Our Triune God

As Christians we believe in and worship a triune God, that is one God who manifests himself to us as three distinct and individual divine persons. We do not believe in three individual Gods. This has been a source of confusion and heresy since the first days of the Church as man struggled to understand the nature of God. How can one thing be three things all at the same time?

Although the Trinity is a mystery beyond our comprehension God wants us to know him. He has revealed himself to us in ways that we can understand. God is too grand for us to ever fully define with our limited understanding. It would be easier to pour all the waters of the oceans into a single thimble than to define God. But, if the essence of God could be summed up in one thought it would be that of sacrificial love.

God has all knowledge and power but he isn’t knowledge and power. God is sacrificial love and it is from this sacrificial love that all creation flows. There are three rules for love to exist.

The first rule of love is that for love to exist there has to be a giver and a receiver. Sacrificial love could not exist if there was nothing to sacrifice for. If God had to depend on his creation to receive his love, he would cease to be God for there would be something greater than himself. This is one of the reasons we have a Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share an infinite, sacrificial, agape love between themselves. God needs nothing from his creation.

The second rule of love is that love has to be freely given. Love cannot be forced. There is a particular term for forced love and it comes with a prison sentence. God cannot force anyone to love him or anyone else. Love is a gift freely offered. It is not always accepted or returned.

The third rule for love is that for love to exist there has to be a choice. If there is no choice but love then love is being forced. This is why the tree of knowledge was put in the Garden of Eden. This is one of the reasons there is suffering in this world. Suffering exists so that love can exist.

One attribute of love is that love longs to grow. The Trinity is perfect on its own, but because God is love he longs to increase that love. Love is increased when it is shared. God created reality so that he may share his love with it. God’s love is infinite. It knows no beginning and no end. We were created by Love, for Love, through Love, to be loved, and to love. Let me clarify this a bit. We were created by Love, God the Father, for Love, God the Son, through Love, God the Holy Spirit, to be loved by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to love, God first and each other as God has loved us.

In the Trinity, the three rules for love are met. The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. The love between them is so real that it manifests itself as a divine person known as the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is the perfect family of persons who love sacrificially. Because love longs to grow this trinity created everything to share the love they have with one another with us.

There have been many ways people have used to try to explain the Trinity in ways we can understand. Saint Patric used a shamrock. It is one plant with three leaves sharing the same stem. The image I like to use is a three-wick candle. You have one candle with three individual wicks. Each wick gives off its own flames. The flames are equal, but independent. When you blow on the flames they move in unison with one another.

We can see the concept of the Trinity in our own lives. I am one person, but I manifest myself to different people in different ways. To many of you reading this blog, I am Bob, the deacon, Bob. To my Navy buddies I am Bob, the sailor, Bob. To my coworkers I am Bob, the engineer, Bob. To my kids I am dad. To my wife I am husband. Each of these versions of me are different from one another, but all share in the one me. Our one God manifests himself to us in much the same way.

The first person of God is God, the Father. As our creed says, through the Father all things were made, visible and invisible. The second person of God is known as the Logos or the Word of God. In the fullness of time, the Word humbled himself and became incarnate, meaning he took on flesh, becoming one of us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He came to reconcile us to the Father, repairing the damage that was done by the distrust of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden. He brought salvation and redemption to mankind. The third person of God is the Pneuma, which is Greek for breath or wind. We refer to him as the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Holy Breath of God.

God the Father used his Holy Breath to utter one Word, which was Jesus. Through him all existence was created so the love shared between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit could be shared with us to grow and expand. The Trinity is the perfect family; a family they wish to adopt us all into.

Glory to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Evangelizing Worldwide

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