Dear Friends of Carmel Mission,
How many times in your life have you made the Sign of the Cross? For most Catholics,
the answer is: countless times. We sign ourselves in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, each time we gather as a Eucharistic community, and every time we pray our personal or family prayers.
By so doing, we are recognizing that we are members of the family of God, the family known as Trinity. Many outstanding theological tomes have been written on the Trinity, by Origen, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Newman, among many others. At the core of our Catholic faith is the recognition that we worship One God in Three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
This insight into the nature of God remains a Mystery, which defies our human capacity to fully understand it.
But the Trinity is not to be analyzed as some problematic mathematical formula of 3 in 1.
Rather, Trinity is a living, dynamic relationship in which we participate every day of our life. We are called at our Baptism to enter into the life of the Trinity. We do so best when we love other people. When we love, we are doing what God does best and we enter into the core of the Trinity. Each time we make the Sign of the Cross, we are committing ourselves to Trinitarian love, a love that always seeks the good of the other.
Happy Trinity Sunday!
Fr. Paul
Pastor at Carmel Mission