Florida Catholic | Sunday Word

Trinity Sunday

Most Holy Trinity

May 18, 2008 :: Ex 34:4b-6, 8-9; Dn 3:52-55; 2 Cor 13:11-13; Jn 3:16-18

FATHER DAVID SCOTCHIE

Visiting a Hebrew day school, I sat in a class and heard the teacher sum up Judaism: God, Torah, people. At the risk of oversimplying, she made Judaism easy enough to understand even for eighth-graders full of hormones.

Woody Allen warned that anything that can fit in a nutshell should stay there. Yet if you had to put it in a nutshell, what would you say is the foundation of the Catholic faith?

Martin Luther said that Gospel was summed up in one verse: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

Yet even this tidy and famous verse can be summed up in one word: Trinity.

At the end of a discussion about what religion should do in the world, two college students agreed, “What’s most important is that everyone believes in the same God.”

This is not true. Judaism professes faith in the one God of the Old Testament, but does not include the New Testament, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit. Buddhism professes faith in no God. Hinduism professes faith in 300 million gods. Islam professes faith in one sovereign God and regards Jesus as a prophet. Not everyone believes in the same God.

Only Christianity professes faith in one God, three persons. This teaching is known as the Trinity.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life” (234). God the Father, Son and Spirit is the source of all other teachings and salvation history. Life in the Trinity is ours by baptism.

Paul concluded his Second Letter to the Corinthians with the summary of faith. It is one of the greetings that the presider may use at the beginning of Mass.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you” (2 Cor 13:13).

To take to prayer: Spend some time with the Trinity.

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