Every nation, every people, has sought to know God in one form or another. The most primitive people have designed rituals to appease the gods who controlled the forces of nature. While all this was going on, God Himself was in search of man. The divinity sought union with mankind in general and men/women in particular. He has always wanted us not only to know Him as He is, but also to be united with Him in spirit and in truth (Jn. 4).
The Bible begins with a wedding in the Garden of Eden, and it ends with the Marriage Supper of the Lamb of God with his people. According to the writings of John Paul II on the Theology of the Body, the reason we are "male and female," and the reason we are drawn toward the ecstasy of union with one another is a sign of our ultimate destiny of union with God: God and man united as one, even as the Holy Trinity is three-in-one.
First, God sent His Word, beginning with Abraham, to prepare a people freed from slavery and free to worship the true God, not the gods of Egypt who are worthless. The world is full of egotism, grabbing what is "mine," completely opposite of the prodigal outpouring of the God who made us in His image. Power, control, the "lust to dominate," in the words of St. Augustine, characterize the city of man opposed to what he called the city of God.
To bring us back into His image and likeness, God sent His Word to tutor us in the spirit of divinity. And finally, the Word becomes flesh, the final and ultimate union of God and man: the two become one in Jesus Christ. And the Word is now a Person, a Living Being in our midst, a "Someone" who calls us and makes us welcome in His own home, the Life He shares with the Father and the Spirit. "Come to Me," he invites us, and I will take you home to my Father; I will give you a share in my own Spirit of Truth."
"Those who belong to Christ," says Paul, "have crucified the flesh with its desires." Not "will crucify," but "have crucified." It is done; we are set free from the things that keep up from entering into communion with God. We are no longer slaves to sin, to separation from the Spirit. We are no longer part of the City of Rome with its lust to dominate others. We have become "like God." He said to Abraham, "I will bless you and you will be a blessing." Now we are indeed in His image and likeness; we have become a blessing to others instead of a curse on the earth.
And how is this accomplished but by the Spirit of Christ which he has sent to us in the power of His resurrection? We are no longer "Adam," but now Christ, risen from the dead. The Spirit of God continually works in us if we belong to Christ, making us new, making us like God Himself, for we are God's building, God's workmanship.
Today is the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. If we look back at our own lives, we can see God working in us to bring us into fellowship/union with Him. He has sent us His very Word, a Living Being, who speaks to us and in us by His Breath (ruah/ spirit), another Living Being Who is constantly at work in us. What an Amazing Truth!
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