Today the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.  The first thing that came to mind as I pondered this feast day is this quote from the late Michael Himes:

I suppose that no doctrine in the Christian tradition has caused more confusion than the Trinity.  But today I fear that, for many people, it is the doctrine that does not make any difference.  After all, if someone were to get into the pulpit next Sunday and announce, “We have received a letter from Rome.  There has been a change; not three Persons in God, but four,” would it really require people to rethink the way they pray, to reevaluate how they live their marriages or bring up their children or make professional decisions?  If not, it is tragic.  For the Trinity is not one doctrine among others; It is the whole of Christian doctrine.

“The Trinity is not one doctrine among others; it is the whole of Christian doctrine.”  That is a pretty strong statement.  If Himes is correct that it is the whole of Christian doctrine, then presumably, we ought to be able to answer the question: How has our understanding of the Trinity made a difference in our faith?  And if he is correct that it is the whole of Christian doctrine, it is pretty sad if we can’t do so.

Most of us have difficulty even finding ways to express the Trinity.  We know the words: God exists as one being in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  But what does that mean to say that God is three, but also one?

We try to understand by analogy: The Trinity is like a shamrock leaf.  The Trinity is like three interlocking rings (a kind of smaller version of the Olympics symbol). When I was growing up, I thought of it kind of like rub-a-dub-dub, Three men in a tub.”  Some others, perhaps, think of God as a kind of committee of three.

The medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen, in one of her visions, was told by God that the image of Trinity she experienced meant that the Father, who is Justice, is not without the Son or the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit, who kindles the hearts of the faithful, is not without the Father or the Son; and the Son, who is the plenitude of fruition, is not without the Father or the Holy Spirit.  They are inseparable in Divine Majesty.

That may not give a complete definition of the Trinity, but it does tell us that the God in whose image we are created is a God of communion, a God of intimacy, a God of relationship.  And that tells us that we are created for relationship.  God created the universe and human beings to invite human beings into the relational life of the Trinity: We were brought into existence out of love, created for a loving relationship with God.  We were created not as autonomous isolated beings, but as beings in communion.  (There is a rendition of St. Ignatius’ First Principle and Foundation that reads: “I am from love, of love, for love.” From love, of love, for love.)

So whatever else we understand about the Trinity, it tells us that we are communal beings, made in the image of a communal God, to grow in relationship.  Perhaps this is why Michael Himes, who I already quoted suggested that the best statement of the Trinity is found in the First Letter of John, in the simple statement that “God is love.”

Did you wake up this morning with a sense of anticipation?  Are you feeling the stirrings of resurrection?

Wednesday, we recalled Judas’ betrayal of Jesus.  Thursday, we relived the events of Jesus’ last meal with his friends, and his subsequent time in the garden.  Yesterday, we walked with Jesus during the final hours of his life, ending in his ignominious death on the cross, experiencing, up close and personal, his suffering and his rejection.

Tonight, those of us who will attend the Easter Vigil will light the candles and sing out our Allelulia’s that Jesus is risen, that the victory over death has been won!  Others will do the same tomorrow morning.

But, before we get there, I invite you to spend some time today in the space between death and resurrection – the space inhabited by the disciples after Jesus was laid in the tomb.

For Jesus’ friends and followers, his death was the end.  They experienced a painful and frightening period of darkness after the crucifixion. Three years of following Jesus and it was all over.  Three years of hope, ended.  Think of what they experienced.  Fear – that everything Jesus had said and done ended at his death.  Powerlessness – believing they had been abandoned by God.  The finality of loss – as the stone was put in front of the tomb.  Confusion – “the road before them shrouded in darkness,” in the words of one prayer.

The morning and afternoon of Holy Saturday offer us an invitation to get in touch with that sense of loss, to try to understand what it would mean to live in a world without Jesus.  To try to experience it in a real and personal way. 

