A reflection on the readings for May 26, 2024, Trinity Sunday.
“And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the essence, for there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal.”
-Athanasian Creed
Sometimes, in our attempts to explain or understand the Trinity, we tie ourselves in knots. It is a dogma of our faith that makes preachers sweat, students scratch their heads, and skeptics scoff. But the Trinity is neither an unapproachable enigma nor an unsolvable math equation. The problem is that the Trinity isn’t like anything else. I like using analogies in homilies and theological discourse, as did Jesus, but there isn’t one here. The Trinity is not like a clover, it is not like an apple, and it is not like the three states of water. We inevitably miss something when we attempt to explain or understand the Trinity using ground-up analogies. We can, however, approach the Trinity from the opposite direction. Instead of asking how the Trinity is like the world, ask how the world is like the Trinity.
The entire created world is relational at its heart. People, places, and things can be defined and better understood by their relationships with other people, places, and things. It forms what they are.
The notion of an animal species is not some Platonic form floating in the ether, it exists to describe the degree of relationship between two groups of creatures. Plants exist in relation to the water that gives them life and the soil in which they grow. Rocks are just big balls of relations between elements—Silicon, Oxygen, Iron, etc. At the largest scale of Creation, a planet is a planet because of its relationship with the star it orbits. And what is a galaxy but a massive group of objects in a complex relationship with a supermassive black hole? At the smallest scale, the relationship between electrons is so intense that they are capable of interacting across unimaginable distances. And the crown jewel of Creation, human beings, are given meaning by relationships with their civilizations, their communities, their families, and their God. This intricate web of relationships mirrors the very essence of the Trinity, highlighting the unity and harmony that underpins all of Creation.
Creation, in its beautiful web of relationships, reflects its creator, the Trinity. God the Father speaks and eternally begets the Word, God the Son, and with the divine breath eternally proceeds God the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is eternal and infinite love, love of the Father for the Son, a love so powerful that it is the Holy Spirit. An infinite, eternal, and magnificent dance of divine relationship. It is so much more beautiful and meaningful than a cold, distant man sitting on a cloud. God is Three and One, eternally dynamic, eternally in relation.
What does that mean for us? It means that when we live lives of justice and love, when we live lives in relation with God and others, we are not merely following commandments; we are restoring the balance of Creation. We are echoing the action of the Trinity in the world and together with Creation. Because God is not static but dynamic. God is Trinity and Unity. God is love. And we, as His Creation, created in His image, are called to reflect and embody this love in our lives. God is not like anything in the universe, but every atom of Creation is called to be like Him.
Image: “Sancta Trinitas” (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Lawrence OP
Fr. Alex Roche is the pastor of St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church in Laflin, Pennsylvania and serves as the director of vocations for the Diocese of Scranton. Ordained in 2012, he has a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Lateran University. He went to college with a girl who went to high school with the niece of the guy who played Al in Quantum Leap.
You can listen to his podcast at www.wadicherith.com.
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