Fr Antonio Pineda
f the world’s monotheistic religions, only Christianity believes in the Trinity. It is unique to us. It is true that the Trinity is hard to understand. How can God be both one and three? How can the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be fully God, and yet distinct persons? Our minds cannot grasp this completely.
And yet, that very fact makes the doctrine of the Trinity ring true. It shows that no merely human mind would have been able to come up with it. And it also shows that God, the Creator of the universe, exists in a way that we, mere creatures, cannot fully understand — and that makes perfect sense: God should exceed our ability to understand him; if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be much of a God.
The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity may seem abstract and impractical. In fact, the opposite is true. The Trinity is the only practical source of hope for humanity in our more and more globalised world. Technology is turning the world into one closely linked community. And within that community, we find different races, religions, traditions, and cultures.
There are two potential dangers here. First, if we let the process of globalisation simply erase the rich diversity of cultures, we will sow seeds of anger, resentment, and revenge in the hearts of nations. Second, if we fail to create real bonds between the different cultures, the globalised world will simply make it easier for different groups to attack each other. In other words, we need both unity and diversity — we need to become one human family with many different cultures.
And we can. We know we can. Because we are created in God’s own image, and he is both one and three; he is perfect unity and perfect diversity. He is an unbreakable communion of persons by his very nature.
And the Church, which creates one unified community from many different peoples through common faith in and obedience to Christ, is proof that this is possible. The Trinity is the source of the human family, it is our goal, and it is our model.
This Trinity Sunday, as we renew our faith in the Triune God, let us ask him to help each one of us build up this Kingdom by living truly in his image, through, as St Paul tells us in the Second Reading: mending our ways, encouraging one another, agreeing with one another, and living in peace.