Considering The Most Holy Trinity With Affection

Considering the Most Holy Trinity with affection [The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, June 11, 2017]

The mystics often use the affective mode of meditation to ponder the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, using their imagination.

It's on the level of feelings; an emotionalization wherein the worshipper seeks to imagine the sights, sounds, tastes, movement, and touch of specific scenes from the Gospel in order to engage and reinforce learning, compassion, and to highlight that God is loving and accessible.

e.g. Margery Kempe: “God the Father sits on a golden cushion, in honor of his might and power; Christ sits on a cushion of red; and the Holy Ghost,” the sanctifier, “sits on a white cushion, because He is full of love and cleanness.”

It's interesting that she came up with the image of colored pillows! Very creative. I have a pillow on my couch with words printed on it which say: "If you are looking for the T.V. remote, its hidden under here."

Use your imagination in your meditation and prayer to the First Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Father--

The Father is first. The Father is eternity. The Principle. The Source of all life. The Word and Holy Spirit proceed from Him, and all creation comes from Him through the Word, in the Holy Spirit.

We can use our imagination to honor the Father as the First Cause by laying down at his feet our whole being, our plans, our desires, in order that he, God the Father, may take the initiative in everything concerning us. In this way, we imitate Jesus.

2. Use your imagination in your meditation on the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Son--

e.g. from Our Gospel today on John 3:16: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life."

Here is something imaginative: I saw a picture of Yoda from Star Wars, where he quotes John 3:16:

LOVED THE WORLD SO GOD DID, THAT HIS ONLY SON HE GAVE,

IF BELIEVE IN HIM, YOU DO; LIVE FOREVER YOU SHALL, AND PERISH YOU SHALL NOT.

Another example: A banker in New York had a great desire to encourage some soldiers who were fighting during World War II. But, he could not get permission to visit the war zone personally. But his longing desire to help these men was not to be easily thwarted, so he called on a firm which manufactured advertising novelties and had them make several thousand small mirrors about three inches in diameter.

On the backside of each of these mirrors he had printed the words of John 3:16. Beneath the words of this inscription was written, "If you want to see who it is that GOD loves and for whom He gave His Son, look on the other side."

These mirrors were distributed among the soldiers with the permission of the officers, and thus each man looking into the mirror would see the object of GOD's love and the one whom the SAVIOR came to save.

I bought a similar compact mirror on the internet that flips open with the words of John 3:16, written on the outside.

3). Use your imagination in your prayer and life with the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit. I think of the number 3 with the Holy Spirit, and of course, the Trinity:

The Trinity (Godhead) is 3 in one.

God is both one and three at the same time.

Isaiah 6:3 says that two seraphim, each with six wings:

"...were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;

the whole earth is full of his glory.”

And in Revelation 4:8: "Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying:

“‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.”

"Holy, Holy, Holy" is repeated three times because the Trinity, The Godhead is 3 in One.

At Fatima, the Angel of Peace had the children repeat three times a Trinity Prayer in reparation. Lucia said: "We saw shining over us a strange light. We lifted our heads to see what was happening. the Angel was holding in his left hand a chalice and over it, in the air, was a host from which drops of blood fell into the chalice. The Angel leaves the chalice in the air, kneels near us and tells us to repeat three times:

Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

I adore Thee profoundly.

I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul

and Divinity of Jesus Christ,

present in all the tabernacles of the world,