St. Anthony the Abbot Catholic Church

The Solemnity of the Holy Trinity is a hard one to get excited about. It's easy to get excited about Christmas. It's easy to get excited about Easter. Somehow, we feel that we can relate to those wonderful mysteries of our faith. But the doctrine of the Trinity is not so easy to relate to.  With this doctrine, God has revealed to us that he is not infinite loneliness, but infinite love, infinite relationship of self-giving.

The one divine nature exists fully and simultaneously in three divine Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes we catch a glimpse of how wonderful this doctrine really is, but even so, it still seems kind of abstract, something for theologians to ponder, something impractical for everyday Christians. But that is a false impression.

The Trinity is actually the most practical of all Christian doctrines, because it reveals the meaning of our life.  We are created in God's image.   And God, in the very essence of his being, is self-forgetful love, a harmonious relationship in which the three divine Persons are knowing each other and giving to each other. God's eternal, dynamic happiness flows from that communion of love.     And so, our happiness, since we are created in his image, will flow from the same thing, from our freely choosing to use our God-given gifts - life, talents, resources - to build up those around us.

This is what we are created to be and to do, and only in this will we find the happiness we long for. The meaning of life is for us to choose every day, in the little things and the big things, to be better and better mirrors of the Trinity.  Pope Benedict XVI said this:  "All beings are ordered to a dynamic harmony that we can similarly call 'love.' But only in the human person, who is free and can reason, does this dynamism become spiritual, does it become responsible love, in response to God and to one's neighbor through a sincere gift of self. It is in this love that human beings find their truth and happiness."  Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, 11 June 2006

This beautiful truth of our faith is the key for understanding God's view of sexuality. Popular culture misrepresents the Church's position on sexuality. It tries to convince people that the Church looks down on it, or is afraid of it, or considers it dirty or sinful.  But this is just the opposite of the truth: popular culture is the one who belittles sexuality!  They have turned it into a product, a commodity, something used for selling music, movies, or mouthwash. Popular culture views sexuality as a game or a sport, with no transcendent meaning.  It encourages us to give in to every instinct, as if we were just like animals, as if sexuality had no deeper purpose than fun.  But that is a degraded and degrading view of something that God himself actually created and designed.

Human sexuality, as God designed it, is one of the most beautiful ways that we as human beings can mirror the Trinity. When a husband and wife commit themselves to each other for life, mind, body, and soul, they are fulfilling their vocation to mirror that kind of total self-giving love that is the essence of the Trinity.    And when they express this commitment through sexual intimacy, the mirror becomes even brighter and clearer through the new life that, if God wills, can be conceived through it. The husband, the wife, the child; the commitment, the love, the new life - this is meant to be a privileged mirror of the Trinity!  That is the true meaning of human sexuality.

Original sin and human selfishness have obscured that meaning.  This is why it is so easy to misinterpret or abuse it, whether through sex outside marriage, infidelity, contraception, abortion, pornography, or homosexual activity. These are sins not because the Church has a negative view of human sexuality, but because the Church has such a noble view of its real meaning, and wants to protect us from the unhappiness that comes from going against that meaning.  Only when we understand that we were created to mirror the Trinity can we begin to grasp the true meaning not only of sexuality, but also of every other aspect of human life.

This task of mirroring the Trinity isn't something we can simply finish and check off our to-do list.  Rather, it's an ongoing thing; it's the adventure of a lifetime; it is meant to be our life's work.  It unifies all the other parts of our lives, because it gives them purpose.  A Catholic nurse is mirroring the Trinity when they strive day after day for excellence in nursing; likewise for the Catholic teacher, athlete, politician, plumber, and business leader.  But most of all, each one of us is called to show and grow this self-forgetful love in our family.

Pope Benedict actually called the family an "analogy of the Trinity". Family life isn't just an extra feature or a pre-requisite for other things. It is meant to be the primary place where we discover and fulfill this deep meaning of our lives.  Here is how the pope puts it:  "Among the different analogies of the ineffable mystery of the Triune God that believers are able to discern, I would like to cite that of the family. It is called to be a community of love and life where differences must contribute to forming a 'parable of communion'" (Benedict XVI, Angelus, 11 June 2006).

The happiness that each one of us thirsts for can be achieved only if we fulfill the meaning that God built into our human nature.  And the primary place to do that is family life; it provides more opportunities for mirroring the Trinity than any other sector of living. The more we learn to practice self-forgetful love (patience, forgiveness, selfless service) there), the more our souls will become a bright, clear mirror of the heart of God.  And polishing up that mirror is what it's all about.