Mtr Mary Trainor

One with You, Father,
One in Your Son…*

Dear friend,

People-watching is a nice pastime. Not in a stalking way, but casually, sitting on a park bench, at a bus stop, waiting for someone while sitting in your car. You just observe those who walk past. Or even in church, if you’re early, noticing other folks as they arrive.

Along this line, I especially enjoy meeting members of the same family, where maybe I know Mom and Dad, and am now meeting their child. If it’s a biological relationship, I look for family resemblance. The connection is not always obvious at first, but if I spend enough time with them, it usually becomes clear.

I know this from my own family. My nephew, the only next generation Trainor on our side, turned 32 in August. As I watched him grow up, I noticed that, while he certainly got his height from his Dad, they otherwise look nothing alike. I confess I was disappointed not to see in him just a little bit of the people I grew up among.

One day I was rueing this in the company of a close family friend. She looked at me as if I was crazy. “What are you talking about? Sure, he’s tall. But also, in everything that he does, how he acts, he’s the spitting image of his Dad. His intelligence, his sense of humor, his kindness, his loyalty.”

I looked at the father and son and saw only differences. She looked and saw only resemblances.

Breathing Your Spirit, our union begun,
Rich in Your blessing,

The Gospel reading today from John is all about a particular Father and a particular Son: “And whoever sees me sees him who sent me;” and “I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say…”; and, “What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me.”

We are hearing about a union of natures so incredible, so intertwined that they are hard to distinguish, one from the other. We have no idea about physical looks here, but I have a feeling it doesn’t matter. They function as one, they are united, they are sealed by a bond we cannot see. Yet, when hearing from one, we are hearing from the other.

Secure in Your grace,
Glimpsing the heaven that shines in Your face.

“Whoever sees me sees him who sent me,” Jesus says, noting that the work of Son and Father is seamless. Those of us who follow the Son, follow the Father. And the Spirit. And they want us with them in such a way as when people look at us, they catch a glimpse of the Holy Three.

Like my nephew and my brother, we, and Father, Son, Spirit, may look nothing alike, yet we are to mirror them in everything we do, everything we say, every way we are.

Mtr Mary

*Father and Son, words by Ken Bible