Today’s readings: Exodus 34,4-6.8-9; 2 Corinthians 13,11-13; John 3,16-18.

The Trinity in our profession of faith stands for the unique yet ongoing action of God in revealing Himself to us in time and space. There is no need to intellectualise this mystery which is basically about the sustaining presence of God in His creation. It is a mystery profound, yet accessible to our human experience.

The aim of our search for God in life is not to understand God but to see Him. It is possible to see God who has a human face and whom Jesus in the gospels depicts as far other than an entity above the clouds. God so loved the world, Jesus says to Nicodemus, that He engaged Himself in an enduring relationship with humanity so that we can have life, and life in abundance.

God’s mystery unfolds in the time and space of our experience, and is narrated through the lives of people. Jesus Christ for us, as God who entered history, is the peak point in this narration, and the Spirit he breathes on us sustains this narration in the concreteness of our lives, and empowers us not to lose touch with this mysterious love.

The Scriptures on this Trinity Sunday speak loud and clear about this, and they practically belie much of our talk and preconceptions about God. The Book of Exodus, contrary to the commonplace perception about the God of the Old Testament, beautifully speaks of a God who is gracious, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness and faithfulness.

In heavy contrast with this, in the gospel text, Nicodemus has his caged perception of God and remains untouched by the presence of Jesus struggling to convince him otherwise. His theology was carved in stone, as the two tablets of the law Moses was carrying up the mountain. Moses and Nicodemus are two contrasting approaches to the reality of God who reveals Himself only to those who want to see.

Moses went up the mountain with the tablets of stone, and in the revealing presence of God was transformed, led simply to bow down and worship speechless. Nicodemus instead, in the presence of God’s love made manifest in Jesus, remained imprisoned in his old theology which closed rather than opened his eyes.

In his 1927 novel The Impostor, Georges Bernanos crystallises this approach in the words of Father Cenabre who was tormented when his faith suddenly deserts him. He is speaking with an elderly cleric with whom he sets out to rediscover his soul: “Our intelligence,” he says, “can penetrate anything, like light going through the thickness of a crystal, but it can neither touch nor embrace. Its contemplation is sterile.”

Our journey of faith is not ultimately a journey of mental struggle to resolve the unresolvable riddles of existence. In the face of the most challenging existential questions, some just became atheists, while others have reduced faith to a series of arguments meant to prove to the sceptic mind what we believe about our God. This faith risks never ending up in contemplation. It is the sterile faith of Nicodemus.

A peculiar sign of present-day culture is undoubtedly how the hunger for what is spiritual and contemplative contrasts with the crisis of mainstream religion. Even religious piety can mask and block our true search for God. Our journey to know God closer is one of immersion in His mystery and St Paul in the second reading gives the key to this immersion: “Live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you”.

We can be touched by this mystery of love when God is with us, and the right path to find God is when love becomes a self-gift in authentically encountering the other, irrespective of all that distinguishes or separates us.