Trinity

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

By Rev. Joe McCloskey, S. J.

If Trinity is the greatest of all the mysteries in the Catholic Church, why is so little said about it? I pray to God as God, but rarely pray to God as Trinity. Today as you listen to me understand that I am trying to talk myself into a richer relationship with the Trinity. I pray that some of you already have that relationship so you can teach me.

My problem with Trinity is my knowledge is a head-trip and not a heart trip. I am in need of a lived relationship. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, had a lived relationship. When he saw 3 birds flying together he found the Trinity triggered in his prayer. When he saw three children walking along, he walked with the Trinity. Three trees growing together gave him insight into the rootedness of Trinity in life. Three of anything was the key to unlock his hearts involvement with the greatest mystery of our faith.

Why would God reveal to us the mystery of his life? The answer is almost too simple. Our God is a God of love. Love shares all.
Wherever there is love, God is there. Love brings total sharing. The God of love holds nothing back. Yet God does not force himself on us. A full view of the glory of God would claim our hearts even as it robbed us of our freedom. Love demands freedom. Love offers everything and our freedom in a weird sense gives us power over God. We can turn down God’s love by simply limiting what we accept from God to what we deserve. No one can deserve love. We can only accept it simply and gratefully as we grow in awareness of what love means.

Love means belonging. All God has is shared with the Son. We are invited into the life of God with Jesus. We see that happening with our baptism. We were created in the image and likeness of God. Baptism makes us part of the family of God. What happens to us by our baptism is God comes to dwell within us. We become the Temples of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus had to go that the Spirit could be sent. Our lives are intimately woven into the fabric of the mystery of God. In a special sense we belong to God even as God belongs to us. Indwelling is the counterpoint of the mystery of Trinity. Trinity is the name of God. The Hebrew people would not say the name of God because that would give them power over God. God gives us the special name of his life as he reveals the mystery of Trinity to us. How do we use the power God gives us?

Little is preached about Trinity because it is pure mystery. I know what person means. I know what three persons mean. I do not know how three persons could be one. I know our God is one and I know in Christ that I am one with God. But I do not yet know how I can be one with Christ. Christ comes with all the simplicity of the carpenter of Nazareth. I can put on the mind and the heart of Christ and be his presence here in our world. I can say “Yes” to the question of whether I am willing to be who Christ would have been if he were lucky enough to be me. I can join his family. But until I have learned how to give my life entirely to his people, I am not yet the fullness of Christ I am meant to be.

Family is the human counterpoint to what Trinity means. Total giving, meeting with total receiving, gives us the Holy Spirit. Human family comes the closest to the mystery of God in the giving and the receiving which births the child of love. Family is the word, which touches most fully the mystery of Trinity. It is the image of God’s revelation to us of the mystery of God-life.

Trinity should be our love name for God. My heart should cry Trinity even as the voice of the Spirit in our confusion speaks to Yahweh for us. Trinity should become for us so much more than a word as it allows us to address God in God’s pure essence. Trinity should be the greatest mystery of our faith because it allows us to address God totally in all God is. When our hearts call out Trinity we are truly caught up into the mystery of God and God is ours even as we are God’s children.