, God’s nature has to be revealed. Initially these revelations are partial and very partially understood. Finally God comes to us in person.

Once more we see an astonishing example of self-emptying; firstly by waiting upon Mary’s "be it unto me". Then in the limitations and sacrifice of a human body – Jesus – The Christ!

In this manner we humans are enabled to enter into a personal relationship with God.

These three – Father – Son – Holy Spirit are our human experience of God’s self-revelation. That they are individual expressions of an unimaginably complex Godhead is a great and wonderful mystery. I cannot begin to fathom it – I accept it in awe wonder and joy.

If you are looking for an illustration of this, then my friend Jenny Petchey uses a large circular candle having three wicks. When lit, each light is independent yet all three are part of one unit – all giving light to us.

Howard Fitall (who died in 2006) was a Local Preacher in the Melton Mowbray Circuit of the Methodist Church. He was one of many who helped shape the beginnings of LWPT.