The Trinity- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is love
Rev. Divine Emeka Augustine, CSsR
St. Francis of
June 19, 2011
The story is told of St Augustine of Hippo, a great philosopher and theologian. He was preoccupied with the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. He wanted so much to understand the doctrine of three persons in one God and to be able to explain it logically. One day he was walking along the sea shore and reflecting on this matter. Suddenly, he saw a little child all alone on the shore. The child made a whole in the sand, ran to the sea with a little cup, filled her cup with sea water, ran up and emptied the cup into the hole she had made in the sand. Back and forth she went to the sea, filled her cup and came and poured it into the hole. Augustine drew up and said to her, “Little child, what are you doing?”
She replied, “I am trying to empty the sea into this hole.” “How do you think that you can empty this immense sea into this tiny hole and with this tiny cup?” Augustine asked her. Then she fired back, “And you, how do you suppose that with your small head you can comprehend the immensity of God?” With that the child disappeared.
Dearest beloved, today we celebrate one of the deepest mysteries of our faith: the fact that God is a Trinity of persons. While many faiths worship one God, only Christians believe that God is three distinct persons sharing one life- the divine life. We believe in the Father and the Son being one. The love between them overflows, becoming a third person, the Holy Spirit. This means that our God does not exist alone or in isolation; the essence of God is a continual relationship with all three persons, living in a perfectly intimate, unending communion of love.
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is about the inner relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It teaches us that each of them is fully and equally God, yet there are no three Gods but one. Now, if we expected today’s readings to give us a clear and elaborate presentation of the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, we have found out that they simply do not. The doctrine of three persons in one God, equal in divinity yet distinct in personality, is not explicitly spelt out in the Bible. In fact the very word “Trinity” is not found in the Bible. Early Christians arrived at the doctrine when they applied their God-given reason to the revelation which they had received in faith. Jesus spoke about the Father who sent him (the Son) and about the Holy Spirit whom he was going to send. He said that the Father had given him (the Son) all that he has and that he in turn has given to the Holy Spirit all that he has received from the Father. In this we see the unity of purpose among the three persons of the Trinity.
In the story of salvation we usually attribute creation to the Father, redemption to the Son and sanctification to the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, though they are distinct as persons, neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit ever exists or acts in isolation from the other two persons of the Godhead.
Like Augustine we may not be able to understand the how of the Trinity but I think it is very important to understand the why. Why did God reveal to us this mystery regarding the very nature of the Supreme Being? The importance of this doctrine lies in this: we are made in the image of God, therefore, the more we understand God the more we understand ourselves. Experts in religion tell us that people always try to be like the god they worship. People who worship a warrior god tend to be war-mongering, people who worship a god of pleasure tend to be pleasure-seeking, people who worship a god of wrath tend to be vengeful, and people who worship a god of love tend to be loving and lovable. Like a god, so the worshippers. Therefore, the more important question for us to ask today is: What does the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity tell us about the kind of God we worship and what does this say about the kind of people we should be? On this, I have two points to share with you.
(1) God does not exist in solitary individualism but in a community of love and sharing. God is not a loner. This means that a Christian in search of Godliness must shun every tendency to isolationism. Isolation can lead to loneliness and loneness, that is, alone from self, from God and from others. We become who God created us to be when we are in a relationship with God and with the people of God.
(2) True love requires three partners. You remember the old saying “Two is company, three is a crowd.” The Trinity shows us that three is community, three is love at its best; three is not a crowd. Taking an example from the human condition we see that when a man A is in love with a woman B they seal the love by producing a baby C. Father, mother and child -- love when perfected becomes a trinity.
We are made in God’s image and likeness. Just as God is God only in a Trinitarian relationship, so we can be fully human only in a relationship of three partners. The self needs to be in a horizontal relationship with others and a vertical relationship with God. In that way our life becomes Trinitarian like that of God. Then we discover that the so-called “I-and-I” principle of unchecked individualism which is acceptable in modern society leaves much to be desired. The doctrine of the Blessed Trinity challenges us to adopt rather an I-and-God-and-neighbor principle. I am a Christian insofar as I live in a relationship of love with God and other people. In striving to survive in this fast changing world, the Christian should realize that he or she does not exist alone. Whatever good one desires is equally desired by many others. The principle of I and I results in selfishness. While the principle of I and others results in live and let’s live. Instead of selfishness, we have self-giving and sacrifice. In Matthew 20: 28 Jesus says that “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Now, the God who revealed himself as Trinity is love. 1 John 4:8 says that God is love. And in today’s gospel says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” God sent Jesus into the world to reveal God to the world, so that by believing in him, the people of the world will be saved. It is in the person of Jesus that we come to a full understanding of who God is. It is Jesus who reveals God to us as a heavenly Father; his Father, and our Father. It is Jesus who shows himself to be the Son of that Father, and ourselves as his sisters and brothers. It is Jesus who promised to send the Holy Spirit as a gift from his Father and himself so that they might make their home within us. In word and action, Jesus teaches us the truth about God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, something we could never fully understand by reasoning alone.
All great people have had their favorite texts. But John 3:16 is everybody’s text. John 3:16 tells us that the initiative in all salvation lies with God. Sometimes some Christians present Christianity as if God had to be pacified and persuaded before he can forgive. Sometimes God is presented as a stern, mean, angry and unforgiving God, and at the same time Jesus is presented as a gentle, loving, forgiving person. We may even have heard a Christian message that sounds as if Jesus did something unusual that changed the attitude of God to humans from condemnation to forgiveness. But John 3:16 says it was God that started it all. It was God who sent his Son, and he sent him because he loved men and women. At the back of everything is the love of God.
John 3:16 also tells us that God’s essence and being is love. It is always easy to think of God as a city cop who hides in a corner just to catch us over-speeding away from him. It is easy to think of God as a monitor who looks and sees our rebellious attitudes and disobedience and saying, “I will bring them to justice; I will punish them until they come back to me.” It is easy to think of God as someone who wants our allegiance and obedience just to satisfy his own desire for power. But the wonderful thing about John 3:16 is that it shows us God acting not for his own sake, but for ours, not to satisfy his desire for power, but to satisfy his love. God is not like an absolute monarch who treats his people as subjects to be reduced to abject obedience. God is the Father who cannot be happy until his wandering children have all returned home. He does not smash us into submission; rather he yearns and woos us with his love.
John 3:16 also tells us of the width and breadth of the love of God. It was the world, the entire world that God so loved. It wasn’t only a nation; it wasn’t only the good people; it wasn’t only the people that loved him; it is the world- East, West, South and North. God loves the unlovable and the unlovely; the lonely and the despised; the man who loves God and the man who never thinks of him, the woman who rests in the love of God and the woman who spurns it. Everybody is included in this vast, limitless and inclusive love of God. According to
God loves you; God loves me. The God who is Trinity is love. Do you seek love, come to him today and be loved.
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