
I have a lovely statue of Our Lady of Carmel on my windowsill in my prayer space, she’s lovely because it was a wedding gift and given by someone I love very much. Only this week though have I noticed how the infant Jesus in her arms is blonde haired and blue eyed. In light of everything that has happened this past week it was like a slap in the face type of awakening to the subliminal prejudices we accept without questioning. Jesus would never have been blonde and blue eyed, he would have had a dark skin and deep dark brown beautiful eyes that would have pierced your soul and stolen your breath.
On this Holy Trinity Sunday it strikes me how much more we want to see something of ourselves reflected in God rather than God reflected in us.
How many parts of our own identity do we impose on our image of the Trinity? Is Jesus some laid back guy you’d like to hang out with? Perhaps you over look the Kumbyya singing because He’s cool and doesn’t really mind what ever you do? Is the father a strict disciplinarian, difficult to be intimate with because He wears the God status like a military uniform to try and keep you in line? and what of the Holy Spirit ? The third person of the Trinity that can easily be used as the reason for any rash action, unwarranted statement or unsolicited advice giving. No one will dare question the legitimacy of the harshest of reprimands when an inspiration from the Holy Spirit is named as the source. All of these are more aspects of ourselves than the truth of a triune God.
The first thing I said when I saw this statue was how beautiful both Mary and Jesus were, and they are, but there’s a truth missing. He’s been portrayed in the image of a European white child. And that now disturbs me because until this week I hadn’t noticed.
So what is the truth ? You’ve heard it a million times is my guess but God is love. And before you glaze over at what seems an exhausted precept what exactly does that mean ?
To love is to want the good of another and the bigger or deeper that love is how much you want that for the other more than for yourself. It’s not a mere feeling, it’s at its weakest a wish and at its fullest a total self sacrificing desire. The Trinity teaches us we cannot love in isolation, we need a beloved, we need each other. This, I think is the start of what God is and who God is. He wishes to dwell in you so that you too can experience loving others like this and dwell in another so you can experience being loved by others like this. He wishes to experience this through you, through your story this loving and being loved.
It seems a perfect time to look deeply at how you love, and where you are lacking love. A time to look at false images of God and false perceptions of one another. Let’s try, I mean really try to reflect the love of the Trinity, rather than limiting the Trinity to love like us.