And Baby Makes Three

Enjoying instead of explaining the mystery of the Trinity

06/07/2020

2 Corinthians 13:11-13 Brothers and sisters, rejoice. Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the holy ones greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

Today is the feast of the Holy Trinity, the central mystery of our faith, and maybe the most mysterious of all the mysteries of our faith! Not even the intellectual giant, St. Augustine, could unravel it’s complexity. The story is told that while the Doctor of Grace was writing his book De Trinitate (On the Trinity), he took a break to walk along the beach. He could not crack the code of how God could be one God and yet three divine persons. Suddenly, he came upon a little child sitting by the seashore. The child had dug a hole in the sand, and with a small shell was scooping water from the sea and depositing it into the small hole.

Augustine watched for a while and finally asked the child what he was doing. The child answered that he intended to scoop all the water from the sea and pour it into the little hole in the sand. “What?” Augustine said. “That’s impossible. Obviously, the sea is too large and the hole is too small.” The child replied: “Indeed, but I will sooner draw all the water from the sea and empty it into this hole before you will succeed in penetrating the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your limited understanding.” Augustine turned away in amazement and when he looked back the child had disappeared. A small child had put the spiritual giant in his place. Amazing how the simple and child-like often have a way of humbling those who are too sophisticated.

Let me suggest another way that story illustrates that the Trinity is like the water of the immense ocean. The fish who swim in the ocean take that water for granted. It is all around them. They breathe it through their gills. It provides their food and their fun. Fish don’t reflect on the water in which they swim. So the scriptures take the Holy Trinity sort of for granted without any explicit explanations. Genesis 18 describes three mysterious strangers who visit Abraham, often thought to be a manifestation of the Trinity. No further explanation.

The second letter to the Corinthians concludes with this Trinitarian farewell: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” No further explanation. The gospel of Matthew ends with the great commission and command to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. No more explanation. In other words, long before theologians would define the Holy Trinity as a dogma, the scripture sort of swims in the Holy Trinity like a fish in the ocean depths. Indeed, St. Paul described God in Acts 17:28 as the One in whom “we live and move and have our being.”

Today, instead of trying to solve the mystery of the Holy Trinity, I would like to suggest three ways we, too, can swim like fish in the sea of the Trinity so splash in its waves like a child by the sea. One place we find the Trinity around is actually inside of us, that is, stamped in our souls. The soul has three faculties: the mind, the will and the memory. Within the soul, the mind is like the Father, the will is like the Son, and the memory is like the Holy Spirit. After all, Genesis 1:26 says we are created in God’s image and likeness, so we should not be surprised to find a snapshot of the Trinity stamped on our souls. The Trinity is not just outside us like the ocean, but inside us and closer to us than we are to ourselves, as Augustine said (Confessions, III.6.11).

Secondly, do you ever think of our government as a reflection of the Holy Trinity? Maybe I should just leave the “holy” off that description, and just call it a “trinity”! The ideal government balances the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch all working together for the common good. In this analogy, the Father is like the legislative branch who gives us the law, the Son is the executive branch who shows us how to obey the law, and the Holy Spirit is the judicial branch that helps us to interpret the laws down the ages in unique circumstances. What fortunate fish we are to swim freely in this American ocean!

The third example of the Holy Trinity might not only surprise you, it may even scandalize you. You better sit down for this one. In a new book called The First Society, Scott Hahn made an audacious claim, saying: “There is virtually nothing we do exteriorly in the order of nature that makes us more like God than sex.” Did you catch that? Sex makes us God-like. How so? Hahn explains: “Nothing reflects the Trinity in the same way as marital love and intimacy, where the two persons ‘become one flesh’ (Gen. 2:24; Mk. 19:8) and, God willing, a third person issues forth and embodies that communion” (The First Society, 93). In other words, it’s like that old adage: “You and me and baby makes three.” Every family should be an ocean of love that deeply and devoutly reflects the triune love of God.

Lastly, the Trinity gives us a timely example of unity in diversity, which our world desperately needs in the face of racism. Each Person of the Holy Trinity is unique and special, and yet they co-exist in perfect holiness and harmony. Societies that respect their diversity and still maintain their unity are not only great cultures, but also an earthly example of the heavenly unity in diversity found in God. In a sense, racism is the polar opposite of the holiness and harmony of the Holy Trinity. Racism divides whereas the Trinity unites. That’s why racism is to evil.

And who can teach us to overcome racism? I believe small children can, who are born spiritually color-blind. Innocent children are taught racism from cruel and confused adults. So, perhaps small children can teach us adults how to unlearn racism, and to be innocent again, and even spiritually color-blind. Like a small children once taught the mighty Augustine.

Praised be Jesus Christ!