Andrew Heanngam Pamei
Contd from previous issue
The Father is not the Son nor the Holy Spirit; the Son is not the Father nor the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son: but the Father is only Father, the Son is only Son, and the Holy Spirit is only Holy Spirit. To all three belong the same eternity, the same unchangeableness, the same majesty, the same power. In the Father is unity, in the Son equality, in the Holy Spirit the harmony of unity and equality; and these three attributes are all one because of the Father, all equal because of the Son, and all harmonious because of the Holy Spirit.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, of one and the same substance, God the Creator, the Omnipotent Trinity, work indivisibly; but that this cannot be indivisibly manifested by the creature, and least of all by the bodily creature, which is far inferior; just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cannot be named by our words, which certainly are bodily sounds, except in their own proper intervals of time, divided by a distinct separation, which intervals the proper syllables of each word occupy. Since in their proper substance wherein they are, the three are one, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the very same, by no temporal motion, above the whole creature, without any interval of time and place, and at once one and the same from eternity to eternity, as it were eternity itself, which is not without truth and charity. But, in my words, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are separated, and cannot be named at once, and occupy their own proper places separately invisible letters.
And as, when I name my Memory, and Intellect, and Will, each name refers to each severally, but yet each is uttered by all three; for there is no one of these three names that is not uttered by both my memory and my intellect and my will together (by the soul as a whole); so the Trinity together wrought both the voice of the Father, and the flesh of the Son, and the dove of the Holy Spirit, while each of these things is referred severally to each person. And by this similitude, to certain degree I discerned, that the Trinity, which is inseparable in itself, is manifested separably by the appearance of the visible creature; and that the operation of the Trinity is also inseparable in each severally of those things which are said to pertain properly to the manifesting of either the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit.
In this Trinitarian God is the supreme source of all things, the most perfect beauty, and the most blessed delight. Those three, therefore, both seem to be mutually determined to each other, and are in themselves infinite. But here in corporeal things, one thing alone is not as much as three together, and two are something more than one; but in that highest Trinity one is as much as the three together, nor are two anything more than one. And They are infinite in themselves. So both each are in each, and all in each, and each in all, and all in all, and all are one. Let anyone who see this, whether in part, or through a glass and in an enigma, rejoice in knowing God; and honor Him as God, and give thanks; but let anyone who does not see it, strive to see it through piety, not to cavil at it through blindness. Since God is one, but yet is a Trinity.
Too late have I found you, O beautiful Trinity, ancient yet ever new. Too late have I loved you ! And behold you were within, but I was outside, searching for you there-plunging, deformed amid those things of beauty which you had made. You were with me but I was not with you. Things held me far from you, which, unless, they were in you did not exist all. You called and shouted and burst my deafness. You gleamed and shone upon me, and chased away my blindness. You breathed fragrant odours on me, and I held back my breath, but now I pant for you. I tasted, and now I thirst for you. You touched me, and now I yearn for your spirit.
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