mystery

The_Holy_Trinity

I Am Not A Believer

The Holy TR

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.

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Holy Trinity

The Trinity: Diverse But United

Holy Trinity

Trinity Sunday

Fr. Paul Patrick, O.M.I.

Posted: May 29, 2021

  • Intro:

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday. This Sunday was formally added to the Church’s liturgical calendar in the year 1334 by Pope John XXII. It stands out among many of the other special days which we celebrate in the Church since it is not linked to any specific historical or theological event. It is instead a day not unlike a birthday: a day in which we celebrate a person and reflect on our relationship with them. In celebrating Trinity Sunday we celebrate God in 3 Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit and reflect on our relationship with God.

  • What is the Trinity?

It is important to realize that the Trinity is not a logical explanation of God. It is rather a description of who we know God to be. It is a mystery which we can appreciate, even while failing to understand it. The Church teaches us that God is 3 persons in one nature: in other words, that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit together are God. Anything more or less than that is mere speculation on our part.

  • Relationship between the Trinity and the Church:

I had a Jesuit professor at the Gregorian University who used this quote from the French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery (b.1900) to help understand the relationship of the Trinity to the Church: “If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

The relationship we as a living Church have with God in the Trinity is in some sense a longing to deepen and explore the unknown. This endless mystery draws us in and fascinates us. The desire to know and deepen our relationship with God is ultimately what drives our “shipbuilding” or our life of faith in the Church.

  • What can meditating on the Trinity teach us?

In today’s Gospel according to St. Matthew, we read about the Great Commission (Mt 28:16-20). In this scene, the disciples are sent to all nations (cf. Mt 28:18). This command is preceded by a revelation (cf. Mt 28:17) and followed by a promise (cf. Mt 28:20) all of which are prefaced by the word “all” giving it universality. Jesus has been given all authority, the disciples are to preach the Gospel and make disciples of all nations, and Jesus will be with His followers through the Holy Spirit all the days.

This universality of the Trinity – which St. Paul speaks about in today’s 2nd reading allows us to recognize God as our Father and to recognize that just as the Trinity are diverse Persons, they are united by the bond of love (cf. Rm 8:14-17). This unity in the midst of diversity is what every baptized Christian is called to. We are all diverse and quite different as individuals, but we are all united and are all one people through our faith.

Thus, Trinity Sunday celebrates what we know to be true: God does not live in isolation but rather in a community of love, a community of relationship. God by His nature is not a recluse. The Trinity inspires us to develop a personal theology which does not run from others into isolation but rather one which seeks to build communion with society. Following the Most Holy Trinity leads us to a worldview which seeks not to retreat away from the world but rather enter into it, with a mind set on transforming what is dark and negative into light and truth through the power of love.

 

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