I read in a recent science magazine article that 99% of the deep ocean bed remains undiscovered. Oceans cover 71% percent of the earth’s surface and they house 99% of the earth’s biosphere. This means that many of our planet’s living organisms are not yet known to us. Similarly, humans only know 5 percent of the universe. Scientists tell us that 70% of the universe is made up of dark energy and 25% of the universe is dark matter. Just 5% of the universe is ordinary matter — your family, your house, your car, your body and organs, the food you eat, the animal world, the air and the sea, the sun, the moon, and the galaxies. Everything we know — everything we see — is just 5% of everything in the universe. To make it all more intriguing, this universe is expanding but also accelerating. Despite the technological advancements of the last century, even with computers at our fingertips and the worldwide internet and space-based observatories mapping the far reaches of our universe, there is still so much that we don’t understand.
How is all this related to the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity? Here is my thought. If we know only 1% of the deep ocean bed and only 5% of the universe, what can we say about the God, who we believe, created it all? Often religions debate about God and how their idea of God is the real truth and how they possess the fullness of all truth. But if we put together all the knowledge of God from all the religions, how much do we know about God?
Does this mean that we cannot know anything about God? Of course we can. Just as we can say things with certainty about the universe, about which we know so little, there are some things we can know with certainty about God. One of the things we say is that God is Trinity – one God but three persons. In Christian theology, there isn’t another topic about which more is written than the Trinity. Yet, despite the best of our understanding of God as Trinity, what can be said seems so little. So then, I merely want to say three things in relation to the Trinity.
God is Eternal
God is Eternal. The first reading today is taken from the book of Wisdom. Wisdom says, “When the Lord established the heaven, I was there” (Prov 8:27). Wisdom is eternal, as is God. In the Christian Tradition, Wisdom is associated with the Holy Spirit. Often, Jesus is also referred to as the Wisdom of God. The point of the reading, though, is that Wisdom, whether we think of Wisdom as the Holy Spirit or Jesus or both, was present with God before creation. It is scripture’s way of saying that God is eternal.
The word ‘eternal’ is a common word, but it is hard to wrap our minds around the concept. As human beings, we cannot comprehend reality without space and time. For example, the Mass has a beginning and an end. That is the only way we can understand it. We cannot understand a Mass with no beginning or end. So too with human lives, the earth and all around it. Reality as we know it, the earth, all of creation, the entire solar system and beyond has a beginning and an end. One day, all of creation will be no more. Only God will be forever for God is eternal.
God is Relational
God is relational. If there is anything that our understanding of God as Trinity tells us, it is that God is relational. The relationality between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is seen in today’s gospel reading. Even as Jesus speaks about the coming of the Holy Spirit, he also says, “Everything the Father has is mine” (Jn 16:15). The picture we get is one of relational harmony and mutuality between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But the relationship between the three persons is not an inward-looking relationship.
St. Bonaventure uses the concept of fontalis plenitudo or “fountain of fullness” to the relational dimension of the Trinity. The “fontalis plenitudo” refers to the Father as the fountain of all divine being, the source from which the Son is generated and the Holy Spirit is spirated. In a self-diffusing effect, the love in the Trinity flows out into the created world. All the beauty, the splendor, the intricacy, the sheer genius we see in creation is a reflection of the Trinitarian relationship. At the center of creation is the human person. This is beautifully expressed in the very last phrase of today’s first reading. Wisdom says, “and I found delight in the human race” (Prov 8:31).
For that matter, all of creation history and salvation history as we know it is a result of God’s relationship between the Father, Son, and Spirit and with humanity. God sent Jesus who gave us the Holy Spirit and we are now drawn into the relationship between the persons of the Trinity. We are invited into the Trinitarian relationship. God, the Trinity is relational.
God is Love
God is eternal, God is relational, but most of all, God is love. Today’s second reading says, “The love of God has been poured into our hearts…” (Rom 5:5). When Pope Francis visited the United States in 2015, he told the story about a child who asked him, “What did God do before creating the world?” He admitted that he initially felt a bit tongue-tied, but then he responded, “Before God created the world, God loved. That’s what God was doing. God was loving.” He then added that this love was so great, it had to be shared with others, which is why God created the world.
The entire Christian theology and our faith revolves around the simple idea that God is love, that God has loved us, and that we are invited to love God with all our being. And one more thing — that we are also invited to love one another as God has loved us.
The bottom line is this. If the Trinitarian life is eternal, relational, and all-loving, and if the created world is a reflection of the Trinitarian dynamic, and if human beings are formed in the Trinitarian image, then the life we live on earth is the Trinitarian life. The practical implication of celebrating the feast of the Holy Trinity is that our individual, family, parish, societal, and global life is a reflection of the Triune God. We see this lived out most realistically in the person of Jesus Christ. He came to show us how we can live the life of the Trinity on earth.
It is in the Eucharist that the eternal, relational, and loving nature of the Triune God is most beautifully celebrated. God sends the Holy Spirit and makes Jesus present to us body, soul, and divinity. As we receive the bread and wine, we not only receive Jesus the entire life of the Triune God is renewed and sustained in us. We are drawn into the life and love of the Trinity. May our participation in the life of the Trinity help us be relational people, loving people, and a people on the way to eternal life. Amen.
Image: Ethiopian Icon of the Trinity. By A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest – The Holy Trinity. Uploaded by Elitre, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21919659
Fr. Satish Joseph was ordained in India in 1994 and incardinated into the archdiocese of Cincinnati in 2008. He has a Masters in Communication and Doctorate in Theology from the University of Dayton. He is presently Pastor at Immaculate Conception and St. Helen parishes in Dayton, OH. He is also the founder Ite Missa Est ministries (www.itemissaest.org) and uses social media extensively for evangelization. He is also the founder of MercyPets (www.mercypets.org) — a charitable fund that invites pet-owners to donate a percent of their pet expenses to alleviate child hunger. MercyPets is active in four countries since its founding in December 2017. Apart from serving at the two parishes, he facilitates retreats, seminars and parish missions.
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