Trinity Sunday
Knights of Columbus State Deputies Meeting
June 12, 2022
New Haven, CT
Years ago, I received a letter of complaint from a parishioner. Distraught over the way he had been treated by a member of a parish staff, he wrote to tell me that he was fine with Jesus but had had it with the Church. “From now on,” he said, “it’s just Jesus and me!” Similarly, we often hear people say, “I’m spiritual but not religious”, or “my religion is personal and private – not something I share with others.” Such statements are variations on a theme, and theme is that religion is fine as long as it doesn’t involve other people.
As those who are part of the world’s largest Catholic fraternal organization, I’m rather sure that we would disagree with that point of view. Our religion is not solely about our relationship with God but also our relationship with others – both believers and non-believers. In a word, our faith puts us in relationship to God and to others. St. John put it best when he wrote that we cannot claim to love God while hating our neighbor.
As we know, the Trinity, God in himself, is relational, that is to say, the Three Persons of the Trinity are related to one another in such a way as to constitute only One God – mysterious but true! From all eternity, God the Father begets the Son, the Word who perfectly reflects the Father’s splendor, and the love shared between the Father and Son is not merely a feeling, but rather a Person, namely, the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And wondrously, God’s inner life and love is reflected in us, even while we are here on earth, and in three ways: First, each person and the family are created in the image of the Triune God. Second, the Church herself is patterned on the Trinity and shares in its life and love. Third, the founding principles of the Order are Trinitarian – love, unity, & fraternity. Permit me a word about each.
The Dignity of the Human Person and the Role of the Family
First, we often speak about the dignity of the human person. We say that each person without exception is made in God’s image, that there is a spark of the divine in the depths of every human being. If we are truly made in God’s image, then we are made in the image of the Trinity. Thus, we are made, not to be isolated individuals, all wrapped up in ourselves, but relational beings, beings who are meant to encounter others in love. Each person is called to friendship, to intimacy with God, a sharing in the life and love of the One God in Three Persons. Each person is called to love others and to be loved by others, for without love, as St. John Paul II observed, life makes no sense.
None of us likes to be lonely, but the experience of loneliness teaches us that we are meant for love – the love of the Persons of the Trinity and the love of a human community – the first of which is the family. In the unity of the family, its members are to discover love, both divine and human, and that is why the defense of the family is always uppermost in our minds & hearts. Nothing has contributed to the eclipse of religion and dysfunction in human relationships more than the breakdown of the family. The imprint of the Trinity on each person and on the family is the origin of our mission to protect and defend human life from conception onwards, and to protect and defend the family, so crucial to human flourishing.
The Church Patterned on the Trinity
Not only is the individual person and the family itself modelled on the Trinity. So too, God’s family, the Church, is modelled on the Trinity and because the Church shares in the Trinity’s inner life and love, she is holy. Quoting St. Cyprian of Carthage, the Second Vatican Council taught that “…the Church has been seen “as a people made one with the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (LG, 4).
In the Creed, we proclaim that the Church is “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.” The very word “church”, “ecclesia”, means those who are called out of darkness and gathered together from every race and nation into God’s Holy People. This marvelously diverse people is gathered into one, not merely into the oneness of human friendship, not merely into some kind of a club, but rather into the unity that is at the heart of the Trinity, at the heart of God himself. Put more simply, Jesus, God’s Son in the flesh, said, “The Father and I are one” – and in the unity of the Church we participate in the oneness of the Father and the Son who are united by the love that is the Holy Spirit. It is in and through the Church, especially through her preaching, her sacraments, and her works of charity that we are caught up in the love of the Persons of the Trinity, experiencing while still on earth a foretaste of the fullness of the joys of heaven.
The unity of the Church is fragile. It has always been threatened by scandal and error. Here our principle of unity comes into play, for as Knights and Ladies, we are charged not only to look after our own internal unity as an organization, but rather to build up and strengthen the Church’s unity, so that she will indeed be seen as “a people made one with the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
The Trinitarian Principles of the Knights of Columbus
Finally, as I shared with you on Friday at St. Mary’s Church, our birthplace, the principles of our Order are themselves Trinitarian. The First Letter of John teaches us that God is love and all who live in love, live in God. Our first principle reflects the very nature of the Triune God – the love of the Father for the Son and the love of the Son for the Father, that love who is the Holy Spirit. This is the love that God has lavished upon humanity and this is the love that we are called to share with “the widow and the orphan”.
We profess that God is one, for the Persons of the Trinity constitute One God. The distinction of Persons does not hinder or undermine the unity of the Godhead. So too, the diversity of our members in age, race, or nationality ought not hinder our unity of faith and mission as the family of the Knights of Columbus. Rather, we are united in charity, united in service to one and in service to all.
The truth of Three Persons in One God goes to the heart of the principle of fraternity. God, in his very nature, is relational, even as we are to relate to one another in love. The Persons of the Trinity eternally share a life and love among themselves, a life and love that is pure, infinite, and selfless. The principle of fraternity invites us to relate to one another in like manner, and indeed to establish bonds of solidarity with the poor and vulnerable. What we have to give is not only programs and resources, important as that is, but the greatest thing we have to give is our own life and love – a gift we give first to God and then to those around us.
Conclusion
Today we celebrate the God who revealed himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What God revealed to us about himself is not an abstract truth up in the clouds. The Trinity is the pattern of the human person, the family, the Church, and the Order. Trinity Sunday is the day for us to catch hold of a vision of life and love that should fill us with joy and hope, that should get us out of bed every morning and renew us in mission, and spur us on to lead a life can rightly be called Trinitarian – a life of charity, unity, and fraternity. Vivat Jesus!