I’ve heard it said that if we actually try to explain the Holy Trinity, then it’s not really the Holy Trinity we’re explaining at all…it’s something quite different…an imitation of the real thing…a caricature of what we think the Trinity is. The fact is…the Trinity is a mystery and at best we can merely scratch its surface. So if we’re ever going to contemplate the Holy Trinity we have to be careful to do what St. John of the Cross once said…learn to understand more by not understanding than by actually understanding.

Let me illustrate this with two different scenarios. First….say there’s someone who has known you, maybe for just a couple of years…an acquaintance or a neighbor or a co-worker…someone you enjoy being around but you wouldn’t call a close friend quite yet. Now imagine this person comes up to you and says, “You know…I’ve got you all figured out. I understand you. I know exactly what you’re thinking…I know how you feel…I know what you are going to say before you even say it. You don’t surprise me at all.” Would you feel understood by this person? Would you feel respected and honored by this person? Would you feel connected to this person? Or would you instead feel violated…dis-respected…misunderstood?

Now what about this second scenario…Someone who has known you for a long time…your husband or wife…brother or sister or best friend…comes up and says, “You are such a mystery to me. I’ve known you for almost all of my life and I still can’t figure you out. Just when I think I understand you…you surprise me. There’s a depth to you that is just beyond me…I can’t fully understand it…but I really like it. All these years – and I’m still getting to know you.” Now…wouldn’t you feel more understood by this person…more honored by this person…more valued? Wouldn’t you feel freer to be who you are with no need to put up some sort of façade…or some sort of false identity?

This is how we have to approach the Holy Trinity. We have to learn to understand it more by not understanding it. Because by not forcing the Trinity to fit into our ideas of what it should be…we actually allow the Trinity to be the mystery it has always been. It’s not our job to understand the Holy Trinity…BUT…what I do think is our job is to connect with the Father Son and Holy Spirit by working to experience the Trinity. So with that, I want us today to consider something a bit different.

I want us to stop trying to define the Holy Trinity as a concept or a fact or as a dogma…to move away from seeing the Trinity as a noun. And instead, I want us to see the Trinity as a verb…as something that is constantly…by its very nature…doing something. I want us to see that the Trinity isn’t something static that just sits up there in heaven looking down upon all of us…but rather…I want us to see the Holy Trinity as something dynamic…Something that does something. I want us to see that while the Holy Trinity is never changing…it is at the same time always growing…always experiencing…always acting out its truest identity. Today I want us to reflect on what the Trinity is like…How the Trinity acts…how the Trinity feels.

We all know from our catechism that the Trinity is One God and Three Persons. There’s the Father…the Son…and the Holy Spirit. We all remember the classic image of the Trinity from our catechism classes as children depicting the Trinity as a Triangle…you all remember this right…a triangle emblazoned on a poster or a chalk board or a piece of paper. The Father was always at the top of the triangle…the son down on one side and the Spirit on the other. There were are arrows pointing from one to the other and from the other to the one which was supposed to show us that the Father was connected to the Son and the Son to the Father and the Holy Spirit to the Son and the Son to the Holy Spirit…you get the idea.

But again…today we’re reflecting on the Holy Trinity as a verb and not a noun. And a couple of years back I came across a perfect diagram that expresses this. Rather than the Holy Trinity being a triangle…this diagram places the Father at the top with a big F and the Son at the bottom with an S. Now we all know that the Holy Trinity is eternal…without beginning and without end…that there never has been a time that the Three Persons of the Trinity haven’t been. But we also know the church teaches us that the Father begets the Son. In other words…the Father loves the Son…it says it all throughout the Gospel of John. So in this diagram there is an arrow going down from the Father to the Son because the Father loves the son…this is the Trinity as a verb that I’m talking about…the Trinity doing something. Now the Son is a wonderful receiver. You’ve all heard me say this before…the quality of our receiving always affects the quality of the giving. If we are good receivers…the giver’s experience of giving will be all the more profound. If we are bad receivers just the opposite will happen. (MARY Kay’s windbreaker). The Son is so good at receiving that he returns the love back up to the Father with an upward travelling arrow in the diagram. And the Father is an equally great receiver so He then returns another arrow…more love…back to the Son who then…again…returns another arrow back to the Father who returns another arrow to the Son who returns another to the Father. This giving and receiving of Love between Father and Son goes on infinitely until the arrows from the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father become solid in the diagram. And these solid lines…they’re the Holy Spirit. This is the Trinity as a verb rather than a noun. The Action of loving one another is the most basic identifier of the Holy Trinity. The three persons…they’re dynamic…they’re in relationship…giving…receiving…acknowledging each other…affirming each other…honoring each other…supporting each other…respecting each other…meeting each other where they are and never trying to change each other. We will never be able to fully understand the Holy Trinity…but we can come to know how it acts…how it behaves…how it feels.

Now there’s one more interesting tie in here that will help you and me encounterthe Trinity at an even more profound level. It comes to us from the creation stories in the Old Testament. How did God create you and me? In his own image. So as we contemplate the Trinity today we’re actually contemplating the template by which we ourselves were created…the owner’s manual of our souls if you will. They are called persons…divine persons. You and I are also called persons…human persons. You want to know what it means to be a person…look no further than the Trinity…how the Trinity acts…what the Trinity does…how the Trinity looks like (the diagram I just explained. That’s what we are supposed to be like. In Relationship with other persons…Giving to other persons…Receiving from other persons…Communicating…Interacting…acknowledging each other…affirming each other…honoring each other…Loving Each other! That is who God is…and it is how you and I are supposed to be.

And so each day we need to ask ourselves…am I imitating the Trinity with my actions? Could what I’m doing even be possible within the Trinity. You know that nowhere in the Trinity is fighting ever possible…there’s no war in the Trinity…there’s no abusive behavior in the Trinity…there’s no such thing as jealousy in the Trinity…no abortion…no death penalty…no grudges…no bad mouthing…no unhealthy competition. These things are simply incompatible within the Holy Trinity. And so by very definition…we as persons created in the very image of God in the Trinity…these things are incompatible with our own personhood also. The Son doesn’t talk bad about the Father behind the Father’s back to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit doesn’t try to outdo the Son in the eyes of the Father. The Father isn’t mean to the Son and the Son always respects the Father. In the Trinity each person allows the other to be and doesn’t try to manipulate the other. There’s just Love…giving love…receiving love…completing one another in that Love. You and I are called to imitate God in that Trinity. We’re not called to understand something that is a total mystery. But we can act like the Trinity. We can live in a Trinitarian manner. We can Love like the Trinity. This is the beauty of the mystery…acting like the Trinity pulls us out of ourselves and invites us into the lives of others…which is precisely where Christian discipleship begins.