Living Out the Trinity

By Bishop Paul S. Loverde
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 5/19/05)

If the polls are accurate in that over 90 percent of Americans believe in God, then I suggest that you and I, as Catholics, have a tremendous starting point from which to engage almost anyone — from a neighbor or friend to a colleague or stranger — on the reality of what we celebrate this Sunday: the central mystery of the Christian faith and life, the Holy Trinity. Unfortunately, for many the Trinity is opaque and confusing, and might serve as a conversation stopper sooner than an opening for a personal discussion of our Catholic faith.

As evangelizers, we are called to do better — after all, if we take up St. Peter’s challenge to "always be ready with an account of the hope that is within us," then we need to be ready to make direct and practical applications of the Trinity in our lives here and now. If we are not, then we haven’t begun to scratch the surface of real Christian living. Here are three suggestions.

Many of us struggle with an undiagnosed illness — self-sufficiency. While admitting that God is central to our lives, we too often claim independence from Him. If we look at the Trinity — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — we find instead a mutual self-giving of the Three Persons, an antidote for our predilection to self-sufficiency. Are we dependent upon our Triune God? This does not mean that we use Him as a sort of crutch, but that we admit that we are limited in our abilities and energies, that beyond our best achievements and most noble ideals there is yet One Who loves us, One Who completes the picture, One Who is the source and the end of everything and everyone else.

To say, then, "I believe in God" means I believe in God Who is one and at the same time in God Who is a community of Three Persons. We are baptized into this divine community of love in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is a profound unity, expressed in the opening lines of Lumen Gentium: "Hence the universal Church is seen to be ‘a people brought into unity from the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’" (LG, 4). Four practical ways of living out this Trinitarian love can be readily found in the words of St. Paul in this Sunday’s epistle reading: "Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you" (2 Cor 13:11-13).

In our relationships with one another in the community of the family and in the Church, do we mirror and reflect the relationships within the Trinity: giving, receiving, loving?

Do we reflect the love of the Father by giving in love to one another — giving time to listen to our children, our parents; giving understanding and forgiveness, giving energy to projects, giving consideration and the benefit of the doubt? Do we reflect the love of the Son by receiving love and depending on love? Can we be open enough to let people serve us, accept gifts graciously, admit our need for others and reach out to be supported? Do we reflect the love of the Spirit by trying to bring about union — in the family, in the parish, in the neighborhood?

All of this — and so much more — is implied in our expression of belief in the Mystery of the Trinity. As we celebrate this central mystery of our faith this Sunday, I pray that our lives will more and more clearly reflect the image of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

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