It takes me over
a week to get to the root of what I believe to be the most fundamental and important
aspect of Catholic Theology: The Holy Trinity. Almost all aspects of what I
teach my students and what I understand to be Catholic Theology rests on our
understanding of who God is, or rather, who God are.
“If God is Love,
who was He Loving before He created us?” a professor of mine once posed. I ask
the same question to my students. My sharper students remark, “What do you mean
before, Mr. Smith? God is outside of
time and space.” I acknowledge their superior intelligence and ask the question
again. When I was their age I would never have come up with a decent response,
but I seem to have several students who logically deduce that if God is Love
then before He created us, He must have Loved Himself. I push the conversation:
“But doesn’t Love necessitate at least two unique individuals for it to be
authentic?” They start to understand that God must be more than one “person” in
order for this to be True. This is a basic premise of the Trinity. This is how
we begin our conversation about the Trinitarian attribute or aspect of God.
The objective is:
“Students will be able to describe the three Persons of the Trinity.” I
continue with the question “What is the Trinity?” Some of my students have a
good background in their Catholic or Christian Faith, so they share what they
know. Ultimately, I describe to them that the Trinity is the central
dogma (belief) of the Christian Faith. That dogma states that there are three
Divine Persons in the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) in one God. But I
go further. I use St. Augustine’s theology for this.
Who is the Father? When Jesus prays He calls God “Abba”. “Abba” means
“daddy”. God the Father is God as “Lover”,
the one who Loves. He is God who Loves perfectly.
Who is the Son? Jesus is the Son. The Son is the Beloved. The Son becomes
the Incarnation (God made flesh); He is God who is Beloved perfectly.
Who is the Holy Spirit? The Spirit is the Love between the Father and the
Son. The Spirit inspires Scripture and Tradition, but (and this gets tricky,
but I am laying groundwork here) the Love between the Father and the Son is so
profoundly perfect that it is a
unique Person, separate but eternally in communion with the Father and the Son.
The Spirit drives the Church and helps keep Her moving in the direction of God.
For our benefit, the Spirit delivers Grace (spiritual gifts) to us.
The Lover, the Beloved, and the Love between are so united in Will that
they are One God. This takes a little thinking, but I use the idea that the
more two people Love each other, the more they can sort of read each other’s
thoughts and feelings. The deeper the connection, the more perfect the
relationship. They seem to grow into one person. I suggest to the students that
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are so perfect in their Love, that they
remain separate and unique Persons, but are transcendently unified in a single
God.
As I get to later, I remind the students that if we are made in the image
and likeness of God, then we are made to “look like” the Trinity; we are made
to be Lover, Beloved, the Love Between, AND we are made to be One in communion
with each other and with God. Our Authentic Self, effectively, is Trinity.
(He's watching a rainbow; I am, well, taking a selfie.)
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