We Were Created by Love for Love
The Trinity is the central mystery of our faith. This mystery is not something we could discover ourselves. We are able to discover God by observing the world around us. The truth, goodness, and beauty in the world. The order and beauty of the scientific method. The wonders of creation. All these things point to a creator and attract us to God.
In an act of endless wonder, God reveals to us His most intimate secret to us: He is a communion of Persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each of these persons relate to each other in an eternal exchange of love. This mystery of the Trinity reveals to us God’s inner life.
God is three persons, all completely distinct from each other and all perfectly one. This is not something we could have figured out on our own. God had to reveal it. The Old Testament alludes to it, but it wasn’t until God the Father sent Jesus to become man that God completely revealed this mystery.
During His ministry on earth, Jesus praises his Father, Jesus speaks directly to the Father in prayer, Jesus always does the will of the Father even offering himself on the cross out of love for the Father. Jesus reveals the love of the Trinity by suffering and dying for us on the cross and rising from the dead.
For all eternity God the Father gives Himself entirely to God the Son, and for all eternity God the Son gives Himself entirely to God the Father. The Holy Spirit is this gift of love that unites Father and Son. God is this eternal exchange of love, and we have been created to share in this exchange.
God called us into existence so that we could share in this loving exchange of the Trinity. God wants to share with us the joy he experiences in his own goodness. He wants us to know what it is to love and to be loved.
Original sin disrupted this union with God and throughout salvation history, humanity continued to wander away from God. But at the same time God was preparing to reveal to us the mystery of the Trinity. In the fullness of time, Jesus, by His passion, death and resurrection, healed our woundedness and our separation from God.
In the gospel with weekend Jesus is announcing, “Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that He, (the Holy Spirit), will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” Jesus is revealing to us the identity of the Trinity.
God reveals himself to us out of love.
This revelation of love invites us to respond. We respond to God’s gift of love with reverence, gratitude, and obedience to his will. We seek him in prayer with like a child who knows it is deeply loved. We listen to God and thank Him for His gift of Love.
Happy Trinity Sunday.
Deacon Michael Braun