God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Homily
The Trinity Is Unique to Christianity
This weekend we celebrate our first Sunday after the Easter Season by going back to the beginning when everything started—to the Most Holy Trinity. We begin each Mass by reminding ourselves of the mystery of the Holy Trinity when we make the Sign of the Cross and pray, “In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
Of all the world’s religions, only Christianity believes in the Trinity. It’s absolutely unique to us. Still, to be honest, the Trinity is hard to understand. How can God be both one and three? How can the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be fully God and yet three distinct persons? Our minds have difficulty grasping this concept. But the fact that we can’t completely understand it, makes the doctrine of the Trinity ring true. Why? Because it shows that no human being could have come up with this concept, so it must be a divine revelation from God himself.
The Trinity clearly shows us that the Creator of the universe exists in a way that we cannot fully comprehend. And that makes perfect sense, because God should exceed our ability to comprehend him fully. If he were easy to understand, he wouldn’t be much of a God, would he? It’s this great and divine mystery that actually makes God so beautiful and appealing for us.
St Augustine and the Seashell
The beauty and grandeur of God is one of Pope-Emeritus Benedict’s favorite topics. In fact, one of the symbols on his coat of arms is a seashell, which refers directly to the Trinity.
The seashell comes from a story about St Augustine, who was walking along the beach one morning, trying to understand the mystery of the Trinity. Suddenly he saw a little boy playing on the beach. The boy had made a hole in the sand and was walking back and forth between the hole and the sea. He held a little shell in his hands. When he reached the sea, he would fill up the shell with water. Then he would carefully carry it back and pour the water into the hole. He kept doing this, and after a while, Augustine asked him what he was doing. The child answered, “I’m going to empty the sea into that hole in the sand.” Well, Augustine just laughed out loud and said, “Son, that’s quite impossible. Look how big the sea is, and how small the hole is!” The boy then looked at him and said, “And yet, it would be easier for me to empty the sea into this hole than for you to understand the mystery of the Trinity.” And with that, the boy disappeared.
By putting a seashell on his coat of arms, Pope-Emeritus Benedict is reminding himself, and us, that our God is infinitely wonderful and mysterious, and we will never be able to completely understand him. But that’s okay, because it means that heaven will never be boring or tedious. It means that every moment in heaven—for all eternity!—we will be learning something new about our infinite and loving God.
Our Triune God Offers Us His Friendship
Today, as we profess our faith in our Triune God—who has loved us so completely from the beginning of creation—let’s thank him for the gift of his love and friendship that he offers us every day through his Son, Jesus Christ. And let’s promise him that we will never take his love and friendship for granted.
Now, every time we make the Sign of the Cross and pray "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," let’s renew our commitment to live our lives worthy of his love and friendship, which has been given to us through the divine adoption that we have received through Christ, our Lord. Remember, "For God so loved the world that he gave..." himself to us forever!