living the mystery of the trinity

 Every Sunday after Pentecost we have the celebration of Trinity Sunday, a tradition that goes back to the 14th century to focus on our most fundamental teaching of our faith – our belief in One God in Three Persons. The Trinity will always be a mystery.  We can’t comprehend fully what this means.  We’ll only be able to understand it hopefully when we see God face-to-face in Heaven, but we believe in the Trinity because of everything Jesus has revealed to us about God. It’s important for us to have this feast day of the Most Holy Trinity to remind us that we need to reflect on this great mystery because the more we reflect on who God is the more we are drawn to God. 
 
For a majority of us if we were asked who is God, our first answer would be what Jesus taught us about God in John’s Gospel – God is love.  “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).  As we know, everything about God is love. He loves us.  He created us because of His love. He will never stop loving us. When we look at Jesus, everything he said, everything he taught, what he did for us, was entirely motivated because of his love for us. And so, God is love. Going back to our mystery about the Trinity, it only makes sense then that, if God is love, God has to be a communion of persons. Can you love if you were the only person? No. You need another person to love. And so, for God, it means God can’t just be one Person. God had to have someone to love, and someone to love for all eternity.  
 
This is where we come in. Why did God create me?  If God has this perfect love shared in communion with three Persons, what was the point of creating me?  The easiest, but really the most profound answer is that God wants to share His love. Love is not meant to be kept to oneself.  When you love someone you don’t hold on to that person so tightly, as if you possess that person in a selfish way, but love is meant to be poured out so others can see it and be a part of it.  That’s what God wants to do. He wants to introduce us into the mystery of His love. And despite the fact that we constantly turn away from it, reject this invitation because of our sins, God doesn’t stop trying.  “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” 
 
So, how do we accept this invitation from God, how do we enter into that relationship? Jesus tells us how, “Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”  St. Paul in our Second Reading at Mass today says the same thing, “Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love will be with you.”

Even though we can’t understand this mystery of the Trinity, we can live it out – to live our lives that reflects the mystery of God’s love, where it’s not all about me, but genuinely concerned about our neighbor. Not being selfish and possessive, but selfless and charitable. Not being angry and holding grudges, but forgiving and being compassionate, and by living our lives that reflects this great mystery of the Trinity, we can get a taste of that divine love of the Trinity.