Trinity Sunday

Math has never been my favorite subject.  As far back as I can remember, the thought of math class, math homework and math tests have elicited a sense of anxiety in me.  This is one reason why I think so many people do not think deeply about the doctrine of the Trinity.  At first glance, the dogmatic claim that God is triune – three persons, one God – seems like an impossible math problem.  “How is it,” we might ask, “that one plus one plus one equals one?”  The concept leaves many scratching their heads and resigned to simply saying, “it’s just a mystery.”

It is a mystery.  But mystery is not a word that means “completely unknowable.” We can affirm the truth of God as “three in one” not just in some vague way, but in real ways.  They come to us from God’s revelation.  They are passed on to each new generation through scripture and tradition.  This is what we celebrate today on the day specifically set aside to recall this dimension of our faith.  Every day is a celebration of the Most Holy Trinity.

Instead of thinking about the Trinity in terms of a confusing math equation to be solved, I believe we might benefit more from considering an ancient approach to envisioning what the Trinity is all about.  The Trinity is about God’s ability to hug us.  While it might sound weird at first, the idea that the Trinity is about God’s ability to hug us goes all the way back to the second-century theologian Irenaeus.  He said that the Son and the Spirit are like the two “hands of God.”  What’s particularly interesting to me is the way in which it does lend itself to imagining God as the Divine One who gives hugs.

Catherine LaCugna, a theologian from Seattle who died far too young, wrote an impressive book on the Trinity.  The title summarizes in three words what the whole theology of the Trinity and what the “hands of God” imagery of Irenaeus conveys: God For Us.  What the doctrine of the Trinity conveys at its most basic core is that God’s history is intertwined with ours.  What we understand through divine revelation is that God is consistently more and more a “God for us.”  God’s love isn’t some abstract concept.  It is real and concrete.

We hear proclaimed in our first reading from the Hebrew Scriptures about how God discloses to Moses who God is: “A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.”  This is an expression of a God who is deeply concerned about humanity and all of creation, a God who is for us and a God who will be there for us.

Moses’ response to God is to request forgiveness for his and his people’s slowness to understand what it means to profess faith and trust in such a God.  Far too often, we, like the Hebrew people, are quick to forget that the God who brought us into existence and continues to sustain us today also journeys through life and history with us, loving us faithfully and forgiving our sinfulness.

We hear proclaimed in today’s gospel yet another summary of the truth of the Trinitarian faith: “God so loved the world that God gave his only Son.”  This is the fullness of who God is as God for us.  If we want to know how much God loved the world, remember the works Jesus revealed as signs of God’s love – the healing, the forgiving, the raising to new life.  In the life and ministry of Jesus we have the fullest and complete revelation of God.

Yet Jesus is not the only sign of God’s presence to us.  Elsewhere in John, Jesus tells his disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the advocate, the one who will be ever-present and guide us.  The Spirit is the second hand of God that maintains communion and the continued creative presence of God in the world.  The mystery of the Trinity – that God is a God for us – continues to be lived and experienced at every time and in all places.  To talk about the Trinity is to talk about a God whose very being is love and love for us.

If we understand all this, we can embrace the blessing that St. Paul gives us in the second reading: to encounter the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ; to accept the love of God; and to be united to the Creator and all of creation in the communion of the Holy Spirit.  Let’s let God hug us today and everyday!

Paul A. Magnano

Pastor