The nature of the Most Holy Trinity was one of the most debated doctrines in the early centuries of the Church. Today’s celebration of the Most Holy Trinity dates back to the 14th century in the Roman liturgical calendar. This celebration gives us the opportunity to ponder the presence of the Most Holy Trinity in our lives of faith and reflect upon the way we honor the Trinity in our lives.
The first important thing to say about the Trinity is that it is a mystery of faith. In our human understanding of things, we will never fully comprehend God’s essence and God’s existence in the three persons of the Trinity. Not even the choirs of angels nor the Blessed Virgin Mary can see God and know God to the fullest extent. Nevertheless, we are all called to explore the mysteries of God in the Most Holy Trinity, which will help us discover the purpose of our lives of faith and better understand our relationship with God.
Think of how we make the sign of the cross at the beginning of Mass and when we pray, invoking the Holy Trinity of God. This tradition of the sign of the cross can be traced to the early Church when Christians would make the sign of the cross on their foreheads using three fingers to represent the Trinity. The words invoking the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were added later. In the early third century, Roman theologian and Christian author Tertullian described the practice in this way: “In all our undertakings — when we enter a place or leave it; before we dress; before we bathe; when we take our meals; when we light the lamps in the evening; before we (go to sleep) at night; when we sit down to read; before each new task — we trace the sign of the cross on our foreheads.”
This mystery of God as the Trinity of three person is a model for us of what our human community can be and should be: a community of love. Just as the three persons of the holy Trinity are united in love, we, who are created in the image of God, are called to live in love with one another. This love goes deeper than our human emotions. This love is the very life of God in us, for God is his very essence is love and everyone who abides in love abides in God and God in them. Of the three cardinal virtues, which are faith, hope and love, it is love that makes us more like unto God.
God the Father created the world out of love. God continues to hold the world in existence because of love. Jesus Christ, the son, came into the world out of God’s love of humanity; Jesus gave his life in obedience to God the Father as proof of God’s love for humanity. The Holy Spirit, who reflects the love between the Father and the Son, animates the world and pours out God’s love into our human hearts. When we love sincerely, we are manifesting the presence of God in our hearts.
Even though I described the Holy Trinity as a mystery of faith, the Trinity is not first and foremost a theological concept we try to define or analyze, but, rather is is God as a community of persons that we are invited to know and in which we can have a relationship. And that relationship is not defined by intellectual deduction, but rather in the prayerful union we can have in God. Though theology and doctrine are important parts of our faith, the essence of God is beyond these theological and intellectual concepts.
As I just got back from the Camino pilgrimage a few weeks ago, as I spent the majority of my time in Spain hiking a pilgrimage route, I think of the ways I experienced God in my time outside hiking on the pilgrimage trail. As my time serving as a priest is so filled with busy days and so many things to get done, praying and feeling myself in union with God and feeling his presence in nature and on the pilgrimage route is such a profound experience for me, which is one of the reasons I love the camino so much. In contemplating the Holy Trinity, we need to be open to those mystical experience that open ourselves up to the mystery of God.
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