Some time ago I came upon what you might call a “3 Preposition Formula” that aimed to provide a framework for understanding something of the mystery of our Trinitarian God, our “3-personned” God.

Those prepositions: For, With, and Within.

God the Father is God For Us. That is, God very much for us whose desire is not only that we have life, but as Scripture says, have “life and ever more abundant life.” As with anyone who offers us love, God treasures us and wants our best.  The Father: God for us, God always on our side.

His Son, Jesus: God With Us. God choosing to take up our condition, our humanity. God coming among us, living our human experience right along with us. God taking up residence in our neighborhood, as it were. God sharing the condition all of us know from simply being alive. The Son: God with us.

Then the Holy Spirit: God Within Us. God as interior to us, God directing and moving us. And for sure, God comforting us, consoling us, strengthening us. God leading us into God’s own future. The Spirit: God within us.

The “for, with, and within” combination is certainly no explanation of God, as if to say, “Now I have God’s reality neatly in hand.” Perhaps a more appropriate word for God is “greater” – more than any explanation, infinitely beyond what any of us could ever fully comprehend.

But perhaps these three provide one small window through which to view the unfathomable One we call our Trinitarian God, Three Person God.

And so, to be able to:

-Pray to the Father: God who’s all for us, on our side, in our corner.

-Pray to and with the Lord Jesus: God with us, Christ our Brother living our human life.

-And pray to, with, and in Holy Spirit: God dwelling within us, deeper than any depth we could ever sound on our own.

On Trinity Sunday, we worship this “3-personned” God, the One whose reality is best described as Love: “God is love, and we who abide in love abide in God, and God in us.”

In a letter written late in his life, Vincent refers to the Trinity as a model for leadership in his Community.

“I ask the Holy Spirit, who is nothing if not love, and who is the sacred bond of the Father and the Son, to be the soul of your leadership and the gentleness of your words and actions.

(Volume: 8 | Page#: 318) To Louis Dupont, Superior, in Treguier, 24 March, 1660 added on 6/28/2011