by Joan Mitchell, CSJ
“Remember all music was once new music.” That’s the sign-off for a public radio music broadcast that features current compositions and performances. Sounds that wrap us in melody and memory today may have once jarred listeners.
The same theme applies to revelation. All revelation was once new revelation, that is, if we believe that God has entered history, called Abraham and Sarah, made a covenant with Moses, inspired Isaiah and the prophets, suffered with the Israelites in exile, and become one of us in Jesus Christ.
And, all revelation is dialogue. Our God speaks and invites people into covenant, friendship, and mission. In Ecclesia Suam, written during the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI describes salvation history as dialogue between an irrepressibly creative and loving God and humans who hear and respond — Jacob, Moses, David, Mary, Peter, John, Mary Magdalene. God first loves us.
Scripture preserves the dialogues between God and humans, once new, now familiar. In Sunday’s gospel Jesus talks with his disciples, preparing to leave them. His words strain to express the communion in which he lives with his Father and the Spirit. “All that the Father has is mine.” “The Spirit will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
A word some theologians use to describe the mystery of the Trinity is perichoresis. Peri is the Greek word for around as in perimeter. Chor is the Greek root of the word chore, the circling we do daily to keep up our commitments. The word tries to express the indwelling, intertwining relationships of three in one love.
God is irrepressibly in relationship at the heart of all that is. Father, Son, and Spirit live three in one loving communion so abundantly creative we live in its spill.
- What word is God speaking to you? What word do you answer to the dialogue?