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Sunday Homily: Trinity Sunday
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The Trinity is not a puzzle. It is a mystery. And those are two very different things. A puzzle has an answer. It is something that we try to figure out, something we attempt to understand.
A mystery has no answer. We cannot understand it because it is greater than we are, it is something beyond our grasp..
We cannot solve a mystery, but we can stand before it and allow it to lead us to contemplation. Like beholding a beautiful sunset, it can move us within our soul.
The Trinity tells us that God is one, that there are no parts and pieces to God. Like our Jewish forefathers and foremothers, we are monotheists. We believe that God is simple, perfect, one.
Now that much is something we can at least get our mind around. However, the next piece complicates it. Because we as Christians believe in Christ, and because we believe that Christ is God, and because we believe that Christ is not the Father, nor the Spirit, Christians believe that there are three persons in God: Father, Son, Spirit.
We believe that the Father is God, that the Son is God, and that the Spirit is God. But we believe that the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, and neither the Father nor the Son is the Spirit. And yet there is one perfect, simple God.
Confusing… yes if we approach the Trinity as a puzzle, trying to figure it out. But what if we approached it as a mystery? What would happen if we stood before it and allowed it to lead us deeper? If we asked, “What does the Trinity tell us about God? What does the Trinity tell us about ourselves?”
Now when we ask that question there is no one answer. It would be like standing in front of a sunset and saying, “What does this mean?” It could mean many things, and in some ways it means all things.
One of the hallmarks of the Christian religion is the teaching: God is Love. This is at the heart of all we believe. But GK Chesterton said that if God is not a Trinity, then God would either be alone and incapable of love, or love would be something created outside of God. In other words, God is Love, because God is a Trinity. The Father loves the Son, and the outpouring of their love, we call the Holy Spirit.
The Trinity tells us that if we are going to love, we cannot live life alone, we must seek oneness with others. But at the same time, the Trinity says that, as we seek union with others, we cannot lose our own personalities or individual characteristics.
The mystery of the Trinity implies that all healthy human love will experience this tension between oneness and personhood.
Spouses seek intimacy and yet that intimacy cannot involve the loss of their own personal identities. Parents love their children but must try to do so without smothering them. Children seek their own independence but at the same time must maintain a connection with their parents. Friends move towards closeness yet cannot do so by denying the differences that make them unique.
The Trinity is not a puzzle. It is a mystery. Let us listen then to the call of the Trinity. Let us see in it an invitation to love, and at the same time preserve and treasure our own selves.