Edmond Grace SJ responds to a question about approaching the Persons of the Trinity in prayer. All prayer, he says, is a participation in the dance between Father, Son and Spirit.
Sometimes I feel very confused when I pray. We begin every prayer ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ I never know which of the three persons in the Trinity to pray to at any particular time. Jesus tells us, when we pray, to say ‘Our Father’ and yet we do pray to the Sacred Heart. All this may sound a bit foolish but I would be grateful for your advice on this matter.
Your question has to do with the most important relationship in all our lives and, for that reason, is not at all foolish. Too often the idea of three persons in one God sounds very strange and far removed from our day-to-day reality. The only way we can change that is through praying to the Father who created us and always cares for us, to Jesus who shares our human nature, and to the Holy Spirit who is always at work in our hearts.
No competition
The first thing to remember is that it is good to pray to each of the three persons and to all three of them together. The second thing to remember is that when you pray to one of the three, the other two don’t feel excluded! They are not in competition with each other and they don’t fall out with each other or with us because we may seem to prefer one over the others.
Father, Son and Spirit are totally united with each other in love because there is only one God and that one God is Love.
One way to understand how the Trinity lives is to think about love between any two human beings. If one person loves another they will want to share what they have with that person and the most important thing they will want to give is love itself. When another person loves us in this way we begin to love them in return.
Most things when shared around have to be spread more thinly the wider they are shared. Love is not like that; it grows when it is shared around.
Dancing in eternity
Love delights in giving itself and, in the giving, awakens a loving response in the one who receives. God the Father is Love, the Eternal Giver: God the Son is the gift of Love awakened by that giving.
It’s best to think of all this giving and responding as a kind of dance between Father, Son and Spirit. Scholarly writers sometimes speak of ‘processions’ of Son from Father and of Spirit from Father and Son, but that is a rather sedate image.
A procession at its most alive is a kind of dance and nothing is more alive than the Three Persons in one God.
Two ways of joining in
When we pray to Father, Son or Spirit it is not a question of choosing between three separate persons standing side by side and waiting to see which one is going to be our first choice. We pray because we have been inspired to pray by the Spirit. St Paul tells us that no one can say, ‘Abba Father’ or ‘Jesus is Lord’ unless moved by the Spirit to do so.
St Paul also tells us that when we don’t know what words to use in prayer, the Spirit prays for us ‘with sighs too deep for words’. In other words, prayer does not begin with us, but with the Spirit working in us, drawing us to the Son and the Father.
Getting it right
As soon as we begin to pray, we are already part of the dance of Love between Father, Son and Spirit. There are two ways of approaching a dance. The first way is to make sure we have all the steps and movements right. There is no denying that skilful dancing is beautiful to watch and very satisfying to the dancer, but dancing is first and foremost about ease of movement and celebration. Being too concerned with ‘getting it right’ can destroy all the enjoyment.
The second way of approaching a dance is simply to join in with those who are already dancing and let them teach us as we go. The whole point is not to ‘get it right’ but to enter into the spirit of celebration and, if we make mistakes, to be able to laugh at ourselves, learning as we go.
The attitude of the dancers
The difference between these two approaches to dancing often lies more with the dancers than with those who want to join in. When dancers are full of themselves and boastful of their skill, they want everyone to look on and admire. The dance becomes a performance – perhaps a very impressive one – but others can never be fully part of it. When, on the other hand, dancers are fully caught up in the sheer joy of what they are doing they will naturally reach out and draw the on-lookers into their celebration.
What goes on between Father, Son and Spirit is like this second kind of dance. We may feel awkward about joining in and we may even resist it, but the dancers are all the time inviting us. The best thing for us to do is simply to allow ourselves be drawn in by the Spirit.
Letting go
Dancing is a question of ‘letting go’ and my advice to you in your prayer to Father, Son or Spirit is to do just that. Pray to whoever you feel drawn at any given moment. The three persons of the Trinity are not jealous of each other. Whenever you pray to one of them you are automatically part of their happy and loving relationship with each other, (their ‘dance’), and that is all that matters.
When we pray to the Father we are praying to the eternal giver, who creates the world and cares for it. When we pray to the Son, we are praying to the one who is given to us as our companion and who shares our human nature; the name ‘Jesus’ means ‘God with us.’ When we pray to the Spirit, we are praying to the one who unites us with Jesus, our companion, and, through him, with the Eternal Father. All three are part of the same dance, the same love. Three Persons, One God.
This article first appeared in The Messenger (July 2000), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
