Trinity Sunday

Today is Trinity Sunday. And as we celebrate the feast of the Holy Trinity, I cannot but tell you a story about my favorite saint, St. Augustine.  

The great Doctor of the Church St. Augustine of Hippo spent over 30 years working on his treatise De Trinitate, endeavoring to conceive an intelligible explanation for the mystery of the Trinity.

He was walking by the seashore one day contemplating and trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity when he saw a small boy running back and forth from the water to a spot on the seashore. The boy was using a sea shell to carry the water from the ocean and place it into a small hole in the sand. 

The Bishop of Hippo approached him and asked, “My boy, what are you doing?” 

“I am trying to bring all the sea into this hole,” the boy replied with a sweet smile. 

“But that is impossible, my dear child, the hole cannot contain all that water” said Augustine. 

The boy paused in his work, stood up, looked into the eyes of the Saint, and replied, “It is no more impossible than what you are trying to do – comprehend the immensity of the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your small intelligence.”

My dear friends in Christ, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity or the dogma of One God in Three Divine Persons which we believe is revealed to us by Jesus Himself when He said to His disciples according to the Gospel of Matthew 28:19, 

“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." 

In saying this, Jesus revealed to us that there is One God in Three Divine persons –Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. How could I explain this? Well, like St. Augustine in the story I would say it is impossible to comprehend the mystery of the Holy Trinity; and if I or anybody could fully explain it then how could we say it is a mystery? Nevertheless, allow me my dear friends, to use an analogy just to help you understand a little how great this mystery shall affect our Christian lives if we only know something about it.

Allow me to ask you, Where is West Philippine Sea? Where is South China Sea? If you try to search for the location of West Philippine Sea from Wikipedia, you can find a note “West Philippine Sea redirects here” and then you see there “South China Sea”. In short, there is one sea but is called by different names, either West Philippine Sea or South China Sea. Through this analogy, let me say but not exactly as it must be, that when we pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we pray to only one God (the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God yet we do not have three gods but one God).

Now, you might ask if there is one God, why is there Three Divine Persons in God. (You see I am grammatically wrong in using the verb “is” as I talked about Three Persons; but I am doctrinally correct because the “Three Persons” as I have said is but One God.) Again, allow me to use an analogy. If you are a father of a family, you could hear your wife and your children call you “Daddy” while you are in your home. Then if you go to your office to work, you could hear your subordinates call you “Sir”. After your work, you go home and change your clothes because you are going to play tennis with your friends who call you “Nene”. Here, there is only one person who is “Daddy” to his family, “Sir” to his officemates and “Nene” to his friends. Let me say then, but this is not exactly as it must be, there is one God whose presence is that of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

With all these analogies, I now submit to you my dear friends, how the mystery of the Holy Trinity shall affect our Christian lives. We only have one God. This God according to the Scripture is love and thus we say God is love. We have experienced the presence of God. We have experienced love. This love is not just a word but an action word. It is neither an abstract idea nor an empty word. Rather, it is real and true. This real and true love creates life. It always makes something new. God the Father created the world and even until now something new is happening in our world. This real and true love saves life. Jesus the Son has saved us through His death and resurrection. He has given up His life for our sake. This real and true love makes life holy. The Holy Spirit makes us holy. Though we are sinners, the Holy Spirit guides us to our way back to God. This kind of love could also be experienced by most Catholic couples. As husband and wife who love each other, they procreate, they give life to their child. The husband thinks of what to give his wife when he goes home while the wife prepares the home for his husband. They offer their lives for the good of each other. Finally, they pray together. They make each other holy. Therefore, my dear friends in Christ, if we believe in One Holy Triune God, we dedicate ourselves to love. If we really and truly love, we create life-giving atmosphere to the other. If we really and truly love, we offer our lives for the good of the other. If we really and truly love, we make other’s life holy. And at the end, we can all say I love in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.