“Respect for ourselves guides our morals. Respect for others guides our manners.” — Laurence Sterne.
Love is one of those words that you can define, but it does not mean you fully understand it — or ever can.
It is a mystery that you enter into; you know when it is there and when it is not. The more you experience it, the more you discover the depths of its meaning.
But one thing you know for sure, you can never fully grasp its meaning or power because it is truly mystery.
The Trinity is also mystery. We attempt to define it. We listen to God’s word as Trinity is revealed throughout the Gospels, most especially in John’s Gospel.
We are given rich and beautiful descriptions of the love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit and experience this revelation of one God in three persons, this community of love in one God.
Because it is this love between Father, Son, Spirit that is God, one can say it, describe it, attempt to define it, proclaim it, listen to the revelation of it, seek its meaning and, in all of this, we keep entering in more deeply to the mystery.
But the truth is we will never fully grasp its meaning. It is like the proverbial “bottomless pit” — the more you grasp, the deeper the truth.
There is always more. Once the mystery has been shared and begins to reveal its meaning and power, it becomes more and more a mystery to be experienced.
To enter into the love that is Trinity — to open its power and be touched by it, to seek it and discover it, to open one’s mind to it — is the journey.
As Catholics, we do that simply as we begin and end every prayer by marking or crossing ourselves “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Every time we pray we mark ourselves with the cross, and we mark ourselves with the name of God as Trinity.
We are covered by the love of the cross and covered by the love that is God — the communion of three persons in one God.
We will never fully understand it, and yet we touch the mystery countless times every day in prayer, allowing this mystery to guide and to change and to love us.
We are a people of faith, and our lives are formed and transformed by the God we know and love as Father, Son and Holy Spirit — the Most Holy Trinity.
Father Perry D. Leiker is the 14th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at perry.leiker@gmail.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.
