Being eternal is nothing new. Being like Jesus completely, eternally, will be new. But when the moment of glory hung in the balance as Jesus was revived from his death sleep, we too were given the assurance that death no longer claims us. The only death that really matters is our death to sin in baptism with Jesus. If we have shared in that death, we will most certainly share in his resurrection (see Romans 6:1-14).

Day 27 of the Blessed Coptic Month of Baramoudah, may God make it always received, year after year, with reassurance and tranquility, while our sins after forgiven by the tender mercies of our God my fathers and brothers.
Amen.

The Twenty-Seventh Day of the Blessed Month of Baramoudah

Martyrdom of St.Boctor Ebn Romanus

On this day, the honorable Saint Boctor (Victor) Ebn Romanus, the minister of Emperor Diocletian, was martyred. His mother Martha had reared him in the Christian ethics. He was promoted in the ranks in the kingdom until he became the third in succession. He was then twenty years old. He prayed and fasted much, visited the prisoners and assisted the poor and needy. When they cut off the head of St. Theodata, the mother of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, no one dared to bury her because they feared the Emperor. This Saint went forth and took the body, shrouded it, then buried her, not caring about the Emperor's order. St. Boctor often admonished his father for worshipping the idols, so his father accused him before the Emperor. The Emperor had him brought and asked him to worship the idols to obey the imperial order. The saint took off his soldier girdle and threw it in his face saying: "Take your gift that you gave me." His father suggested to the Emperor to send him to Alexandria to be tortured there. On their way, his mother bid him farewell, crying, and he asked her to care for the poor, the widows, and the lonely. When he arrived to Alexandria, the governor Armanius tortured him many tortures, then he sent him to the governor of Ansena, who tortured him also, then cut off his tongue and plucked out his eyes. The Lord strengthened and comforted him every time. There was a fifteen years old girl who was watching his torture from the window of her house. She saw a crown coming down over his head. She confessed that before the governor and all those who were present. The Governor ordered her head to be cut off and also the head of St. Boctor. They received the crown of life in the Kingdom of Heaven. There is a district in Alexandria until now known as El Boctoriah (Victoria), named after this Saint, because probably there was a church on his name in this district.

May His prayers be with us and Glory be to our God forever. Amen.

Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner (1904–1984) suggested that “Christians are, in their practical life, almost mere ‘monotheists.’ We must be willing to admit that, should the doctrine of the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged.” [1]

Until quite recently, I would admit Rahner was largely correct. Now science affirms the Trinitarian intuition that the foundational nature of reality is relational; everything is in relationship with everything! Interest and appreciation for the Trinity are growing. [2] For the first time since fourth-century Cappadocia, the Trinity has actually become a topic of conversation for lay people, not only theologians. I am so glad, as the Trinity has the potential to change our relationships, our culture, and our politics for the better!

The mystery of Trinity is embedded as the code in everything that exists. If there is only one God and if there is one pattern to this God, then we can expect to find this same pattern everywhere else. Why was Trinity missing in action for so many centuries? Could this absence help us understand how we might still be in the infancy stage of Christianity? Could it help explain the ineffectiveness and lack of transformation we witness in so much of Christendom?

The “Blessed Trinity” is supposed to be the central Christian doctrine. And yet many of us were told—as I was as a young boy in Kansas—that we shouldn’t try to understand it because it’s a “mystery.”

I see mystery not as something you cannot understand; rather, it is something that you can endlessly understand! There is no point at which you can say, “I’ve got it.” Always and forever, mystery gets you! In the same way, you don’t hold God in your pocket; rather, God holds you and knows your deepest identity.

When we describe God, we can only use similes, analogies, and metaphors. All theological language is an approximation, offered tentatively in holy awe. We can say, “It’s like . . .” or “It’s similar to . . .”; but we can never say with absolute certainty, “It is . . .” because we are in the realm of beyond, of transcendence, of mystery. We absolutely must maintain humility before the Great Mystery; otherwise, religion worships itself and its formulations instead of God.

The very mystical Cappadocian Fathers (Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, and Basil of Caesarea) of fourth-century eastern Turkey eventually developed some highly sophisticated thinking on what the Christian church soon called the Trinity. It took three centuries of reflection on the Gospels to have the courage to say it and offer the best metaphor they could find. The Greek word they daringly used was perichoresis or circle dance.

Whatever is going on in God is a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between Three—a circle dance of love. God is Absolute Friendship. God is not just a dancer; God is the dance itself. This pattern mirrors the perpetual orbit of electron, proton, and neutron that creates every atom, which is the substratum of the entire physical universe. Everything is indeed like “the image and likeness of God” (Genesis 1:26-27).

References:
[1] Karl Rahner, The Trinity (Crossroad Publishing Company: 1999), 10-11.

[2] For example, see Cynthia Bourgeault, The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three (Shambhala: 2013); and William Paul Young, The Shack (Windblown Media: 2007).

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Shape of God: Deepening the Mystery of the Trinity, disc 1 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2004), CD, DVD, MP3 download; and

Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House: 2016), 26-27.