This is an important part of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius instructs us to take some time after the death of Jesus to be with the disciples and with Mary and the other women in their grief over losing Jesus.  Her wants us to actually be with them – as Jesus’ body is taken from the cross, anointed, and placed in the tomb.  To be there as the rock is being rolled across the tomb’s entrance.  To be with Mary and the other disciples afterwards.  The points is (in the words of one instruction for this reflection to “Let the effect of Jesus’ death permeate your whole being and the world around you.”

I invite you to take some time today doing exactly that.  To take a break from the Easter preparations to grow in your appreciation what the resurrection means to us by living for at least a few hours in that space between death and resurrection.

The traditional depiction of prudence is a figure of a teacher, denoting wisdom.

I once read what seemed to me to be a good description of prudence:

[P]rudence is the virtue of the possible.  It is not just caution or moderation or tact, though those good things all require it.  Prudence is the virtue that translates every other virtue into particular decisions, the link between conviction and action.  The word ‘prudence’ may lack the heft and grandeur of ‘wisdom,’ but without prudence all wisdom is impotent.  The real dilemmas we face in life, including political dilemmas, do not neatly conform to any set of models or list of rules.  The rules must always be applied by someone, and the application is never automatic: there aren’t – there can’t be – rules for how to interpret every rule.

One way to understand the value of prudence is to ask: what qualities do we want the leaders of our society to have?  Presumably we are not concerned with their wealth, their power or their privilege.  Nor is the primary quality necessarily intelligence or cleverness (although these certainly help).  The qualities they really need have are insight into human nature, human needs and human values.  And the insight has to have a practical side – leaders need to be able know people and their problems and to be able to think of practical ways to solve them, not just to have abstract ideals – but ideas that work given all of the constraints that are at play.  That is wisdom, that is prudence.

So prudence has to do with having the wisdom to make right choices.  Prudence helps us to apply moral principles to particular cases without error and to overcome doubts about the good we seek to achieve and the evil we seek to avoid.  St. Thomas Aquinas called prudence “right reason in action.”  It is prudence that immediately guides the judgment of conscience.    For that reason, prudence is called auriga virtutum (the charioteer of the virtues) because it guides all of the other virtue.

Prudence is not a fear of doing anything. It is not simply caution or moderation.  Instead it is the most important tool of discernment.  The Catechism defines it as “the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it.”

I sigh as I write this because I see so many decisions being made that appear to lack prudence. But I pray it is a virtue that those who lead us – in govenment, church and society – grow in.

The traditional depiction of justice is that of a blindfolded woman holding a equally balanced scale.  The idea conveyed is that justice is blind, that is, that every person has a right to equal justice under the law, rather than judgments being made based on prejudice or position.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of justice as having a two-fold meaning, since it defines it as “the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. Justice toward God is called the “virtue of religion.”

Justice toward other human beings disposes one to respect the rights of everyone and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good.  Its opposite is injustice and dishonesty.

From the standpoint of a society, it is easy to understand why justice is a virtue.  If we were setting up a community from the start (think Rawls’ original position – where no one know what space or strata they will occupy) and asked what values we would want to see in the community, we would ask questions like do we want a double standard – a society in which there is a different ethic for society and for individuals? A society in which different rules apply to different individuals?  No.  Clearly we would not support a double standard.  We wouuld want harmony, cooperation, togetherness, working as one – all of which require that we have a notion of justice: of applying the same rules to everyone, of making decisions fairly.

It is easy to misunderstand the meaning of justice.  Justice means decisions made fairly and not on the basis of prejudice or status.  It does not require justice to the exclusion of mercy.  So we do have rules that we apply across the board, but we recognize that in some circumstances mercy comes into plan in how we apply them.  That means that justice is not mathematical, impersonal or calculating. 

It seems to me that this is an awfully good time to be reflecting on how we understand justice, as we consider how to judge actions taken by our government. And, of course, how we evaluate our own behavior.

As traditionally depicted, Fortitude is appears as an allegorical person with a sword.  Like the limiting effect of the traditional depiction of temperance I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the traditional depiction risks creating the false impression that fortitude is about physical strength.

