When many of us hear the word “Trinity,” we call to mind images of Saint Patrick and shamrocks to illustrate the three Persons in one God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) that make up the mystery of the Trinity. And while historically, that has been used to simplify a complicated subject, our adult musings on this foundation of our faith deserve to be revisited from time to time.
Thankfully, the Sunday following Pentecost is set aside for just that: Trinity Sunday.
Occasionally, I have heard priests joke about the monumental task of preaching to this magnificent and vast subject that is not fully comprehensible to created beings like us. And yet, there is a thirst to know and love God Who is Three-in-One. In no small part because we are created in the image and likeness of this God.
Any time we encounter Scripture, we are reminded of Who God is, and how God interacts with the created world, whether through the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Gospels, or Revelation. The penetrating and unchanging love of God for each of us rings out. Certainly, this Sunday is not the only time we acknowledge the Trinity, but it is an important opportunity to be reminded of its breadth. So where do we begin?
Scripture as a Roadmap
A great place to begin a conversation about how we have come to know God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is within Scripture. While the word “Trinity” cannot be found in Scripture, the Church’s doctrine of the Trinity that defines God as One Nature and Three Persons developed over the course of history as a way of safeguarding and explaining what has been revealed in Scripture and Tradition. The Church has often used words—such as Trinity, nature, and Persons—that are not in Scripture to help us understand the truths revealed in it.
Here are some of the places where we find the Trinity mentioned in Scripture:
- Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness . . .” // Genesis 1:26
- Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. // Isaiah 7:14
- “The Father and I are one.” // John 10:30
- And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” // Matthew 3:16-17
- “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” // John 14:26
- “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” // Matthew 28:19-20
Words Matter
“The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God.” // Council of Toledo XI, quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church § 253
The doctrine of the Trinity was established at the Council of Nicea in 325, but conversation about how to understand it and describe it continued. The way we speak about this mystery can (and has) gotten messy. Many heresies stem from the oversimplified or short-sighted description of God as a Trinity. We have a long and important history of trying to engage this topic and finding that our words can fall short of such a complex reality.
The Trinity Models Relationship
So much of how we have come to know God is through relationship, which is the heart of the Trinity, as it is a community of Persons. In Scripture, we can read about God’s relationship with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God’s relationship with the Israelites during the Exodus, God’s relationship with humanity through the Incarnation, and God’s relationship with the Apostles and the Church before, during, and after the Crucifixion. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit desire faithful relationship from us and demonstrate community with each other.
The 'name' of the Most Holy Trinity is in a certain way impressed upon everything that exists, because everything that exists, down to the least particle, is a being in relation, and thus God-relation shines forth, ultimately creative Love shines forth. All comes from love, tends toward love, and is moved by love, naturally, according to different grades of consciousness and freedom [. . .] The strongest proof that we are made in the image of the Trinity is this: only love makes us happy, because we live in relation, and we live to love and be loved [. . .] Borrowing an analogy from biology, we could say that the human 'genome' is profoundly imprinted with the Trinity of God who is Love." // Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, June 7, 2009
The Trinity is a Mystery
We are not always comfortable with Mystery. So much information is at our fingertips that we grow impatient with not knowing. And yet, it is essential for us to bear in mind that the mystery behind God as a Trinity exists for a good reason, in that God is infinite and that we are finite. By no means should this suggest that we aren’t able to engage our minds and hearts with the ways that God has been revealed and continues to be revealed to us—we were created with the potential to know and love God in an ever-deepening way. It is to say that we will never fully comprehend God in human terms but will always be drawn deeper into His community of love. We must be patient with ourselves as God is, knowing that the Lord delights in our desire to know.
Tricky Math
Babies are a great metaphor for integrating these difficult-to-explain and difficult-to-understand realities of our faith. Rather than dividing the love of a family, a new child helps to multiply the love that is already there. Numerically this doesn’t make sense, but experience teaches that it is true. In the same way, familiarity with Scripture lays the foundation for our relationship with God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The way that we describe the Persons of the Trinity requires a posture of humility and reverence so as not to diminish the expansiveness of Who God is. In turn, our curiosity and desire for intimacy with the immeasurable Persons of the Trinity as One God inspires its own pursuit of the relationship we seek to know.
Katie Cassady is a regular contributor to the BIS blog. She is a wife and mom to three little girls in Denver, CO. Steeped in theological reflection, beekeeping and motherhood, she is appreciative of any and all wisdom she can glean from those living intentional lives of faith. Find out more about her here. Read all of Katie's posts here.
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