THE TRINITY

A friend of mine, who's not Catholic, once said to me, I love what the Catholic Church stands for and all the good it does. I would become a Catholic in a flash except that I can't understand the Holy Trinity. It's a mystery to me.

I would bet it's a mystery to all of us. Is there anyone here who has not wondered why we have one God in three persons? But is this any more of a mystery than trying to understand this immense universe of ours, or that the Creator of this incomprehensible universe should become human? Faith and mystery are part and parcel of each other.

No doubt the mystery of three persons/one God can seem even more complicated than Einstein's Theory of Relativity. 

There's a story of a young priest, fresh out of seminary, who, on Trinity Sunday, tried to explain all the doctrinal intricacies, and he went on and on, getting more and more entangled in the complex thinking of theologians. After the homily, an elderly woman leaned over to a friend and said, You know, I've always believed in the Trinity...until now.

Instead of trying to reason our way through the Trinity, we do much better to try to appreciate how the Trinity affects us, and how it helps us relate more closely to God. 

Let’s see how this great truth - the Trinity - affects and helps us.

The Trinity tells us that God is not an isolated being, not some cold, powerful force somewhere out there. On the contrary, the Trinity helps us realize how personal and loving God is. 

The Trinity says God is three persons, all three of them equal. This is indeed a mystery, but at the core it means that God is something like a family, which involves mutual love, relationships, and interaction.

Now this gives us a great insight into God. We can't comprehend how there can be one God in three persons. But we can understand something about what God is like because we all have families.

Best of all, it gives us great comfort to know that while we are not perfect, God still loves us...because we are family. Just as we love our family even though it's not perfect.

This is affirmed in today's gospel: 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. 

Let’s unravel that. First and foremost, we hear, God so loved the world. If we believe nothing else, let us never doubt or forget that God loves us. It is amazing how many of our problems…how many of our sins stem from a lack of feeling loved…from a low self-esteem. We are loved…by God. Period. Nothing in life is more important than this.

Secondly, everyone who believes in him will have life – now and forever! What does it mean to believe? There is a wise saying, Show me how you live and I’ll tell you what you really believe.

Belief must beget action. Certainly belief in God and God's love must mean more than an assent of the mind, such as affirming for example the earth's revolution around the sun, but living with an indifference as to whether the earth goes around the sun or the sun around the earth. 

To believe in something…in someone…must reveal what matters most to us, how we live. It’s a living statement of what we stand for.  

It’s also a challenge and we need to remind ourselves, What do my actions say about what I believe?

I ask you to think about that – today – this week!

What do my actions say about what I believe?

Now it’s not enough to believe…we have to believe in him. Does this mean simply believing in the person of Jesus? If so, what does that say about all the people who have never heard of Jesus? Are they condemned?

Or does it mean to believe in what Jesus stood for: unconditional, self-sacrificing love and mercy, solidarity with the poor, a spirit of generosity, nonviolence and inclusive hospitality?

What do you think makes us most like him…most like God?

Think about that as well – today – this week.

Today’s gospel and the doctrine of the Trinity teach us what kind of God we've got: a loving, living, relational God, who is like a family, whose love spills over to include us as part of God's family, who wants the best for us, and will sacrifice for us...just as we do for our family. That's one way in which this great truth - the Trinity - affects us and helps us relate to God. 

And that also explains what our Church stands for…what we stand for…what we believe, and why we do the good that we do. On that there is no mystery.