HOLY TRINITY: Dt 4:32-34, 39-40; Rom 8:14-17; Mt 28:16-20

The first Sunday after Pentecost is Holy Trinity Sunday. We may not completely understand the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity, but we believe. The words of the Athanasian Creed says: "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God." Jesus knew very well that the disciples and his listeners were not able to understand the meaning of his message. Jesus expressed it in today's Gospel: "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now." Jesus revealed himself to the people gradually and as understandable to them. First He taught them to recognize in Himself the Eternal Son of God. When His ministry was drawing to a close, He promised that the Father would send another Divine Person, the Holy Spirit, in His place. Finally after His resurrection, He revealed the doctrine in explicit terms, bidding them "go and teach all  nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Mt 28:18).

 

With this doctrine, God has revealed to us that he is not infinite loneliness, but infinite love, infinite relationship of self-giving. If God was only one person how would God be infinite love before He created the world? Because, there was nobody else other than the God who exists in one person. This is where we can say the Islamic concept of one God in one person is not sensible. Such a God existing in one person cannot be Love. He had no one to love other than Himself. He would have been infinite loneliness and infinite monoteness. But if He is one God in three persons he would be a community and be infinite love. Richard of St. Victor said: If God is Good he has to be one. (There is only one Good, i.e. God.  Jesus said to the young man who asked Him: Good teacher what shall I do to inherit eternal life. Why do you call me Good. There is only one who is Good).

If God is LOVE he has to be two. Because love has to go out of oneself to another. If God is joy he has to be three. Joy is what originates when two people share love each other. Just like when a loving couple share their love, a new child is born. Father and the Son love so intensely each other that their love becomes a Person, Holy Spirit. They love each other and give each other.

We say that the Son and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father: We can think of this as light and heat two different things coming from the one source : a flame. But all the three are different things, not one thing. Flame is not heat, heat is not light and vice versa. The same way Father is not the Son, not the Son the Holy Spirit or the Father. God's eternal dynamic happiness flows from that communion of love. The one divine nature exists fully and simultaneously in three divine Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

The Trinitarian doctrine says that the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are different from each other yet one God. Just think of one molecule of water that is composed of two Hydrogen atoms and one Oxygen atom. Hydrogen is not Oxygen, nor oxygen the same as hydrogen. But when they come together it becomes one molecule of water. Same way Father is not the Son nor the Son the Father or the Holy Spirit. But all the three are one God.

The Trinity is actually the most practical of all divine concepts, because it reveals the meaning of our life. We are created in God's image. God does not exist in isolated individualism but in a community of relationships.  Therefore man can live, grow and find fulfillment only in and through society. St. Paul tells us that God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the indwelling Holy Spirit. The celebration of the mystery of Holy Trinity reminds us that we have to grow in unity like the perfect Unity that exists in Trinity.

 

The importance of this doctrine lies in this:  we are made in the image of God, therefore, the more we understand God the more we can understand ourselves.  

Just as God is God only in a Trinitarian relationship, so we can be fully human only as one member of a relationship of three partners.  The self needs to be in a horizontal relationship with all other people and in a vertical relationship with God.  In that way our life is Trinitarian like that of God. 

We belong to the Family of the Triune God.  The love, unity, and joy in the relationship among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit should be the supreme model of our relationships within our Christian families.  Our families become truly Christian when we live in a relationship of love with God and with others.

May God, The Father, Son and Holy Spirit shower their blessings on us and help us to strengthen our bond of unity, love and peace.