Trinity Sunday 7.6.09
Love is the subject of thousands of songs, and most films and books have a love story of some sort.
This is human love, the love between a man and a woman. We might think it is everything, but it is really just a derivative of something much stronger - divine love.
Divine love is the Source of everything we have here on earth, but particularly of our capacity to love and be loved.
Everyone wants to be loved, whether they are religious, irreligious, or anti-religious.
The need to love and be loved is built into us by the Creator, who Himself is Love.
The need to be loved probably seems stronger than the need to love; but we actually have a deep need to love God. We are made for this. We may not recognise the need, but it is there. To deny it is to be like a fish who thinks it can do without water. It can try living on the land but it will not be very happy in the attempt. Neither will we if we think we can get by without God.
As we come today to explore (as far as we can) the Mystery of the Holy Trinity we will learn something of our interaction with divine love and we should manage to improve both our love of God and love of neighbour.
We find that God is One, yet also three Persons. The three Persons are equal in status, perfectly united in will and action, always agreeing with each other, and loving each other with a force we can barely imagine.
If we say that human love is like the pale sunlight that comes in the window after 93 million miles, then divine love is the temperature at the source of that sunlight, on the surface of the sun itself! (And more besides)
We observe human love, which can be very strong but is also marred by arguments, betrayals, selfishness etc. Divine love is a billion times stronger and without any of the negatives.
It is sometimes suggested that God created the human race so that He would have someone to love, and to be loved by.
It is true that He wants to share His love with us, but not true that in any sense He would be lonely without us. He has in Himself, through the three divine Persons, every possible degree of love. Perfect love is given and returned.
He has no need of us but He wants us all the same.
So we enter the scene. Created by Him and then called to be His adopted children, we participate in His nature.
This means we learn to love as He loves – being generous, faithful, and loving even when not loved in return.
We are elevated as we contemplate Him. We rise above pettiness, unforgiveness and any other imperfections. There is no place in Him for these things, nor in us.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right and fitting to do so..
It is useful for us because it will bring many blessings. But even more so it is necessary because it is in our nature to do so. We are made for God, made to be in union with Him. It is something we need to do – to contemplate Him and glorify Him.
He does not need us, yet we can add to His glory. After all, three million and one people can give more glory than three million. So each person can add something. We cannot increase the perfection of God, but we do a good thing to express His perfection.
Thus the Church, through prayers and hymns, and above all the sacrifice of the Mass, proclaims the glory of God, One and Three.
May each and all of us come to know, love and serve Him more fully.
Glory be to Him!
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