As Catholics, the Trinity is mentioned so often at Mass and in our sacraments of the Church and in the ways we talk about God, that we might take the concept of the Trinity for granted and not really think about what the Trinity really means for us. A good place to start in approaching the Trinity today is the Gospel, in which Jesus talks about the relationships within the Trinity from his perspective. He talks about his relationship to the Father, about Jesus as the Son who has everything that the Father has. He speaks about his relationship to the Spirit, who he sent to us to help guide us in God's truth. We can start by saying that the Trinity is all about relationship, about how God dwells in a state of being as three persons and how God dwells in his relationship with us.
Most of you know that last week, I went on a mission trip with Bishop Kopacz to Saltillo, Mexico. To be honest, with all I have going on in my life as a priest right now, I almost cancelled going on this trip. But, spending the week in the missions and meeting the people and experiencing the mission work we support as a Diocese was so edifying and energizing for my spirit, even though it was a very busy and jam-packed week. I think of how in 1969, in the midst of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War and a lot of social unrest in turmoil in Mississippi and in the United States, Father Patrick Quinn of our Diocese had the dream and vision of being missionaries in Mexico. On our trip last week was Monsignor Mike Thornton, a retired priest from Biloxi, who spent 11 years of his priesthood at the Saltillo missions. As I posted photos of last week’s trip to Saltillo on Facebook, I received comments from many adults who went on mission trips there, mostly as teenagers or college students, of how that trip was such an important part of their journey of faith. In the summer of 2004, before I even started seminary, I was the lead chaperone on a Diocesan youth trip to Saltillo that included Miss Val and some of the youth from St Jude. I went three different times with the youth down there and have such wonderful memories of those trips. Our continued support of the missions and the faithfulness of our Diocese and the legacy of so many priests and lay people from Mississippi who contributed over the years still make this ministry possible.
So, why would I bring up the mission trip to Mexico in our celebration of the Trinity? I do so because the reality of our lives and our faith helps us better understand how the Trinity lives within us and has an impact on us. The Trinity is indeed a mystery of faith, but we can still delve into this mystery in our human understanding of things. Theologically, we talk of God as three persons in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but they are not persons in the same psychological sense that we think of ourselves as persons and as human beings. In terms that might make sense to us, we can think of God as the Trinity in 3 distinct ways of being, subsisting, and existing. God subsists as the Father, the creator and source of all that is in the world. God subsists as the Son, the Divine Word who reaches out to the human race as our means of redemption and salvation. God subsists as the Holy Spirit, as God’s love and mercy that unifies us with the essence of God in our redemption and in God’s creation.
We can get bogged down in the theological concepts of the Trinity, finding it difficult to grasp. But, the Trinity is a reality, a mystery, and an essential element of faith. The reality of the Trinity challenges us and provokes our curiosity. But the Trinity should not just be seen as a theological doctrine that we need to grasp in its entirety in order for us to enter the Kingdom of God both here on earth and in the eternal life to come. Rather, in our life of faith, the Trinity is a practical doctrine for us that helps us understand God and helps us live out a Christian life. As we try to understand the Trinity and the community of three persons in the Trinity, as we try to understand the reality of the Trinity, we will grow in our faith and we will be moved to reach out to others out of our faith. I think of how the Apostles, in their simple belief in the Trinity, were able to reach past their comfort zone and to bring the Gospel message to the corners of the earth as they were still learning about their faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God the Father. I think of the Church fathers in the early centuries of the faith such as Athanasius, Agustin of Hippo, Justin Martyr, Origen of Alexandria, Irenaeus of Lyons, and Tertullian who worked to understand the Trinity and who defended the Trinity against the heresies of the day. In that same way, we may think of all the needs and evangelization and work we have to do in our parishes and in our Diocese, but our mission is still to reach out to others in the faith, those beyond our own little corner of the world which we have done these past 53 years in our mission work in Saltillo, Mexico. So, with great joy in our hearts, may we see our celebration of the Most Holy Trinity today as providing an opportunity to reflect upon the reality of God, to participate in the life of God through the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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