The Sunday of the Holy Trinity symbolizes the overall shape of the Christian doctrine of God. If you want to enter into the mystery of God, the front door is the Christian teaching of the Holy Trinity. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is one. God is love. These odd biblical and theological assertions and others like them show the mysterious shape of our faith and, as we ponder them through prayer, singing, worship, study and meditation, our souls are shaped by them.

Dim-witted, flat-footed atheists and others have charged that the doctrine of the Trinity is an idea made up by ancient Christian officials. No, the teaching of the Trinity stands as a welcome into full and thankful life. The Trinity means that God is not locked into church offices, not controlled by the liturgies or moralities of the church, and certainly not limited by elementary sneerings of secularists.

God is in all life. Life is God. The origins, communities and activities of life are pointed to in the doctrine of the Trinity. If you are alive, and are capable of simple and ordinary reflection on life, you may begin to understand the central Christian teaching of the Holy Trinity. Even if you are a professor or a pope you will never master the meaning of it. Life is holy. God is near us and far off. The world in which we live is beautiful and tragic.

The Sunday of the Trinity calls us into the mystery of life and there, in that mystery, to worship God, which means to give thanks together with other people. We should at all times and in all places give thanks…. That is the essential message of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.