In 1964, nineteen-year-old Karol Wojtyla wrote a poetic essay entitled Reflections on Fatherhood, in which he contemplates life, ultimately declaring “Everything else will turn out to be unimportant and inessential except for this:… Father, Child, Love.” [1]
In 1979, Karol Wojtyla, then Pope John Paul II, would follow a similar theme in his homily to in Puebla de Los Angeles, Mexico: “Our God in his deepest mystery is not solitude, but a family, for he has within himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of the family, which is love. That love, in the divine family, is the Holy Spirit.” [2]
The mystery of our triune God is difficult to understand. Hence, the mystery. So today, on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, I thought I’d devote a small bit of time and space to contemplating Him in his three persons. Do I fully understand this mystery? Certainly not. So, here some things that people far wiser than I have put forth.
The Bible implies a plural God in several verses. These are just a few:
I guess it shouldn’t; this is a much grander truth than can be explained with a leaf. In 7 Secrets of Divine Mercy [3] , Vinny Flynn explains “In the Trinity, God the Father is eternally loving the Son; the Son is eternally returning the love of the Father; and the Holy Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son!” What an incredible concept: the Holy Spirit is love. I mean, I know God is love because I memorized 1 John 4:8 as a kid: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love,” but how often did I skim over that fact. God…IS…love. John didn’t write “…because God is loving” or “…because God’s Spirit is a lot like love”, he said “…God is love.”
So, God is love. The Holy Spirit is God, so the Holy Spirit is love. What does this mean for us? Literally, everything. As Flynn observes, “True love longs to give of itself.” All of creation is an outpouring of love, of the Holy Spirit. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we are taught that “if man exists, it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence.” God created because love leads to creation. So much love is shared between the Father and the Son that is spills forth and creates more life to share in this love. It wasn’t something he did as an afterthought, something God did in his spare time. Our minds are too feeble to grasp the enormity of God’s time scale, though we know he has spent billions of years working on our physical universe before he was even ready to begin work on our own little planet. Then, billions of years were invested in the planet itself before it was ready for man. Love leads to creation, and the complexities and intricacies of our universe connote love beyond the scope of human understanding. Saint Pope John Paul II preached a homily in 2000 entitled The Trinity is Mysteriously Present in Creation [4] , in which he exclaims “The glory of the Trinity…is resplendent in creation.” Yes, resplendent.
The relationship within the Trinity is mirrored in earthly families, as Pope Francis observes: “…family is entrusted to a man, a woman, and the children so that they may become a communion of persons in the image of the union of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Begetting and raising children, for its part, mirrors God’s creative work.” [5] (Emphasis mine) So does that mean that if we choose not to get married and have kids, we’re missing out in divine love? No, of course not. But for those who do, what a beautiful way to view your family, is it not?
Finally, we are called to share in the Trinity. God wants us to partake of this love we’ve been talking about, and be brought into his heavenly family.
“God… in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. …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.” [6]
Have a blessed Sunday!
In 1979, Karol Wojtyla, then Pope John Paul II, would follow a similar theme in his homily to in Puebla de Los Angeles, Mexico: “Our God in his deepest mystery is not solitude, but a family, for he has within himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of the family, which is love. That love, in the divine family, is the Holy Spirit.” [2]
The mystery of our triune God is difficult to understand. Hence, the mystery. So today, on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, I thought I’d devote a small bit of time and space to contemplating Him in his three persons. Do I fully understand this mystery? Certainly not. So, here some things that people far wiser than I have put forth.
The Bible implies a plural God in several verses. These are just a few:
- “Then God said, ‘Let us make a man—someone like ourselves, to be the master of all life upon the earth and in the skies and in the seas.”—Genesis 1:26
- “Therefore go and make disciples in all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”—Matthew 28:19
- “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”—John 1:1-2
I guess it shouldn’t; this is a much grander truth than can be explained with a leaf. In 7 Secrets of Divine Mercy [3] , Vinny Flynn explains “In the Trinity, God the Father is eternally loving the Son; the Son is eternally returning the love of the Father; and the Holy Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son!” What an incredible concept: the Holy Spirit is love. I mean, I know God is love because I memorized 1 John 4:8 as a kid: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love,” but how often did I skim over that fact. God…IS…love. John didn’t write “…because God is loving” or “…because God’s Spirit is a lot like love”, he said “…God is love.”
So, God is love. The Holy Spirit is God, so the Holy Spirit is love. What does this mean for us? Literally, everything. As Flynn observes, “True love longs to give of itself.” All of creation is an outpouring of love, of the Holy Spirit. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we are taught that “if man exists, it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence.” God created because love leads to creation. So much love is shared between the Father and the Son that is spills forth and creates more life to share in this love. It wasn’t something he did as an afterthought, something God did in his spare time. Our minds are too feeble to grasp the enormity of God’s time scale, though we know he has spent billions of years working on our physical universe before he was even ready to begin work on our own little planet. Then, billions of years were invested in the planet itself before it was ready for man. Love leads to creation, and the complexities and intricacies of our universe connote love beyond the scope of human understanding. Saint Pope John Paul II preached a homily in 2000 entitled The Trinity is Mysteriously Present in Creation [4] , in which he exclaims “The glory of the Trinity…is resplendent in creation.” Yes, resplendent.
The relationship within the Trinity is mirrored in earthly families, as Pope Francis observes: “…family is entrusted to a man, a woman, and the children so that they may become a communion of persons in the image of the union of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Begetting and raising children, for its part, mirrors God’s creative work.” [5] (Emphasis mine) So does that mean that if we choose not to get married and have kids, we’re missing out in divine love? No, of course not. But for those who do, what a beautiful way to view your family, is it not?
Finally, we are called to share in the Trinity. God wants us to partake of this love we’ve been talking about, and be brought into his heavenly family.
“God… in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. …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.” [6]
Have a blessed Sunday!