Living Icons of the Trinity

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    You might think that it’s strange that the most fundamental part of our faith, the belief that God is a Trinity–one God, three Divine Persons–can’t really be explained.  Our modern mind tends to think that if something is fundamental, then it should be the easiest to explain.  The more advanced, less necessary things are usually harder to explain.  That's certainly true for math.  Addition, like 1+1=2, is much more fundamental and much easier to understand than calculus.  And yet, think about something that is most fundamental in life also can’t really be explained: love.  We can talk about what love is like; we can recognize love when we see it; but it’s often hard to explain precisely what love is.  Even Bishop Barron’s excellent definition, that love is willing the good of the other, itself calls for further understanding.  What does it mean to will the good of the other?  What is the good that we should be willing for the other? 
    And yet, while God in Himself is beyond our finite minds, He does not leave us without images and some understanding of who He is.  In fact, just as the Trinity is the fundamental teaching of our Catholic faith, so one image of the Trinity is the fundamental building block of society: marriage and family life.
    People often chide the Church for being backwards about marriage and the family.  Or they may say that the Church has too many rules for couples and families or couples who want to increase the size of their family.  But if marriage and the family is meant to be an icon of the Trinity, an icon of the most important, most fundamental teaching of our faith, doesn’t it make sense that the Church would go to extreme lengths to help her children be the best icons and examples of the Trinity that they can be?
    How is marriage and the family an icon of the Trinity?  Well, to begin with, the Trinity is a communion of Persons.  God revealed His oneness through the Old Testament, and that oneness was guarded carefully by the Chosen People, especially living in the midst of pagan cultures that often had many gods or goddesses.  But even in the beginning, God gave hints about the fact that His oneness was not a solitary existence, but an existence of communion, an existence of union with others.  In the first chapter of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, we hear, “‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ […] God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them (emphasis added).”  If we go ahead to the next chapter, we see that Adam is not meant to be alone, and that animals, pets, are no substitute for human love.  God gives Adam an equal partner, Eve, to be his wife, and to live as a communion of persons. 
    We read in St. John’s first epistle in the New Testament that God is love.  Love, of its very nature, is not inward facing, but outward facing.  To love is an action that requires another.  And so, if God is love, then God, who is one, still mysteriously has an outpouring of that love.  And, of course, that love is eternally poured out to His Son, Jesus.  From all eternity, God the Father pours out everything that He is, except His identity, which cannot be given away, to God the Son.  And God the Son receives all of that love, and also, eternally, pours out all He is, except His own identity, back to the Father.  Isn’t that what love is supposed to be like between a husband and a wife?  Aren’t they supposed to give all of who they are, except their identities, to the other, and receive that full gift of love from the other?  Don’t we see problems with married couples precisely when someone holds something back: a secret one keeps; a lie someone tells; a grudge someone holds onto?  I often tell people: love isn’t 50/50.  Love is 100/100.  Divorce is 50/50.  The image is not the reality; the Trinity is not a sexual communion.  But the image still holds that a man and a woman in marriage are called to give entirely of themselves to the other, as a living icon of the Trinity.
    But, even love does not stop between the two.  The eternal love of the Father and the Son is so strong that it eternally breathes forth a Divine Person, the Holy Spirit.  The communion between the Father and Son is not closed in on itself, but, as a true relation of love, is open to the other.  Again, this is where words fail us, because the Holy Spirit is not “other,” but the same one God.  Still, we talk about the Holy Spirit as an eternal reality of the love between the Father and the Son. 
    So with marriage: to truly be an icon of the Trinity, the couple must be open to that love creating a new person.  That doesn’t mean that Catholics have to have as many kids as possible.  But it does mean that, if couples are truly loving, they responsibly cooperate with the procreation of new life in accord with how God has made the male and female body and do not turn to artificial means either to achieve or to restrict procreation.  Openness to life is part and parcel of Catholic marriage because we do not believe in a “binity,” only Father and Son, but a Trinity, a communion of Three Divine Persons.  As with marriage as an icon, the family of the icon is not a one-to-one correlation.  You can’t stop being open to life after you’ve had one kid because there’s only Three Divine Persons.  And even senior couples who marry, or couples who find that they cannot conceive, can still be open to life (even though their bodies cannot express that openness), by not keeping their love to themselves, but allowing it to overflow either by adopting or fostering children, or by acts of charity in the parish or community. 
    When one considers that marriage and family are icons of the Trinity, living reminders of who God is in Himself, it is not a surprise that the Church works so hard to encourage couples and families to live that vocation out in particular ways, to better communicate what they are imaging.  We do not understand the Trinity in itself, and we never will.  But thanks be to God for families who remind us of who God is, a communion of love!

The Icon of Marriage

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

            If there’s one gift that I admire in people, it’s the gift of being an artist; of being able to take pencils, or crayons, or paints, or charcoal and create an image that truly looks like something, whether it’s a landscape, a person, or a scene.  Try as I might, I just don’t have that gift.  The best I can do is stick figures and basic shapes, and they never seem to look like what I am imagining or picturing in my head, no matter how hard I try.

