CAROL Jegen’s long career in faith education as a teacher, lecturer and writer in religious studies and theology has prompted her to offer insights on the Trinity, a central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life.
It could be said that she demystifies the mystery of the Trinity by inviting her readers simply to engage personally in a deepening friendship with God and Spirit, God as incarnate Word, and God as Abba, the compassionate Father.
During her experiences in faith education, Jegen identified a specifically significant issue.
It was that people’s “limited understanding of any revealed mystery of their Christian faith inhibits the vibrancy and joy” that might otherwise be theirs if clearer perceptions and insights were available to them.
Jegen defines the concept, “mystery,” as a reality about which more can be discovered, a revealed plan God for establishing His kingdom of love, justice and peace.
She notes that any effort to explain adequately in words and images the Trinity mystery is limited by human vocabulary when applied to explaining the limitlessness of God.
As Carol Jegen explores several aspects of the divine communications embedded in the mystery of the tripersonal God, she departs completely from the commonly held perception of the Trinity as an objective entity to be blandly believed in.
In five thematically integrated chapters, she encourages the reader to encounter different but complementary facets of “the reality of divine loving within the mystery of God’s tripersonal life.”
Jegen discusses God as tripersonal in relationship to the three divine persons of the Trinity, a concept she borrowed from the writings of Gerald O’Collins, a contemporary Jesuit theologian.
Significantly, Jegen states that Jesus, during His life, gradually revealed God, His Father, as an ever present reality who communes life, love, compassion, forgiveness and restoration to people while being he source of creation and recreation for people and the Universe.
She identifies by function three unique relationships within God’s tripersonal nature. First, Jegen considers God’s rich gift to humanity, the imparting of “the befriending Spirit,” to baptised believers.
This title for the Holy Spirit she maintains originates in one of the Vatican II documents. Lucidly, Jegen explains the communicating nature God exercises towards humanity through His active and present Spirit.
She touches on the essence of prayer as building friendship and relationship with God through the action of the befriending Spirit.
Second, Jegen explores four relational functions existing between Jesus and God and between Jesus and those who have experienced Christina baptism.
Insights developed from both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures are employed.
In turn, Jegen ponders Jesus as Beloved Son, Jesus as Servant, Jesus the Word made flesh, and Jesus Lamb of God.
This second chapter is especially rich in its catechising potential in relation to understanding Eucharist and forgiveness.
Additionally, Jesus’ intimate friendship with God as Father and his total trust in and dependency on God are modelled in the discussions.
In five short chapters, Jegen deals with easy to comprehend realities of God’s divine loving within the three persons of the Trinity and extending beyond God’s self to all aspects of creation.
She frequently uses uncomplicated metaphors and images to make links between real-life experience and the explanations being given.
Thus she facilitates a clearer interpretation of the different but complementary aspects of God’s relational presence in the world.
This small book aims to nurture Christian faith and bring greater joy in people’s experience of the function and nature of God present to them through His transforming love in the world.
Jegen’s unfolding of the Trinity as the revealed and revealing love, solicitude and compassion of a tripersonal God whose nature can be contemplated and reflected on through the lived experiences of Jesus (His birth, life, death and resurrection) and through God’s sending of His befriending Spirit as gift to the baptised, makes her discussions very suitable for faith education in small groups.
