The Glorious Trio

The mystery of the Holy Trinity is fundamental to Christian faith. The pattern of Christian life is derived from the life of the Trinity because we are God’s children and are created in His image. Understanding the Trinity can deeply enlighten our minds, especially when we seek to understand the many facets of our faith.

When a Christian refers to God, he is referring to a communion of three distinct Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In other words, God is one, yet exists eternally as three distinct Persons.

The Father is eternal, without beginning and without end. The Father’s knowledge, expression and Word are also eternal, and it is the Word whom we call the Son. The Son is therefore uncreated and eternally begotten of the Father. Just as a light source and the light itself cannot be separated, the Father and the Son exist together in a self-giving relationship. The love between the Father and the Son is not merely something they possess; the Holy Spirit is the third divine Person who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

This is why we profess in the Creed:

“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified.”

God created you and me for communion with Him and with one another, reflecting in some way the divine communion of the Persons of the Trinity. That is why, when God created humanity, He created us male and female—to love as God loves, becoming a gift of self to the other. The intimate relationships we experience in marriage and friendship can therefore point us toward the divine communion revealed in the Trinity.

The intimacy varies according to the nature of each relationship. In marriage, it reaches the profound intimacy of becoming “one flesh.” This is not simply a union of two bodies, but a communion that embraces the spiritual, emotional and intellectual dimensions of the person.

Ultimately, the deepest longing behind all the goodness and communion we experience in this life points toward the union for which our whole being yearns: communion with God, which we call heaven. Every genuine goodness we experience on earth can foreshadow something of this greater mystery.

Jesus prayed that we “may be in us,” just as He is in the Father and the Father is in Him, referring to the inner life Jesus shares with the Father and the Spirit and to our invitation to participate in the communion of the Trinity.

We are therefore made for heaven. We are not ultimately earth-bound but heaven-bound, created for eternal communion with God.

Yet we experience hopelessness, loneliness and an inner division because our relationship with God has been wounded by sin. The Second Person of the Trinity became man, restored our broken relationship with God and adopted us once again as sons and daughters of God.

The fruits of this redemption are given to us through the sacrament of Baptism. We are placed once again on the path toward communion with God, where, by His grace and our cooperation with that grace, we learn to discipline our wounded nature and mature in love. Ultimately, we are called to become God’s own—to be embraced into the very communion of the Trinity.

The Church is like a life chamber that God established to nurture us, as a mother nourishes her child, and to manifest His presence among us. Through the Eucharist, God gives us His Body to eat and His Blood to drink as our spiritual food:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

Jesus said, “I have come to give you life, and life in abundance.”

The Holy Trinity is therefore the beginning, end, model, meaning and purpose of human life. It is not merely a theological mystery to be contemplated from a distance. It is the mystery into which we were created to enter.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.