THREE KEYS TO THE TRINITY

Reflection on the Trinity Sunday: Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40, Romans 8:14-17, Matthew 28:16-20

Trinity, as the mystery of the relationship between the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, is profoundly biblical. However, as a term, it does not appear anywhere in the bible. It was first coined by theologian Tertullian in the 2nd century bringing together words that denote plurality (tri) and unity (unitas). How does one enter into the mystery of the Trinity, which is both enlightening and confusing, sensible and mysterious? The Church recommends three keys.

1. The Key of Contemplation:

What we know about the Trinity is the fruit of the Church’s contemplation on the three divine persons, their missions, and their unity. Despite this contemplation that has spanned for centuries, the mystery still evades us. Strangely though, it does not let us give up but inspires us to continue to search and contemplate. Thomas Aquinas, who spent a good part of his life and work (Summa Theologica) contemplating this mystery said towards the end of his life that trying to explain the Trinity is like emptying the sea with a spoon and added, “Everything that I have written seems like straw to me compared to those things that I have seen and have been revealed to me”. The Church therefore proposes we enter this great mystery with the key of contemplation in art, silence, prayer and adoration.

Elisabeth of the Trinity, a French Carmelite nun of the early 20th century, reflecting on the Trinity reflecting on the meaning of the Trinity love wrote a beautiful prayer on 21st November 1904. This poem entitled O mon Dieu, Trinité que j'adore underlines the efficiency of silent surrender in our contemplation of the Trinity. She concludes the poem with these lines:

“O my `Three’, my All, my Beatitude,

Infinite Solitude, Immensity in which I lose myself,

I surrender myself to you as your prey.

Immerse yourself in me so that I may be immersed in you

Until I go to contemplate in your light the abyss of your splendour!”.

Learning to practise the art of silence, we humble ourselves before the Trinity in adoration and meditation, contemplating on the Godhead, not as an object of study or analysis but as He is (One Being in Three persons), who is to be loved, adored, and cherished.

2. The key of love:

We know that “God is Love” (1 John 4:8). If God is love, He is also One and Many at the same time. In this sense, the principle of ‘unity in difference’ that characterises the Father, Son and Spirit is centred on love. If God is love, He cannot be solitary. We only speak of love when two or more parts are linked together. God can only be truly ‘love’ if he is inherently relationship, reciprocity, communication, and communion. The Trinity exists only by giving, receiving and sharing itself. In other words, God is only love. He is anti-power, anti-Narcissus, and anti-indifferent. If God were not marked by the diversity of the three divine persons, He would love, but He would not be Love. What about creation then? The Bible does not teach us that God needed the creation in order to have something to love, because if that were true, he could not be fully himself without it. Creation is loved and God is love.

So, Augustine wrote that God must be ‘love’ inside himself. To his mind, the Father is the one who loves, the Son is the one who is loved (the ‘beloved Son’ revealed in the baptism of Jesus), and the Holy Spirit is the love that flows between them and binds them together.” The solemnity of the Holy Trinity invites us to enter into this mystery of this God-Relation, which is centred on love. Since God is love, “He who loves knows God” (1 Jn 4:7). Each of us is created and recreated out of love and for love, that is, so that they may be loved and share in the joy of love. If not being loved is one of life's great tragedies, an equally painful tragedy is not to love. All authentic human relationships reflect the circulation of love that exists within the Holy Trinity. Too often, we reduce love to its sentimental dimension. Trinitarian love cannot be imprisoned in an emotional bubble. Love in relationships demands sacrifices, presence, reconciliation, and mutual growth.

3. The Key of Coherence:

An old theological distinction made between economic and immanent Trinity reveals that what we know about the Trinity in itself is from what has been manifested to us in history. In other words, “the Trinity manifested in the economy of salvation is the immanent Trinity”. The way God manifests himself (what the Greeks call the economy) reveals who he is in himself (his immanence). As a corollary then, we can affirm that the way God manifests himself, also reveals who we are. The meaning of the Trinity is not to be searched in God himself (for he is above the grasp of our intellect) but in His manifestation (creation, sings of our times, relationships, etc., with Jesus Christ being the highest point of God’s revelation). Trinitarian love not only manifests God's Being to us but also intends to introduce us (freely) to Trinitarian love, i.e. to initiate us into the Trinitarian way of living. If we are created in the Trinitarian image and likeness, then our vocation is also to unite ‘economy’ and ‘immanence’ in our practical lives. That is, to reflect the trinitarian model in our own way of living and relating.

Perhaps the greatest challenge of the feast of the Holy Trinity is to establish this coherence between ‘who we really are’ (immanence) and what we are in reality (economy). It is anti-Trinitarian to want to be something that we are not. It is against the mystery of the Trinity to wear masks and to disguise our true selves (consciously and unconsciously) with the strategies of section, manipulation, and falsehood. As the gap between ‘being’ and ‘appearing’ widens dramatically, the incoherence between our ‘inner’ life and our ‘outer’ life becomes tragical. To participate in the Trinitarian love is to participate in the coherence of the Trinitarian God. Our vocation is to be in Him, to live in Him like Him. The saints show us that each of us has a unique and special way of living this vocation: Francis of Assisi (poverty); Mother Teresa (charity), St. Thérèse of Lisieux (anonymity), Martyrs of Kandhamal (witness), etc., Let us grow in the coherence between our immanence and economy, reflecting the Trinitarian love in our relationships through our vocations.