A meditation for Trinity Sunday:
For weeks now I have had my computer’s wallpaper set to display Raphael’s “La Disputa,” one of my favorite of the Vatican collection. Click here to see it. It indeed portrays Raphael’s interpretation of the Trinity and a host of human beings arguing and disputing beneath the sacrament. Typical.
However, in preparation for this morning’s homily, I was inspired by the playful lines in the first reading: “I was beside the master craftsman, delighting him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere on his earth, delighting to be with the children of men.” (NJB Prov 8:30,31)
Of course the word play is used twice here and how appropriate for the relationship of God’s inner life: delighted playful creation. I then remembered a more appropriate image by Georges de la Tour: Joseph the carpenter. Take a look at it and see if you can sense the relationship between Son and Father, what Proverbs calls playfulness beside the craftsman, … yet where would you locate the Holy Spirit in this image?
