When we hear the name “Holy Trinity” in reference to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, what is being described is a Holy Family or a Holy Communion. The Trinity is a family of Persons loving each other so perfectly, so totally, and so unconditionally that the Trinity is a unity. Three Persons are one God. In the Book of Genesis we read that God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26) What this means is that we were created to be a part of this very relationship! We are here on this earth to choose God and to learn to live in God. There is another way of wording this. We are here on earth to choose love and to live in love. This love has a name: The Most Holy Trinity.
It is not so easy to live this kind of Trinitarian love in the world. Yet, as individuals, families, communities, countries, and as a world, we were created for this. This may seem next to impossible as we take-in all of the news reports about all of the division in our world. Thankfully, Jesus offered us a way to begin living in this Trinitarian love right now. He taught us to recognize that we are all God’s children when He taught us to call God our Father when we pray. He taught us that unity is won by forgiveness not vengeance. He taught us to love our neighbor with all of our heart even if it means laying down our lives for the sake of another like the soldiers at Normandy whom we remember this weekend in honor of D-Day.
The evil one is at work spreading seeds of hatred and enmity. He works very hard to create division not only among ourselves but within ourselves. How many of us at times will share or say, “I feel so conflicted,” or “I am just so divided over this.” This a consequence of original sin. We lost that original unity when the darkness of sin entered into the heart of humanity. St. Paul describes this disunity as a kind of division between the flesh and the spirit. We read in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want.” (Galatians 5:17) For example, we sometimes choose to do something even when we know it offends God. But there is hope. In the same letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul counsels us to live in the Spirit and we will overcome the flesh.
As we allow God to heal the divisions within us through His mercy and love, we are able to participate more fully and completely in Trinitarian unity. This is how the saints like St. Francis of Assisi and our own patron, St. Anthony of Padua, maintained such peace in their hearts no matter what was happening around them in the world. God protected their hearts from the darkness without through His light within. How can that happen for us, especially with all that is going on in our world these days? Prayer is the key. Imagine how differently each of us might respond and therefore, how different the world would be, if everyone simply prayed first. When we pray, we are putting God first. We are opening our hearts to His will and His way. By doing this as St. Paul teaches us, “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
When we live as St. Paul teaches, we participate in Trinitarian love as a unique member of the Body of Christ. Similar to how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit carryout their respective roles as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier while remaining one God, we live in Christ in the way that each part of the body has a unique role or function. In other words, “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-7) As individuals and as a community, it would be good for us to prayerfully discern how God is asking us to go about the work of building His kingdom of Trinitarian love, especially when faced with the brokenness caused by discrimination, injustice, hatred, racism, violence, and the many other manifestations of a culture of death. In the end, there is no greater protest of this culture of death and no greater yes to a life of Trinitarian love than to live Christ. This is described very beautifully and powerfully in the Prayer of St. Francis: “Where there is hatred let me bring your love, where there is injury, your pardon Lord and where there's doubt, true faith in you…where there's despair in life let me bring hope, where there is darkness, only light and where there's sadness ever joy.”