This week’s gospel presents the last words of Jesus on earth, before he ascended to the Father. St. Matthew makes this both the conclusion and the climax of his gospel. On a mountain in Galilee, Jesus began his final lesson by telling the disciples that He, the Son of God and their brother, has been given authority over creation. He then commissioned them “to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” They are to be taught everything the disciples were taught and know that Jesus is there with them until the end of the age.
At last in the new order of creation, God has revealed Himself as one God with three persons. Years ago as a seminarian, I attended a Mass where the presider made the sign of the cross, saying “In the name of the creator, the redeemer and the sanctifier, amen.” He may have thought he was being politically correct but there is more to the Trinity than just job descriptions.
There is no limit to the ways we can speak of the profound mystery of the Three in One, using inanimate objects. St. Patrick used a three-leaf clover. Recall in the Sinai, Moses encountered God in the burning bush. Fire has three elements: light, heat and flame. I often use a triangle to symbolize the Trinity when taking notes.
While sitting in a waiting room, someone asked a priest, “Father, I believe only what I can understand. So, I can’t buy your Trinity. Perhaps you can explain it to me.” The priest reluctantly put down his newspaper and asked, “Do you see the sun out there?” “Yup.” “OK, it’s 80 million miles away. The rays coming through the window,” said the priest, “are coming from the sun. The heat we feel comes from a combination of the sun and its rays. Do you understand that?” The fellow replied, “Sure, padre.” “The Trinity,” the priest went on, “is like that. God the Father is that blazing sun. The Son is the rays He sends down to us. Then both combine to send us the Holy Spirit who is the heat. If you understand the workings of the sun, its rays, and heat, why do you have difficulty believing the Trinity?”
The man mumbled something about catching a flight and took off. The priest, a physics professor, picked up his paper with a broad smile. He doubted that his guest understood the workings of the sun. He knew no one would ever grasp the mystery of the Trinity this side of the grave. After all, why does God have to tell us everything? God tells us only on a need to know basis. The Book of Job points out, “Can anyone penetrate the deep designs of God?” (11:7) As a scientist and a Catholic, the priest knew the answer to that question. Try to understand the Trinity and you become like a person staring into the noonday sun to better understand it. All you get is a severe headache requiring extra strength Tylenol and a resolve to buy good sunglasses.
Putting down the paper, he thought fondly of his late Dogma professor in the seminary who said, “Professor Thomas Aquinas, late of the University of Paris and the Albert Einstein of his day, didn’t understand the Trinity. So, it is most unlikely that you blockheads will either. Just remember St. Paul mentions the Trinity 30 times in his letters. Take it on faith and you’ll muddle through somehow.” He trusted that the professor and Thomas both now understood the Trinity perfectly. He himself never had difficulty buying into a God who is passionately in love with us, a Son who was willing to die for us, and a Holy Spirit whose job it is to help us become saints like Thomas Aquinas. The priest then remembered a husband, who said when he became a father, that he better understood the Trinity. When he and his wife had their son, they had evidence of their love for each other.
The three persons of the Trinity are a communion of love who interweave each other in endless patterns of saving activity. There is the lover, the beloved, and the love, each distinct and yet one. Fr. Daniel Durken, a monk I knew while in the seminary, provides a playful description of the Trinity. The Father played creator and was overjoyed that the world turned out so attractively. The Son played redeemer and put everything right again in the wounded world by stretching out His arms on a cross. The Spirit played sanctifier. He made room in the heart of each of us for the Trinity. “Today,” says Fr. Durken, “the Trinity invites us to keep playing with them this delightful game of life and love.”
As deep and difficult as the mystery of the Trinity is, we must never forget that our triune God is always with us. The Trinity is not just a dogma but a reminder that God is an indwelling presence who continually creates, saves and sustains us as children of God. The very nature of God is dynamic love.
We are baptized in the name of all three because as disciples of Jesus we both benefit from and manifest all three persons of the Trinity. We have been created by God and are called to share in His creation and stewardship of life. We are redeemed by Jesus. His death restored our relationship with God and purchased eternal life for us, freeing us from the power of evil. We are called to live as new beings at war with evil. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring Christ to others and others to Christ. When we make the sign of the cross, we proclaim the new relationship we share with God, recognizing what we have received and the responsibility we have to bring this relationship to others. This we do when live the message of the gospel.