Sacred Symmetry of the Holy Spirit

He will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

In Celtic spirituality, there is a great reverence for the Trinity.

They do not see it so much as a puzzle to be solved

but as a mystery to enter into.

The flow of love and energy between the Father and the Son,

the undivided divine grace flowing between them. 

I have mentioned before that in Celtic spirituality,

the circle is particularly profound, reverent,  

and this even predates Christianity in Ireland.

They understood everything in the circle of life

and they placed the Trinity inside that circle.

So much so that they would overlay

three circles on top of each other.

That is the Trinity, and the center of it is a pattern

that is woven into many Aran sweaters, the Irish fabric.

It is the symbol of the Trinity,

and most people do not even realize

that it is just embedded in everything that we do.

The sacred symmetry that is inside the Trinity

speaks to the soul, and shapes the soul.

It is not meant to be something that is held in our mind

as much as we allow it to seep into our hearts.

The Trinity, this sacred symmetry,

is all about the flow of love,

love from the father to the Son

and the Son to the Father.

The love that flows between them is the Holy Spirit.

It is a beautiful sort of understanding and

John O'Donoghue has some beautiful words

about this,

and it is about this sacred symmetry

and the the rhythm of life.

Both the natural world and the spiritual world

come together in the love that God has for creation.

Most especially for the humans who are at the apex,

the peak of the creation. 

It is all about relationship.

And the father and the son are the primary relationship,

the love that flows between them.

We mirror this relationship in our own lives

because all of us are in relationship

with somebody somewhere at every time.

We are relational animals.

We are nothing else but in relation.

For example, when I was growing up.

I was the youngest of 12, 10 boys, two girls.

I was always the brother of somebody.

Like, I was never Brendan.

“You are Paul’s brother, John’s brother,

Cyril's brother, Vivian's brother.”

You name it, but I was never Brendan!

I was just a brother of, or the son of, “Oh,

you are Dan and Maureen's son.”

I yearned for an identity of my own just for a moment,

just for one brief moment if I could just be Brendan.

But it never existed.

It did not exist, never did, and it never will.

Now, the irony of it is now years later,

the flow has gone the other way.

“Now, oh, you are Father Brendan's brother.

Oh, you are father Brendan's parents.

Oh, nice to meet you.”

So there is a certain flow to the circle of life.

And it is all about who you know first

and the relationship is defined from there.

We know through relationship,

and then you relate to them by who you know.

For most of my life, in the early days,

it was always through my family and my friends,

our family and my parents.

Then as I grew up and moved away from Ireland,

the relationship shifted the other way.

And now there is sort of an ebb and flow back and forth

that is dependent on who you know.

It is true for all of you.

The Trinity is not about a doctrine

so much as it is about an experience of

how we come to understand with the heart.

How we understand how we experience God.

That is the most important part of this mystery,

is this beautiful flow of love.

Unless we experience God's love in our heart,

it is very hard to enter into

this whole thing of being church.

It is very hard to enter into the whole thing of divinity

if we do not feel the love.

Now what I mean by experience and feel the love

is because that is what transforms us.

This love that God offers us free

without anything that we need to do.

God is trying to pour out his love to us,

and we are called to just accept it.

And once we accept this love, it changes us.

It totally changes us.

Because once we know we are loved,

despite our weaknesses, our brokenness,

and maybe even our sinfulness,

that God loves us  just the way we are,

That is transformative.

That changes us in ways that it is hard to actually put words to.

Today being Father's Day,

it is important to reflect on the gift of fathers in our life,

and the gift of that love flows.

I want to just share with you

two different instances with my own father.

I remember when I was a young child.

You can imagine how hard it is to get the attention

when of your father when there are 12 of you.

You think it is hard with one or two or three?

Try it with 10 other boys fighting for attention.

But I remember really clearly one incident

where I was laying on my father's lap.

He was reading a newspaper,

and I was lying on his lap,

and I had my head on his hand.

That is how small I was.

I remember seeing the size of his hands,

marveling at the size of his hands,

and the wrinkles and the worn hand,

and then just feeling safe that I was held

and I was always going to be safe in these hands.

There is there is no way to express

how transformative that moment was

because then you know that in a sense,

nothing can harm me because I have these hands.

Now as I grew up and I got older,

you think you know the world.

You think you know everything.

And I think I knew more than my father,

and of course, it was not true.

Somewhere in my late teens, maybe 20,

I remember having a a sort of a conundrum in my life

with with friendships and school.

I went to my father for advice and

I explained what was happening.

And he says, “Sit down. Let me tell you.”

And I just always remember the calming presence

that he just said, “Everything's going to be okay.

You think this is so important right now,

but it will pass. I promise you, it will pass.”

And in that moment, in my adulthood, I felt safe again.

In that safety, I understood what love was.

It was not so much about having the right thing to say,

but saying it the right way.

My father had that incredible presence of wisdom personified.

He just was there, and

his strength came through his presence.

For all the fathers here today,

just know by your presence in our lives

you make a difference,

that you are participating in this divine mystery,

this sacred symmetry of the divine Trinity.

When you love us as children,

you are helping us feel secure, safe in the Father's love,

and you mirror what our Father in heaven does.

So thank you for those moments,

and never underestimate the power of your presence.

Silent presence or loud presence, it matters not.

Your presence in our lives is powerful.

Thank you for that.

Now speaking of presence,

it is important that we understand

when we allow the father to transform us,

and our fathers are a good example for that,

we are called to pass that love on,

to keep the flow of the trinity alive

by passing this love on to others.

We are not called to hold on to it to ourselves,

but to pass this love on to others,

to allow this presence to transform not just us,

but all those around us.

I want to give you an example of this

that happened this week in Lake Tahoe.

We had the Diocesan Youth Retreat, we call it DYR,

and it was up in Zephyr Cove,

and we had nearly 300 teens.

There were over a 100 young adults and adults

who were leading that team.

So there was over 400 people up there.

Those 100 people that went up to volunteer,

they got paid nothing to be up there.

They were only there because of this love,

and to transform these 300 young people's lives,

and they did in an amazing way.

The theme of the was GPT, as in chat GPT.

God's Presence Transforms. GPT.

And it is true.

We saw it right before our eyes how God's presence

and the love that we shared up there

transformed the lives of these 290 students.

My friends, that is what we are called to do.

We are called to receive

this love from God because for every one of us,

our primary identity is a child of God.

Once we accept that love from God the Father

and feel safe in that reality.

We have examples of our parents, our fathers, our mothers,

and many others around us who love us where we are,

then we are called to pass that love on to others

and to allow this presence of God to transform all of us.

So today, as we come to the altar

and to receive the body and the blood of Christ,

allow the love of God to transform us.

Let us enter into this sacred symmetry of the most holy trinity,

to enter into this flow of energy of the divine dance.

When God the Father loving the Son

and the Son loving the Father, and

when we enter into that,

we definitely have the music of life.

Allow ourselves to fall into

the sacred symmetry of this Trinity.