A number of years ago, in a Colorado high school, a boy asked a girl: "Do you believe in God?" "Yes" she replied. Then he pulled the trigger and she was dead.
Her last words were an act of faith and then she saw God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Do you believe in God? Do you grasp the implications of God having revealed Himself as a community ...Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
The doctrine of the Trinity has been the foundational centrepiece of Church teaching from earliest times. And yet, even today it is often reduced to a mind game, a numbers game wherein we try to prove that three is equal to one.
The Church is called to be a community of knowledge and caring. Its model is the Blessed Trinity.
The image of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is authentically mirrored in the Church only if that Church is seen to be a community that is utterly transparent and giving.
Yes, strange as it may sound to our ears, God is the Community upon which the Church is modeled and all of that which comes from God is for the common good.
To receive it is communion. In this way, all of Creation is linked together. No one, nothing, stands alone, independent or apart.
I find it helpful to think of it in this way: all "being" is "being" in relation. I am in relation to my deceased parents, to my siblings, to my church, to my environment ...the list goes on.
Stripped of all relationships, I cease to be. In fact, I never was! And so, all "being" is in relation and these relationships can all be traced to the primal relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
To live is to live in relationship. This is true of you and me and of all of nature.
Life then is, of necessity, lived in relationship and is defined in terms of its goodness according to how well it measures up to its common source, its triune source which is totally open and totally generous.
And so you see, the mystery of the Trinity need not be reduced to a philosophical game. We are a people because God, who is community, calls us. We are called to create peace and harmony because God's nature is communion.
We celebrate Trinity Sunday to remind ourselves of who and what we are.
