Word of the Week

Trinity Sunday

Trinity: Trinitatem (L.):“three at a time; threefold.” In principle, the Trinity is based upon a compound Latin word, "Tri" meaning three and "Unity" meaning one. Thus, God being three Persons who have the same essence of diety is the Tri+Unity = Trinity.

The Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith. The life of the Trinity is the most essential teaching at the core of the Church’s living faith as professed in the Creed. We read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire” (CCC 253). The seminal definition of the Trinity follows a family formula: The first person knows himself. The act of knowing produces an idea, a word; and this idea, this word, is the perfect image of Himself--the second person. In turn, perfect love begets the Holy Spirit, for this love is the Father loving the Son and the Son loving the Father. The eternal exchange of love shared between the father and the son is the Holy Spirit…The gift of Life! So you have the love shared being the consummate force creating three in one. In this way, authentic married love is caught up in divine love (CCC 1639).

Sacred Scripture offers us two episodes of the manifestation of the Trinitarian life in the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan (Mt.3:17; Mk.9:7) and the Transfiguration (Lk.9:35). Both events account for the Blessed Trinity: The Father, Son and Holy Spirit (dove). Christ commands his 12 apostles to “baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” so as to incorporate us into the family of God (Mt.28:19) that we might participate in his divine nature (2 Peter 1.4). The recipient of the Holy Spirit is adopted as a beloved child of God (Rom.8:14-17; Gal.3:26-27; 1 Jn.3:1). Furthermore, Paul’s second letter to Corinth offers us the most precise expression of faith in the Trinity, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor.13:11-13).

Man and woman image the Trinity most profoundly when they become one and the love shared creates a third person (cf. Gn.1.26; 5.3). Along with this Imago Dei, man is called to consider the inner dynamism and forcefulness of the Trinity. The Father loves the Son because he is there and the Son loves the Father because he is there. The love shared is not based on expectation and conditioned to schedules or demands, but rather is full of acceptance and unconditional to the needs of the other. This unconditioned love bears life wherever it goes…As does the Holy Spirit! The language of the Trinity offers us the deepest insights into the care we are called to have towards spouse, children, neighbor and the Body of Christ.

“Marital love expresses that divine language so that human beings can learn to speak the language of God honestly and fluently. In procreation we are leaving footprints towards the Trinity.”

--Scott Hahn

Primary Texts Consulted

• Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.

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