Did you know that The Doctrine of The Trinity has created more heretics, schisms and martyrs than any other doctrine?
So it is hardly a surprise that people are reluctant to preach on it.
Fr. Austin Fleming at Concord Pastor blog has posed the question what would you preach on Trinity Sunday ?
A priest in Sacramento asked for tips on how to preach on The Trinity on Facebook and click here to see these answers he got .
But did you know that the Holy Trinity is also the base of carrots, celery, and onions that are used for so many Italian sauces, soups, and stews.
So howz about imparting a culinary theme to your sermon ?
The measured ratio of all three ingredients, how they are chopped, and the extent that they are cooked, all depends on their final destination.
If they are a base for Italian Tomato soup, then they are finely chopped because they will later be partially pureed by a blender.
They also pick up flavour from the fried meat that has been caramelized and set aside to be added back into the dish before simmering.
The flavour is transferred to the Holy Trinity from the scrapings off the bottom of the pan. Pancetta is a great way to impart flavour to the Trinity.
In Louisiana, the Holy Trinity is bell peppers, onion, and celery.
Garlic is the Pope.
It's definitely religious!
Or there is this from Addis Abbaba Cathedral in Ethiopia which depicts the Holy Trinity as identical triplets
but still clearly as separate individuals.
3 comments:
Ah, yes, Phil, this three-in-one business invites all kinds of metaphors, none of them adequate. I tend to think of the Trinity in terms of time: God the Father, our Source, encompassing our eternal past; God the Son, our Hope, epitomizing our eternal future; and God the Spirit, our Guide, enlightening our present. Since time is a mortal construct and doesn't exist in the Godhead, it collapses, so all three are eternally coexistent and therefore present in the now.
Of course, that often cramps my brain, and when that happens, I revert to the apple analogy--one apple, comprised of skin, meat, and core, all interdependent and yet independent of one another. (That cramps my brain, too!)
Blessings--and thanks for the nudge toward what always turns out to be a challenging Sunday!
Tim
The Ethiopian illustration reminds me of the Rublev (sp?) icon...
I have an entry on the Trinity in my Catholic Encyclopedia. It is open at the page but not read yet. It starts saying that there is no mention of the Trinity in either the OT or the NT.
This is a good start, don't you think?
Hi Tim,
Lovely to hear from you. I liked your concept of the Trinity as Time very much even if it ended up being deconstructed.
I found this theme very hard to write on and so I await tomorrow's sermon from our own priest with enthusiasm- he is normally very good but we don't always have the same priest.
Hi Claire,
I see where you are coming from and I know that the dogma can divide and for me it is not a vital part of my faith so why do I bother tackling it at all but there is such a vast history behind it that I can't see it being dismantled. But thank you for encouraging me to question why we need it at all !!
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