Feast Of The Most Holy Trinity
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: June 4, 2023
I am not a believer! During a recent trip with family to Europe I noticed something among many of the people I met. Many would say “I am not a believer.” It is definitely a legitimate position to not believe, in fact, none of us should just believe anything. But, as I heard this I was wondering inside. What do you not believe? Saying that I am not a believer is not very helpful. Do you not believe in anything? What do you not believe in? Which image of God do you not believe in?
To say that I am not a believer is not very meaningful unless you clarify what you do not believe in. There are many images or ways of seeing God that I do not believe.
As Christians, our image of God must be rooted in the Holy Trinity. This is not actually one image of God, but a way of understanding the deep mystery of God. God is a communion of love. God is not a solitary figure, but a living reality of love and connection and relationship.
Therefore, any Christian vision of God should never see God as a terrifying dictator or as an overpowering figure wanting to control our lives. Our Christian vision of God should not be a frightening force whom we need to fear.
A Christian vision of God in the Holy Trinity sees God as a mystery of love. Actually the best description of God found in the early church and New Testament is simply, “God is love.” This is the God who intimately and passionately loves all creation and each one of us. A God, who in coming among us in Jesus, has invited each one of us to enter that communion of love that is the Holy Trinity. Jesus is God opening a door and inviting you in. God is saying to you, come in and join us.
The mystery of the Holy Trinity teaches us that every true experience of love that we have in this life is a glimpse into God. Each experience of true love is grace.
For this reason, any evangelization, any sharing of our faith, can never use fear or power or force to bring people into the faith. Evangelization cannot use manipulation to convince people to enter into the faith. Before we can evangelize any person we must first of all love them. We love them and then we can invite them into the mystery of the loving communion of God.
There have been many images used through the ages to try to express the mystery of the Holy Trinity. One of my favourites is by St. Columban who would compare the Trinity to the depth of the sea. We see only the surface of the sea and so much remains deep below.
Also, with the Trinity, we only glimpse the surface of God and there remains so much deep below the surface that we continue to discover throughout our lives. So much of God remains beyond our sight or experience.
St. Catherine of Siena said something similar in one of her prayers, “Eternal Trinity, you are like a deep sea, in which the more I seek, the more I find; and the more I find, the more I seek you.” Our language cannot express the mystery of the Trinity, there is always more that is beyond anything we can imagine.
I am not a believer. This statement is meaningless unless we clarify what it is that I do not believe. We Catholics when we express our faith in the Holy Trinity are really saying that we believe that God is the mystery of love. We believe that anything we say about God is just touching the surface and that there is so much below the surface that we can never fully grasp.
The sign of the cross says that I believe in the God that I cannot capture or grasp.
