Trinity Sunday
May 26, 2024
Today, Trinity Sunday, the Church celebrates the three Divine Persons in God. St. Francis de Sales states that we, as a community, are called to a similar union of pure love:
The pure love of the Trinity overflows into the spiritual health of the whole human family. The Holy Spirit, in us during this mortal life, leads us to Christ, who is the way to the Father. It is the Trinity that has brought about the mystery of God becoming human. Our Savior has taken on our likeness and given us His. Only in and through Christ are we able to participate in the Trinity’s union of pure love.
Our spiritual health is founded on the Incarnation. Our Savior was too great a lover of truth and authentic goodness to be carried away by greed, ambition, and honors that harm us. Our Lord calls us to love one another and be united together as purely and perfectly as possible. It is only God’s image and likeness that we ought to love and honor in all. St. Paul recommends: “Beloved, walk the way of love for one another as very dear children of God.” Paul adds that he wants us to walk with giant strides as Jesus did: loving and forgiving all. We are truly God’s children when we love one another dearly in all goodness of heart.
The union of the three Divine Persons is really impossible to imagine. It would be presumptuous to hope to reach an identical union of love as found in the three Divine Persons. Yet we must be willing to approach this union in a manner consistent with our human condition. We are all called to become holy, but we must rely primarily on God’s grace, not our own human effort, to love divinely. Just as the love of the three Divine Persons overflows into the whole human family, may our love resemble the Trinity, and overflow into the hearts of those we encounter each day.
(Adapted from the Writings of St. Francis de Sales, especially The Sermons of St. Francis de Sales, L. Fiorelli, Ed.)
