God infinitely loving, has been in Himself, engaged in a communication of love since before time began. We, like an inquisitive child, might well ask: “What was God doing before he created the world?” The answer: He was loving himself.
God, who is three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is an eternal exchange of love. This has for us Christians very real, everyday consequences.
First and foremost, we are invited to welcome love. God invites us to the table. God waves us over, beckoning for us to join him.
The Catechism explains,
God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.
May is typically the month of First Communions. Many parishes have recently witnessed the classes of young boys and girls who, smartly dressed and attentive in prayer, have presented themselves to receive the Holy Eucharist for the first time. They are taught over and over again that the Blessed Sacrament is the Real Presence of Jesus. The children are reminded that Christ is there, hidden under the guise of bread and wine, truly present body, blood, soul, and divinity.
And yet the Son is never separated from the Father. The Holy Trinity is indivisible always three-in-one. Father Marie Vincent Bernadot, O.P., writes,
The Word Comes to us. But He does not come alone. “I am in the Father and the Father in me” (John 14:10). What a consoling truth that where Jesus is His Father is also: “He that sent me is with Me and He hath not left Me alone… The Father abideth in Me.” (John 8:29, 14:10). But where the Father and Son are present there is also the Holy Ghost. Consequently the adorable Trinity dwells in the heart of each communicant.
Our hearts become sanctuaries, dwelling places, throne rooms for God. Our hearts are not museums where God is displayed, but festive halls, where God is honored and glorified.
Second, we are invited to join in the exchange of love. Jesus teaches us to love the Father. He teaches us that the Father is good, and of His providential care for us. The Father, in turn, teaches us to love the Son. The Father desires that we see in Jesus’ sacrifice love that free us from sin. The Holy Spirit is the one who is properly love, that is the union between the loving Father and Son. In the Holy Spirit, the Father leads us to Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit, Jesus leads us to the Father.
Monsignor Albecete writes,
“In this life, we are at the mercy of power: the power of history, the power of peers, the power of biology, the politics of economics and of religious worries. If our lives are defined by those powers, we are not free. The only way we could possibly be free is if we are rooted and linked to a reality that is higher than these forces.”
This is who we are in our deepest selves! We are the sons and daughters of love. The higher forces of heaven determine the horizon of our lives, not the weights and sufferings of here below.
Too often we prefer the shackles of this life. We live for exchanges on Twitter, Instagram reels, and cable news networks. These powers invite us to things other than the love of heaven, and overwhelmed and sorrowful, often our hearts can’t carry their burdens.
Third, we must keep the love of the Holy Trinity at the center of our lives. To be able to live in union with God, we must look to Jesus. The Son shows us the way to the Father and is always and everywhere our example of life. Jesus models a life of interior recollection, a way of life that will give us peace.
Blessed Angela of Foligno says, “The law of prayer is one of unity: God requires the entire man, not a part of him.” We must, therefore, give our whole hearts, our whole lives to this project of following Jesus. There is no turning back, no reservation to keep love at the center of our lives.
At prayer, at work, in times of temptation and physical suffering, we can remain united with love! God will never abandon the soul that strives for recollection, for centering the love of God in his or her life.
The Holy Trinity is the central mystery of our faith, a claim about the nature of God unlike any other. This revelation about who God is shows us that the Christian God is neither distant nor static. Rather, our God is dynamic and very near. By his grace our hearts can be made into homes for him and this love can be the anchor of our lives. In the words of St. Albert the Great,
O my Lord and my God! My beginning, my end, O Essence sovereignly simple, tranquil, and lovable. O abyss of sweetness and all delights! O most loved light and supreme good of my soul! Inexpressible ocean of joy. Perfect plenitude of all good. My God and my all, what will it be when I shall possess You?
You are my unique and unalterable good.
I seek you alone.
I desire and search but for You.
Lord draw me to Thyself.
I knock, O Lord, open to me. Open to one forsaken who implores you.
Plunge me into the abyss of Your Divinity.
Make me one spirit with You, so that I may possess within me Your treasures.
And today we celebrate...