God Is Love
The Trinity can sound like one of Christianity’s most complicated theological ideas.
Father.
Son.
Holy Spirit.
Three Persons, one God.
But at the center of the mystery is something much simpler:
God is love.
And the nature of love is to give itself away.
The Father gives Himself completely to the Son. The Son receives that love and gives Himself completely in return. The Holy Spirit is inseparable from this eternal communion of love.
God is not lonely or distant.
Within God Himself is perfect relationship, perfect communion, perfect self-giving love.
And then something astonishing happens.
That divine love spills over toward us.
God creates us.
The Son comes to us.
The Holy Spirit dwells within us.
God does not merely want us to know about Him.
He wants to bring us into His life.
What Is God Like?
In the first reading, God comes down in a cloud and stands with Moses.
Then God reveals His name and describes Himself:
“The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.”
Those words appear again and again throughout the Old Testament.
Merciful.
Gracious.
Slow to anger.
Rich in kindness.
Faithful.
Israel repeatedly fails God. And repeatedly Moses returns to what God Himself has revealed:
This is who You told us You are.
Sometimes people imagine that the God of the Old Testament is angry and severe, while the God revealed by Jesus is loving.
But God has not changed.
The God who reveals Himself to Moses as merciful and gracious is the same God revealed fully in Jesus Christ.
The New Testament does not replace His character.
It makes that love visible in the flesh.
God So Loved the World
Today’s Gospel may contain the most familiar words in Scripture:
“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”
Notice the movement.
God loves.
So God gives.
That is what love does.
The Father sends the Son not to condemn the world, but to save it.
And how does the Son come to us?
Through the Holy Spirit.
At the Annunciation, the Holy Spirit comes upon Mary and the Son of God takes on human flesh.
God comes close.
The Son enters our humanity so that we might be brought into the life of God.
The Trinity is not an abstract diagram.
It is a relationship into which we have been invited.
Believe Means More Than Knowing
Jesus says that whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.
But Christian belief is not simply agreeing with an idea in our heads.
To believe in Jesus is to entrust ourselves to Him.
To trust Him.
To love Him.
To follow Him.
It involves the whole person: mind, heart, soul, will, and even the way we live with our bodies.
Why can we trust Him?
Because He has already told us who He is:
Merciful.
Gracious.
Slow to anger.
Rich in kindness.
Faithful.
We see those qualities throughout the life of Jesus.
And by the Holy Spirit, that same divine life begins to shape us.
He Keeps Coming Down to Us
Again and again, God moves toward us.
He comes down to Moses.
The Son comes down to us in the Incarnation.
The Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us.
Christ meets us in reconciliation with mercy and forgiveness.
And in the Eucharist, He comes so close that we receive Him.
The God who created the universe allows Himself to be held and received.
That is how much He desires communion with us.
He wants to love us.
And He wants to be loved by us.
That is the heart of the Trinity.
For Moms
Family life gives us a small glimpse of something we see perfectly in God: love gives itself away.
Mothers understand this almost instinctively.
So much of family life involves receiving and giving.
Someone needs you.
You give.
Someone loves you.
You receive.
Then that love moves outward again.
Of course, our families do this imperfectly. We get tired. We become impatient. We keep score. Sometimes giving becomes harder than we want to admit.
But the Trinity shows us what love is meant to become.
Not one person endlessly giving while everyone else takes.
A communion of love.
Giving.
Receiving.
Returning.
And allowing love to move outward toward others.
The more we allow the Holy Spirit to draw us into God's own life, the more His character should become visible in ours.
More merciful.
More gracious.
Slower to anger.
Richer in kindness.
More faithful.
Questions to Sit With
- When I think about God, do I naturally think of Him as merciful, gracious, patient, kind, and faithful?
- Is it easier for me to give love than to receive it, including receiving God's love for me?
- Which quality of God named in Exodus do I most need the Holy Spirit to grow in me right now: mercy, graciousness, patience, kindness, or faithfulness?
Family Practice
Each time your family makes the Sign of the Cross this week, slow down.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Remind your children that this is not simply how Catholics begin and end a prayer.
It is the name into which we were baptized.
We belong to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we have been invited into the very life and love of God.