Christ the Cornerstone

Trinity Sunday celebrates the closeness of God to us

“The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #234).

This weekend, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (Trinity Sunday). This important feast should not be an occasion for expounding on the complex doctrinal questions about the Trinity. Instead, we should take this opportunity to reflect on the simple truth of God’s closeness to his creation and, especially, to each of us who have been made in God’s image and likeness.

Our God has revealed himself to us through both our native intelligence (reason) and his word (revelation). We know a lot of important things about God from these two sources. Here are some of the significant things that we know about God:

First, God is one. There are not many gods, but one true God. As we will hear in the first reading, “This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on Earth below, and that there is no other. You must keep his statutes and commandments that I enjoin on you today, that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may have long life on the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you forever” (Dt 4:32-34, 39-40).

We are tempted to worship many false gods under the guise of fame and fortune, wealth and social status, romantic infatuation or heroic idolization. None of these things are God—no matter what we are encouraged to believe. There is only one God as he has disclosed himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Second, as the last sentence indicates, God is three persons in one God. The great mystery that we celebrate this weekend is that God is authentic unity-in-diversity.

St. Paul gives witness to this powerful truth in Sunday’s second reading when he says:

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (Rom 8:15-17)

God is “Abba,” our Father, and we are all his children. God is also “Son,” our brother—like us in all things but sin. Finally, God is the Holy Spirit who bears witness to the truth and who works unceasingly to keep us united with our triune God and with one another.

Third, God is close to us. The great commission given to the disciples at the time of our Lord’s ascension into heaven assures us that our God is not absent, uncaring, or far away from us in the heavenly heights. God is closer to us than we are to ourselves, and he has entrusted us with a serious responsibility to proclaim to the whole world that he is with us—now and always.

As we read in St. Matthew’s Gospel:

All power in heaven and on Earth has been given to me. 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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age. (Mt 28:18-20)

Yes, the triune God is a mystery that none of us can ever completely comprehend, but this should not prevent us from coming closer to our God in prayer and the sacraments, in meditation on his word, and in communion with him in service to all our sisters and brothers. We can grow in our understanding of this divine mystery by our personal spiritual growth and by our communal participation in the self-sacrificing love that comes from God alone.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that “the whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin” (#234).

Let’s take advantage of this Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity to draw closer to the One-in-Three who created us, who loves us, and who invites us to be his missionary disciples. †