Mystery of Love

As Christians we believe in ONE God. We also know that the truth about the nature of God lies within the mystery that is the Trinity — three Divine Persons in one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Today, on this Trinity Sunday, we celebrate this great mystery, the mystery about which we are all invited to ponder and the mystery whose life in which we have been invited to partake.

The Trinity is a community of love. St. Augustine illustrates the Trinity as the Father being the Lover, the Son as the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit as the love that exists between Them. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one yet distinct. They are one in that They are not three separate beings and they are distinct (not separate) in that they differ in role. The Father creates, the Son redeems, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies, yet all three Persons are together. When the Father creates, both the Son and the Spirit are there and this is the same with the other Persons. So what does this all have to do with us?

We were created and made in God’s image and likeness and so we were made out of love, with love, and for love. We are also baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, giving us a share in the life of the Trinity. Think about that. We were made to share in the life of God. By Jesus’s incarnation where He emptied Himself of all glory and became a humble man and by His death where He allow Himself to be emptied of all - blood, water, and giving His spirit over to the Father so that we might be filled with His life and love. The greatest expression of God’s love for us — His self-sacrifice and self-emptying so that we might be filled. The mystery of God’s love for us cannot really be understood, and it does not have to be, we need only receive it, rest in it, and live in it.

On this Trinity Sunday may we ponder the nature of God, which is love, and choose to live out our call and nature with which we have been created — the image and likeness of God, who is love.