Holy Trinity Sunday

St. Mary Roman Catholic Church

New Britain, Connecticut

Fr. Salvatore Rosa

Instead of beginning Mass with the sign of the Cross, Father X stood before the congregation on Trinity Sunday, and said “In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier. Amen.” Why did he do that? Couple of reasons:

§ He thought the doctrine of the Trinity wasn’t very practical or relevant. He was looking for a way to make the Trinity more meaningful to people;

§ He thought that the word “Father” was sexist, and he wanted to be fair to women, so he didn’t want to call God “Father”.

So, he began Mass that Trinity Sunday, “In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier, Amen.”

Poor Father X. He didn’t realize it, but he was taking a step backwards, not forwards. Instead of making God more relevant or meaningful, he was ignoring the greatest mystery of God, the mystery of the family that God is in Himself, the mystery of God’s inner life, which is altruistic love.

In Himself, in His inner life, God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Three persons but one God. From all eternity, before time began, God is always Triune. However, God is not always Creator. He only becomes the Creator when He creates, when He makes the Cosmos, the Universe. Before that, the term Creator does not apply. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, is not always the Redeemer, He only becomes the Redeemer by dying on the Cross to save us.The same is true of the term sanctifier. The Spirit becomes the Sanctifier when He is poured out upon the world at Pentecost. Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier are terms that apply to God in His relationship to us, once time began. But Father, Son, and Spirit are an expression of who God is in Himself from all eternity, alone and beyond the world, before the dawn of time.

Jews, Muslims, and Christians believe there is one God. But Christians leave Jews and Muslims behind by saying the One God is three persons. To Jews and Muslims, the Trinity is totally illogical and even blasphemous.

Is the Father God? Yes. Is the Son God? Yes. Is the Holy Spirit God? Yes. Are they three separate persons? Yes. So then, you are saying there are really three Gods? No. There is one divinity, one divine essence, one God. But each of the separate, distinct persons is totally and equally God.

That doesn’t make sense. How can they be one if they are three? Why not say there is one God in three parts. The Father is one third God, the Son is one third God, the Spirit is one third God, and altogether the three of them make one God? How can each be God wholly and entirely if the other two are also? How can there be one God if each of the three is God? How can you believe such nonsense? That is how the Trinity looks to Jew and Muslim.

We believe in the Trinity not because our minds can make sense of it. We believe in the Trinity for three reasons:

§ Because we believe in the Incarnation. Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God becomes a man, and He reveals to us that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that He and the Father are one, and that they send their Spirit of love upon us. The Trinity is not our definition of God, but His revelation of Himself in Christ.

§ The Holy Spirit elevates and enlightens our minds with the gift of faith so that we an go beyond the limits of reason and believe in mystery of the Trinity. The Spirit of God alone searches the unfathomable depths of God, and gives us the vision of faith to look into those depths.

§ We believe in the Trinity because it is mystery. To call the Trinity “mystery” is not to say it is a puzzle. A puzzle has a solution. Given enough time and patience it can be solve, figured out. God is beyond solution, beyond explanation.

Albert Einstein, the great scientist, was also a great believer in mystery, in a reality above and beyond our mind’s ability to comprehend it. Einstein defined mystery this way: “Mystery is the perception of a reality whose inner operation exceeds the ability of our minds to explain.” Coming from a scientist, that’s not bad. A theologian would have a hard time putting it any better.

The Trinity is inaccessible to the human mind. No way to get to it. It is incomprehensible. Even if we somehow got access to it by ourselves, we could never comprehend it. It is inconceivable. Our mind doesn’t have the tools to express in human concepts God’s inner being of three and one. It is unfathomable. Even when we are in God’s embrace in eternity we will never hit bottom or plumb the depth of the Triune God.

Pope John Paul II has this to say about the Trinity: “God in His deepest mystery is not a solitude but a family, since He has in Himself Fatherhood, Sonship, and the essence of the Family, which is love.”

The Father pours Himself out in love. That outpouring of love is Son. Son and Father love each other, and that living love between them is the Holy Spirit.

God is Trinity because He is love. Love requires twoness, in fact, threeness : lover, beloved, and the relationship of love between them. God is Trinity because He is love in all its completeness.

Some practical applications of the Trinity:

§ Genuine love is altruistic, not egotistic. God is other-love, because otherness is built into who He is. He cannot be Himself without giving Himself away. Nor can we, who are made to His image and likeness, be ourselves without giving ourselves always in love to someone else.

§ Marriage and family are sacred in God’s eyes because they are designed and patterned after who He is. He is a permanent and eternal community of love. He has so made us that we come into the world as part of a family, learn how to live and love in a family, grow and commit ourselves to another person for life in order to form a family of our own, and we will one day leave this world behind to be part of God’s family in Heaven. With the rest of God’s children, we who were born as creatures of time into a human family, will be included in the embrace of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for all eternity.

The Trinity is very practical because it shows us that family, human and divine, is what our life is all about. Trinity is our origin, purpose, and destiny.

Top

[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Weekly Bulletin ] [ News ] [ Gospel ] [ Prayer ] [ Sacrament ] [ Religious education ] [ Gallery ]