Over the last several weeks of school I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to our 6th and 7th graders. If you haven’t read that book, you are missing out, big time. Pick up a copy today and read it! C.S. Lewis is one of the finest Christian fiction writers of the 20th century and his books in the Chronicles of Narnia series are all filled with great storytelling for all ages to enjoy, and wonderful characters exemplifying love, forgiveness, bravery, faith, and many other virtues.
I particularly love The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe because at its core it is the story of a family being reconciled. The four Pevensie children–Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy–are the central figures of the story. They progress through different stages throughout the book. At the beginning, there is obviously tension between the siblings. Peter and Edmund don’t see eye to eye, all of the older siblings seem to misunderstand Lucy in one way or another, and Edmund is unnecessarily cruel to her. They all end up in the magical world of Narnia, where the tensions in their relationships reach a breaking point. Edmund becomes estranged from his siblings as he is drawn in by the machinations of the White Witch, but the other three siblings never give up on him.
I don’t want to spoil the whole story for you, but suffice it to say, there is a beautiful story of redemption woven in, whereby Edmund is reconciled with his siblings. This happens because of Aslan, the ‘Lion’ in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. By the end of the story, not only are the children reunited, but they are also crowned as royalty in Narnia! The siblings go through many trials and learn to love each other and work well together. By the end of the book, they have grown to adulthood in Narnia. Gone are their petty rivalries, replaced by an unbreakable union, each of them cooperating in his or her own way to rule the land.
What I find so beautiful about this story is that it highlights the beauty of our Christian walk. C.S. Lewis intended for his stories to be Christian allegories, so each of us can see ourselves in those children who find themselves in Narnia, and each of us is called to be drawn towards a royal destiny by Aslan, whom we, of course, call Jesus.
This book is on my mind as we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, because God has revealed Himself to us in a particular way as Christian people. He has revealed Himself as One God Who is Three Divine Persons. This mystery is a deep one which we are meant to continue exploring throughout our lives. From the earliest existence of the human race, God has been very generous in revealing Himself. We see this in the first reading with Moses, the leader of the people of Israel, who have been in slavery but whom God wants to invite into a deep and transformative covenant relationship with Himself. You may have heard it before, but it bears repeating–a covenant is like a contract in that it involves a mutual exchange between peoples; but unlike a contract, where goods and services are exchanged, a covenant involves the exchange of peoples. The covenant we know best in the earthly sense is marriage, where two people give themselves totally to each other. This is what God is about with His people as He reveals Himself to Moses on Mount Sinai. Listen again to what He says as He passes by Moses: “The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” Here, He shows Himself to be the Heavenly Bridegroom of His bride, Israel, ready to be faithful to them even though they have been unfaithful to Him. And you can tell that Moses gets what the Lord is talking about when he says: “This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own.” He is asking, on behalf of Israel, to be in that covenant relationship with the Lord, to belong to Him!
Throughout the history of humanity, we see that tension where our unfaithfulness is met with God’s perfect faithfulness. Over and over He offered us covenants, until the time came to offer us the perfect, everlasting covenant. He did this by entering history, by joining the human family, teaching us, healing us, dying and rising for us, and in the midst of all of that, revealing the deepest identity of God, God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
It makes sense that God has over and over invited us into a relationship with Himself, inviting us to be joined to Him. He designed humanity for relationship because He is the perfect eternal relationship of Love between God the Father, the Perfect Lover, God the Son, the Perfect Beloved, and God the Holy Spirit, the Perfect Love between them! All along, God has destined us as humans, who are relational by our very nature, ultimately to be drawn up into Him, to eternally share in His Nature, to live in that Perfect Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit for all eternity!
Since we were made by Love for Love, God knows how much we die inside when we sin. Sin is the perversion and twisting of Love, and thus the consequence of that sin is a breakup of our nature, because we are made for Love. This is what is so good about the Good News: our God’s love is so amazing that He took the ugliest event in human history, the killing of God the Son, and made it into a victory. On the Cross, Jesus takes on all of our sin, suffers as intensely as any human being ever has or ever will, feels the emptiness and darkness that sin and death bring, and finally dies. But death couldn’t hold Him and it can’t hold us. Jesus died to free us from sin and death and give us access to the fullness of life and love in Heaven! “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”
So that gift of eternal life is being drawn into the Eternal relationship of Love beyond the bounds of this world. Our life, then, consists in being perfected in love by being ever more perfectly united to God. When we let ourselves be drawn into more and more perfect union with God by His grace, it purifies, strengthens and guides all our other relationships as well.
Think back now to the Pevensie children in Narnia. It was their encounter with Aslan and His redeeming love that ultimately helped them to love each other well. On their own, they too often fell into division, competition and isolation. This is what sin does to us. It ruins our relationships, pulling us away from God, away from each other and away from our true selves. But look what happened when they chose to serve Aslan–all their other relationships were healed, too! I love C.S. Lewis’ image of the four siblings reigning together at the end of the story. This is a beautiful sign of how our earthly relationships can be drawn away from the competition, jealousy, and division that too often plague us. The perfect union of the Trinity can bring all our relationships into a more perfect union. This is what Paul is talking about in the second reading when he encourages us: “Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.” Whatever path God has for us, whether to be married, single, in religious life, or priests, He calls us to be in relationship with others, in union with them. Unless we first allow God to draw us to Him, all those paths can easily twist into selfishness and sin, preventing the self-giving union God intended.
Think of a pile of uncooked spaghetti noodles. If you drop them on a plate, they are a mess, but if you pick them up, they come into place and align together. This is what can happen with all of our other loves when we allow ourselves to be drawn up into the one Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All our other loves are designed to be ordered by God who is Love!
+ God, you are Father, Son and Holy Spirit, draw us into You so that You can order our loves where they have become disordered. Father, thank you for the incredible gift of Jesus which allows us by faith to have access to eternal life in You! Jesus, help us to lean into your abundant grace so that sin can be defeated in our hearts. Holy Spirit, Love of the Father and Son, please purify all those imperfections in us through Your fire. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen. +