Relationship: The Reality of the Trinity
“We have peace with God” Romans 5:1
I don’t remember my baptism as I was just two months old. Years later, I watched the recording captured by my uncle, expecting to see something small and intimate. What surprised me was just how many people were there. I had imagined it was only close family. But the church was basically full of family, friends, relatives, and neighbors of my village in the Philippines! So many of those who had a relationship with my family had gathered to witness me receiving the sacrament of baptism as I am brought into the family of God.
At the time, I didn’t fully understand it. But now I realize that moment of communal support was more than a passing memory. It was a visible sign of something far deeper: I was being drawn into a relationship that is at the very heart of our faith.
This Sunday in our liturgical season, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. It’s one of the great mysteries of our faith. This mystery is central to everything we believe and yet it so difficult to fully grasp. During my theological studies, I had the opportunity to take a semester-long course on the Trinity. We explored the Bible, writings of the Church Fathers, theological treatises, and Church documents. After months of presentations, prayer, and reading, how can I sum up this profound mystery in one word?
Relationship.
That’s the heart of the Trinity. Before anything was created, God existed as a perfect communion of Persons as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Not three gods, but one God in a relationship so complete, so total in self-giving love, that the three are one. This divine relationship is not distant or abstract. This is the very foundation of our faith and the model for how we are called to live: with God and with one another.
When we were baptized, we were brought into this very relationship. The priest poured water over us and said the words: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” That wasn’t just a formula, it was an invitation into God’s own life. From that moment, each of us was drawn into the loving communion of the Trinity. We became, in a real sense, part of His divine family.
Every time we make the Sign of the Cross, every time we say “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,” we are renewing our identity as beloved sons and daughters of God.
As we celebrate this Solemnity, let us not try to “solve” the Trinity like a math problem. Understanding the Trinity is an impossible task as it is a mystery. Instead, let us receive with wonder the love shared among the Trinity. Let this love inspire us to grow in relationship that overflows into the world.
Because in the end, the Trinity reminds us of the truth we most need to remember: God is not isolation. God is peace. God is love. God is relationship. And He inviting us into this peaceful and loving relationship.
-Br. Miggo
