Pieta of the Father - for Trinity Sunday

The mystery of the Trinity is hard to grasp, hard to explain, and hard to express in words or images. Perhaps the most famous image is Andrei Rublev's icon of the three angels under the oak at Mamre, portraying the Trinity. This icon shows three distinct persons who, somehow, form a unity: a fitting image of the Trinity.

The very beauty of that image, though, hides one dimension of the Trinity while portraying the other. The figures are beautiful and serene; their relationship with each other apparent. The circle of their communion is open to us, but they are not outward looking or active. This inner life of the Trinity has also an outward dimension in the outpouring of God's love for us - the way that we came to know God and through which the Trinity was revealed to us.

This Pieta of the Father, from Mexico, portrays the inner life of the Trinity in a different way. God the Father Almighty faces us, holding the body of his Beloved Son - whom we have rejected and killed. His face is unsurprised, accepting, sad. His hands are upturned, both holding up the Son and, at the same time, offering him back to us, in love.

Where is the Spirit? Not portrayed as a third figure, but the radiance of love between the Father and the Son awakens in our own hearts an outpouring of love towards them: completing the community by our own presence within it. This is, in fact, a theologically accurate image. Before the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples that he had to die, to return to the Father, so that the Advocate, the Spirit would come to be with us. The awareness of our own sinful natures, and the longing to be close to God which the statue evokes in us are, themselves, the Spirit active in our hearts and lives.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
World without end.
Amen