This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, when Christians celebrate and reflect on the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity can often be a tough concept to fully grasp, and I would argue that it is impossible for humans to fully grasp such a divine mystery. But I would like to take some time to reflect on the Trinity through a lens of perfect community and the lessons we can draw from it.

Many of us are familiar with the composition of the Trinity and for Catholics, we are reminded every time we make the sign of the Cross: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each person of the Trinity is a truly unique and complete manifestation of the Divine but in a wholly different way from the others. We can marvel at the works of God the Father in the vast beauty of the universe and in the stories of the Old Testament. We can learn and grow from the Gospel stories of Jesus the Son and his time on Earth as a fellow human. And we can certainly pray and reflect on the Holy Spirit who advocates for us and comes upon us when most needed. All of these unique persons reflect God. However, it is only when we consider together God the Father, the Creator of the Universe; Jesus, the fully human and fully divine Son who walked Earth with us; and the Holy Spirit, who sets our hearts aflame that we see the full nature of God revealed. God is not only a masterful Lord of the universe who sits far off in the heavens above us mere mortals; God is also a human baby, born in a stable to a young woman and her carpenter husband. God is not simply a human man who touched people’s lives on earth with his ministry in a literal, very knowable sense, but also an ethereal breath of life who comes upon our hearts and moves us to establish the Kingdom of God. God is not only an unseeable spirit, but the divine architect who put into motion the creation of all things physical in the universe. God is all of these things together united in the Trinity.

This poses an immense challenge for us. Not only in trying to understand this miraculous nature of God. But in the sense that these three persons could not possibly be more different and yet are all the same God. Despite their very different natures, they live in perfect unity with one another and recognize and honor each other as God. However, if we look at our world today, it feels like we are far too eager to reject the Divine within our fellow humans. Perhaps they have different cultural customs that we find abhorrent. Perhaps they voted for a different candidate. Perhaps they have wronged us in some way. Instead of working towards a true Kingdom of Heaven on Earth via a communion of humanity, we instead turn to walling ourselves off to keep “them” out, whoever that may be. This couldn’t be further from what we should be doing. If we truly believe in the Trinity, then the very nature of God is one of community and communion; of wildly different entities united together in perfect love to form the Divine. And as long as we spend more time looking for reasons to reject our fellow humans than in looking for the Divine in them, we will never be able to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

So, the next time you find yourself tempted to cut yourself off from one of your fellow humans (and believe me, I feel this temptation as well!), take a moment to consider the Trinity. Remember that in the same way that each person of the Trinity is a manifestation of God, the person you just can’t stand also is a manifestation of God’s love and a beloved child of God. And, drawing inspiration from the Trinity wherein all three persons fully and completely recognize each other as God, perhaps challenge yourself to recognize God even in those people you find most difficult to love.

– Christian Svetnicka