            When a piece of art looks like what it represents, it’s easy to tell the correlation.  When the art doesn’t look like what it represents, it’s difficult to find the correlation.  When an artist paints the Coliseum in Rome, you can tell what it is.  Why I try to draw the Coliseum, it could be a bathtub, a strainer, or just a blob.

            Jesus’ teaching today on marriage is all about correlation.  Marriage is meant to be an icon, and image, or something else.  And we see that in the beginning in Genesis.  Adam and Eve are created to be a communion of persons.  They are not simply to be two persons who happen to be in the same area, but they are meant to be joined in a relationship.  “‘It is not good for the man to be alone,’” God says, and so he makes Eve for Adam.  But Adam recognizes that this is not simply a second, but a part of him.  “‘This one, at last,’” Adam says, “‘is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.’”  The two are meant for each other.  And in that first couple, we see the design of marriage, as the sacred author says at the end, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh.”

            But what are Adam and Eve, two persons but joined as one flesh, meant to represent?  They are the icon of the God’s relationship with humanity.  Adam and Eve are meant to be a physical representation in their marriage of God and human nature.  Just as Jesus is one Person, so Adam and Eve are both human.  And, just as Jesus has two distinct natures, so Adam and Eve retain their individuality.  Of course, an icon is an image; it is not the same.  And there are differences between the relationship between God and humanity and Adam and Eve.  But Adam and Eve are an image of the communion of marriage of God to humanity.

            Through the years, after the Fall of Adam and Eve, that image became marred.  It’s as if Fr. Anthony started to draw the image.  Yes, it had some resemblances to the original, but there were flaws.  Whereas God’s original plan was for one man and one woman to be joined as one flesh for life, very soon after the Fall men and women started to abuse the gift of their sexuality and so marred the image of marriage.  It was no longer one man and one woman, but maybe one man and lots of women.  And even in the Law given through Moses, while adultery is clearly forbidden (the Sixth Commandment), still, divorce is allowed by Moses, and the image of God’s communion of Persons is still not quite an accurate portrayal.

            But Jesus, the full revelation of the Father, the new Moses, cleans up the image.  He reminds the Pharisees that the husband and wife are not two, but one flesh, and what God has joined cannot be separated (unless, as in the passage from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, the marriage is not valid from the start).  Jesus calls the Chosen People back to the idea of radical fidelity, even in the face of unfaithfulness.  That is the message of almost all the prophets, who remind Israel that she is the Bride of God, and that she has been unfaithful.  But God, for His part, never abandoned her, and remains faithful for all time.  That image of marriage is based upon God Himself, who took to Himself a human nature, and will never separate or divorce that human nature from Himself.  He is one flesh with humanity.    And so Jesus says there this is no such thing as divorce from God’s perspective. 

            This is a tough teaching because it is a difficult image to live up to.  But that is precisely what marriage represents: the relationship between Jesus and humanity.  That is why preparation for marriage is so important, so that the union of a man and a woman is an accurate representation of the marriage of the divine to the human in Jesus Christ.  That is why it is so important for married couples to support each other, especially in difficult times, to remain faithful to their vows and to that image, as long as it does not endanger a person’s spiritual, mental, or emotional well-being.  The Church certainly does not want a spouse to be a punching bag, and sometimes separation is necessary.  Sometimes there was something that was missing from the marriage from the start, which may or may not have been known.  That is why the Church grants Declarations of Invalidity, or annulments, to recognize that what was necessary for that image to even be crafted may not have been there.  It does not illegitimate any of the aspects that looked like a real marriage, including the children, but it does recognize that something necessary was missing.

            To all those who have civil divorces in our community: while we cannot change Jesus’ teaching, we can also emphasize that Jesus still loves you and wants you as a part of His Body, the Church.  I have too often heard from people who have felt that because they are divorced (even though they are not civilly remarried) they cannot participate in the life of the Church.  That is the farthest from the truth.  As long as you are not doing anything which is improper for a married person, if you are divorced, you are still welcome to present yourself for all the sacraments, especially the Eucharist.  And whether you have or have not attempted remarriage outside of the Church, do not be afraid to come and meet with a priest to try to regularize your situation and obtain a declaration of invalidity.  Especially if you have attempted remarriage, Fr. Mark and I want to help you so that you can once again return to the sacramental life of the Church.

            The Church’s teaching on marriage can seem hard.  It can seem to many to be out of date and punitive.  But what the Church teaches is what Jesus teaches: that marriage is not just about one man and one woman becoming one flesh.  That union is meant to symbolize the bond of one human nature and one Divine nature in the one Divine Person of Jesus, a bond which Jesus will never separate, because God has joined them together.  Let us support each other, especially married couples, in living out that icon of love, so that the image is clear and recognizable of the unending and unbreakable bond of love of God with humanity.