Rather, fortitude is the virtue that ensures firmness when we are faced with difficulties and constancy in our pursuit of the good. It strengthens our resolve to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in the moral life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church suggests that the virtue of fortitude enables one to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions. It gives one the strength to renounce and sacrifice his life in defense of a just cause.

Fortitude is clearly something we value in society and in individuals.  The willingness to freely go beyond the call of duty, to make sacrifices, to choose the difficult thing, to take chances.  We often label as heroes those who display fortitude.

To be clear, fortitude is not recklessness or foolhardiness; it is not just physical strength or even just physical courage or the ability to endure pain.  And it is not taking dares or failing to take care of oneself.  And it is not something limited to only certain classes of people, like soldiers. 

It is really more about moral courage, the willingness to act on your convictions even if it costs something, such as convenience or social acceptance.  Obviously there is prudence (which I’ll mention in another post) in knowing when to fight and when to flee; what to fear and what not to fear. But there is moral courage in making that determination.

The value of this virtue is clear. The truth is that no matter how blessed our lives are we will face hardship.  I sometimes think we (or at least I) sometimes have the expectation that everything should go smoothly.  When I make a plan, everything should cooperate to allow that plan to unfold the way I have determined it ought.  So I shouldn’t wake up sick the day I have tickets to a concert, there shouldn’t be traffic when I’m on the way to an important meeting, the person I’ve relied on to do something for me shouldn’t let me down.  And you can all multiply the list.

 Without fortitude the vicissitudes of life are difficult to take.  We expect everything to go smoothly and when it doesn’t we become anxious.  Or, before things even have a chance to not go our way, we become anxious that they won’t.  And we let ourselves be filled with worry.

Fortitude changes how we view everything.  We have a wellspring of strength that is available when life happens.  Fortitude affects the attitude with which we approach difficulties when they arise.  Again, I’m not talking about specific actions that we take, just about the attitudes with which we approach things.

Where do I see evidence of fortitude around me? What would it look like in my life to grow in that virtue?

Since we are in the season of Lent, always a good time to brush ourselves off and re-commit ourselves to our lives with God, I thought I’d share a couple of reflections on what we term the “cardinal virtues.” These are four virtues of mind and character defined in classic philosophy and adopted by the Catholic Church. Today, a few words about temperance, which seemed a good follow-up to my post yesterday about the rich man and Lazarus.

The traditional depiction of temperance is a figure of an allegorical woman mixing wine and water in two jugs. That traditional depiction risks a pretty narrow understanding of temperance.  It is one that we associate with the temperance movements at various times in the United States, which were aimed at reducing the consumption of alcohol. (Not a bad thing, but too narrow.)

Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of the goods of the world.  It ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what might be considered reasonable or honorable. So it implies self-control, abstention and moderation.

So when we talk about temperance, we are talking about something placed in opposition to greed and consumerism – something that opposes the mentality (fostered in so many ways in our culture) that more is always better.  That we cannot be happy unless we have lots and lots of whatever it is we are using as our barometer.  In contrast, temperance speaks of moderation and self-restraint; and of using what we need and what is helpful, not what the advertising industry tell us we need.

To be clear, temperance does not mean one shouldn’t enjoy onseself.  A more accurate understanding is close to a Buddhist idea of detachment or a Christian or Hindu notion of renunciation rather than deprivation.  That helps us to understand temperance as being about having a different relation to the objects of the world.  A Buddhist Lamas used to tell his followers, by all means, enjoy your ice cream cone when you have an ice cream cone.  Renunciation doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the ice cream; it means you don’t walk around thinking “I have to have the ice cream cone…I need the ice cream cone; I’m not going to be happy unless I get that ice cream cone.”  It is not having a particular item that is condemned; it is the attachment to it – the sense that one has to have it to be happy. 

We might ask ourselves: Are there places in my life where temperance is a challenge? Where I see attachment – and the risk of overindulgence arising?

The Gospel for today’s Mass is the parable in Luke’s Gospel of the rich man and Lazarus.  The story presents us with two contrasting figures: a rich man who lives a life of luxury, and a poor man who doesn’t even share the crumbs dropped from the rich man’s table.  (I have read that according to the custom of the time, pieces of bread were used to wash the hands of the wealthy, and then thrown from the table.  Whether that is true or not, I don’t know.)

The most common interpretation of this parable is that the rich man is condemned for ignoring the poor man at his gate.   And he obviously knew Lazarus was there; in the afterlife he refers to him by name.  So he can’t say he never noticed him sitting by the door.”  Right at his door the dogs take care of the man he doesn’t even send scraps to.

But that reading doesn’t really present Jesus’ audience with anything new.  They knew that the rich were supposed to care for the poor, and that God had special concern for the disadvantaged. 

So what else might Jesus be trying to convey to us?  Or to phrase it differently, where might we be invited to examine our own behavior.

That the rich man had money is not by itself is good or bad.  There is no suggestion that he accumulated his wealth by anything other than legitimate or moral means. But we are told at the outset that he “dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously every day.”  So – the rich man doesn’t just have wealth, he ostentatiously displays it.  He dines sumptuously every day, not just on holidays; he wears purple garments every day, not just for special occasions.  This is conspicuous consumption and it is something that would have conveyed a negative impression to Jesus’ audience and ought to do the same for us.

While wealth per se is not a problem, the parable does suggest that there are dangers to wealth.  The dangers lie first in attachment to wealth and the things wealth gives.  When we move from “wasn’t that a lovely meal we had at that nice restaurant,” to “I won’t be happy unless I have a sumptuous meal every night” or “I found a lovely dress to wear to my daughter’s wedding,” to “I need to wear sequins every day,” we’ve moved to unhealthy attachment. 

The dangers of wealth lies second in keeping our mind away from focusing on what matters.  Ronald Rolhesier once observed that “American culture is the most powerful narcotic this planet has ever perpetrated.”  By that he means that by keeping us focused on food, pleasure, entertainment and comfort, it keeps us from living a life modeled on Christ.  If we are so wound up fine food and clothes, shopping and mindless amusements, we don’t even hear God’s call.  And even if we do, if a paramount value is our own comfort, we will shy away from God’s work where doing that work might make us uncomfortable. 

So the rich man in this parable, while not penalized simply for wealth, does symbolize for us the dangers of wealth attachment, keeping our mind way from a focus on what is important.  And, of course, failing to share what we have with those in need.

We might ask ourselves: Who is the parable warning?  To whom is the challenge directed? Individuals?  The Western Church?  The richer nations? 

On the individual level, we might ask ourselves:

Will you spend your money not only on yourself, or will you help the poor outside your door?

Will you let go of the attachments to things that prevent you from focusing on God’s will?  Whether that be money, desire for honor, or sense of self-importance?

What about the challenge to richer nations – a challenge particularly appropriate as we deal with issues of refugees and migrants today? Are we willing to share what we have?  Or do we think our wealth for our nation only?

Likewise our churches.  Are we sufficiently thinking about our sister churches who are struggling financially or otherwise?

A lot to think about in this parable.

In his First Principle and Foundation, St. Ignatius states the human purpose as to “praise, reverence and serve God.” Lent is always a good time for a tune-up – to check how we have have been doing in relation to that stated purpose.

The late Fr. Jim Babb SJ of the St. Ignatius House in Atlanta, once suggested several items on which we might meditate to see how we are praising, reverencing, and serving God. (I’ve edited his phrasing a bit.). You might consider one or more of these questions as part of your daily Examen:

1)  Health – Are you getting enough sleep? Exercise? Nourishing your body with good, healthful foods? (It is good to remind ourselves that our body is a temple of God.)

2)  Mind – What are you watching? What are you letting into your mind?

3)  Work/Career – Are you making it your God? Is it displacing God as the center of your life? Are you using your talents on behalf of building God’s kingdom?

4)  Marriage/Serious Relationship – Are you spending time and communicating with your spouse or significant other?

Be sure to share with God the fruits of your reflection, asking for the grace you need to more fully praise, reverence and serve God.