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June 3, 2023What is the absolute center of the Catholic Faith? The experience of Catholicism varies wildly and is unique to practically every Catholic, depending on factors like their history, culture, personal conversion experience, and so on. But regardless of what our Faith looks like in practice, and in spite of how unaware of this fact we may be, the absolute center of the Catholic Faith, the reality from which everything else radiates outward, is the Most Holy Trinity. This Sunday the Church celebrates Trinity Sunday, calling our attention back to the heart of the Faith so that we can reconnect the things we love most about being a disciple of Christ to the fullness of the Godhead.
The very first paragraph of the Catechism of the Church bases all the truths of the Faith in this context of mankind coming to know himself through a deeper understanding of how the Trinity shapes reality itself. “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.” We are made for relationship. God is Love, and that Love exists in and between the persons of the Trinity, and so our relationships, whether with God or with one another, are imitations of God’s perfect relationship in Himself.
It would be easy, and is in fact all too common, to dismiss Trinitarian theology as abstract and unnecessary, and perhaps little more than a distraction from helping others or being a good person or whatever one happens to think the most important thing about being Catholic is. But even though we might not have the time or capacity to delve deeply into rigorous academic study of
high-level Trinitarian theology, the reality of who God is in the Trinity should mark our worship as individuals and as a community. I believe that if we strive to root our prayer and worship more deeply in an understanding of the Trinity, it will strengthen and redirect the most vital aspects of our Faith in God. If God truly is Three in One, as we believe, how could we reflect on that great mystery without being transformed in some way? This week, as we bask in the glow of the reality of God, my prayer is that we all recommit to reflecting on how God is Love in and of Himself, and how He desires to share that Love with us.
Prayers always,
Fr. McC
