Each Parish should be Trinitarian

Every vehicle has a motor. Every computer has a CPU. Every football team has a coach.

So what is the central mystery of our faith?

Is it the Eucharist? The incarnation? The resurrection?

The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life – our participation in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

The incarnation is the moment when God became man and united our humanity to his divinity.

The resurrection is God’s definitive response to evil, suffering, and death: life cannot be destroyed.

Yet none of these is the central mystery of our faith. Paragraph 234 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them.”

In other words, the Trinity is the most fundamental teaching upon which all other teachings are founded. The Church is fundamentally Trinitarian. This means the life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the wellspring from which the Church draws her life.

As we look back on Trinity Sunday, it is wise to remind ourselves that the Church exists for the praise of the glory of the Father, through discipleship in Jesus Christ, empowered by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

For this reason, the vision of an ideal parish must be rooted in its Trinitarian identity. Yet, what does it mean?

It means that a parish earnestly strives to fulfill the prayer of Jesus in the Gospel of John: “May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us.”

We must never undervalue this all-important fact: God is a Trinity of persons. Three Persons in one God. This means that the fundamental identity of God is perfect relationship: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit living in complete communion.

As Bishop Gerber taught: “Through our time, talent, and treasure … we are drawn into the divine relationships that are altogether mutual, reciprocal, and interdependent.”

That is a beautiful way of saying something very important: we glorify God when we strive to perfect our relationships.

This is why St. John says, “Whoever does not love a brother whom he can see cannot love God whom he cannot see … whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20-21).

Brothers and sisters in Christ, a Trinitarian parish lives in community and communion.

That means that parish life cannot be reduced to programs, buildings, events, schedules, or even ministries. Those things matter, of course. But they exist for something deeper: communion with God and solidarity with one another.

A Trinitarian parish is not a crowd of individuals who happen to worship in the same building. It is a communion of persons drawn together by the Father, formed in the Son, and enlivened by the Holy Spirit.

This is also why Sunday Mass is never optional.

Some people ask, “Why can’t I praise God on my own?”

The answer is Trinitarian.

God, who is a communion of Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – desires to be worshiped by a communion of persons, the parish.

At Mass, we are not merely individuals praying near one another. We are the Body of Christ, gathered by the Father, united to the sacrifice of the Son, and filled with the Holy Spirit. We are being drawn into the very life of God.

That changes how we see parish life.

It means hospitality is Trinitarian because it welcomes people into communion.

It means formation is Trinitarian because it teaches us how to live as sons and daughters of the Father.

It means service is Trinitarian because it draws us out of isolation and into mutual self-gift.

It means stewardship is Trinitarian because time, talent, and treasure are not merely things we give. They are ways we participate in the self-giving love of God.

An ideal parish is Trinitarian when its people strive to live as God lives: in relationship, in communion, in solidarity.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit!