One thing that can be said about the Holy Trinity is that it is a mystery we cannot ever fully comprehend. This is one of the messages that Pope Benedict XVI has preached since the beginning of his papacy. His papal shield prominently features a sea-shell which comes from a story in the life of St. Augustine, on whom our Holy Father did his doctorate 50 years ago. St. Augustine, the great North African convert, bishop, and theologian of the 5th Century, was trying to come to grips with the Trinity for what later on became his multi-volume work De Trinitate.

As he was walking along the beach, trying to take in God’s infinity through the infinite horizon of the sea, he saw a young girl going back and forth into the sea, filling a scallop shell with water that she proceeded to pour into a hole she had dug in the sand. "What are you doing," Augustine asked her. "I’m trying to empty the sea into his hole," the child replied. "How do you think that with a little shell, you can possibly empty this immense ocean into a tiny hole?" Augustine asked. The little girl countered, "And how do you, with your small head, think you can comprehend the immensity of God?" As soon as the girl said this, she disappeared, convincing Augustine that she had been an angel. St. Augustine, as erudite as he was, and our new Holy Father, as great a theologian as he is, both recognize that before the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, one can never understand everything.

Nonetheless, this does not mean we cannot understand anything about the Holy Trinity. God graced the Jews with the revelation that there is truly only one God. Jesus, for His part, said that while God is one and there is no other God but Him, God is likewise a mystery of the communion of three Persons in love – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. "God is love," as John the evangelist tells us in his gospel and letters, and therefore for God to be love, He could not be solitary, because no one can love in a vacuum.

This Trinity Sunday is a chance for us to once again hear God calling us to live up to our dignity as His children and enter more deeply into communion with Him and with other persons. Out of love, God has created us in His image, made us capable of receiving His own love and life within, and given us the joyful privilege of sharing it with others. Today we thank God for that gift and that calling, and say, "Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end." Amen.