The bishop who was celebrating the Sacrament of Confirmation with a class of 3rd and 4th graders asked a girl in the back row to explain the Trinity. The girl stood, took a deep breath, and fearing she may be refused the Sacrament of Confirmation for being unable to answer the question, said, "No, bishop, I can't. You see, it's a mystery."
We may not be able to understand the how of the Trinity but it is important to understand the why. Why did God reveal to us this mystery of the very nature of God? The importance of this doctrine lies in this: We are made in the image of God; therefore, the more we understand God the more we understand ourselves.
Trinity Sunday is the only Sunday in the Lectionary that focuses on a doctrine of the Church. For many of us, we first heard of this doctrine at our Baptism when we were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Our understanding of the doctrine may not have improved much since that Baptism. But we need not be concerned with that. Theologians, philosophers and others have been trying to explain the doctrine of the Trinity for centuries. Even though we do not understand it, it does have great meaning in our lives.
God does not exist in solitary individualism but rather in a community of love and sharing. This means that we Christians must shun all tendencies towards isolationism. True Christian spirituality is not one of flight from the world but of contact and involvement with people and society. The Trinity shows us that true love requires three partners. Three is not a crowd; three is a community, love at it's best. The doctrine of the Trinity challenges us to adopt and live an I-God-and-neighbor attitude.
Instead of trying to reason our way through the Trinity, we would do better trying to appreciate how the Trinity affects us, how it helps us relate more closely to God and to one another, and how it helps us to realize how personal and loving God is.
The Trinity is perhaps the ultimate community - and just as much a community as your family or parish community. The difference is that it is a community based on exclusively on love. That is the kind of community we must strive to emulate and copy.
Let us take to heart the actions and words of Jesus in today's gospel, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:19-20)
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