Fr Marco Lazzaron
he Most Holy Trinity is one of the most difficult mystery of our Catholic faith to explain. Our mind is accustomed dividing and separating to analyze. It is already difficult to contain two opposites in a single idea: let alone consider having to think of 3 in 1!
Some of the most beautiful representations of the Trinity in the history of art also propose a triple anthropomorphic figure, such as the one above by Andrei Rublev. The Three Persons of the Trinity never hold hands with each other. It might seem strange if we think about the very nature of God, which is love. Loving, in our experience, is touching, embracing, and squeezing the hands and shoulders of the beloved. Why is this distance expressed in God instead? In God, love does not have the connotations of the human. The body is risky: it could suggest attachment and possession without the traits of gratuity typical of authentical love.
In short, I like to think that the Three don’t shake hands so they can have them free and hold them out towards us. All six, we could say. God’s hands are all busy seeking ours, and his tireless and inexhaustible commitment is to seek contact with our hands, always. Not only did the God-man Jesus of Nazareth touch, hold, caress, and heal, but also the Father and the Son and the Spirit from their Eternal home prefer to spend themselves intertwining an authentic relationship with each of us, rather than closing themselves in an impenetrable circle of celestial self-celebration.
The hands and arms of the Three Persons are completely at our disposal, and continually open the possibility of a relationship, for us, miserable but splendid works of their art. Because if we have no means to represent them, they have always made us a masterpiece: remember that we are created in the image and likeness of God himself. So, if we want to admire our beauty and God’s beauty in us, we are invited to learn to manage our hands and arms with the same surprising dynamic. Never use our hands to hurt, kill, judge, condemn, and possess, but to touch, embrace, caress, and squeeze only to give, heal, nurture, feed, and to let the love of God reach our brothers and sisters.
Then, may we not allow ourselves to be disarmed by our doubts as hardened skeptics (as the Apostles) but may we allow God, One and Triune, to love us as we are.