The basic Christian belief about God is that God is a Trinity. First of all, the Trinity is one. God is one in three persons, theologically dubbed as “consubstantial Trinity”. While the divine persons do not share God’s divinity among themselves, each one of them is truly and substantially God, total and undivided. The 11th Council of Toledo of 675 attests to this when it says: “The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, ie by nature one God”. As the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 put it: “Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature”.
Secondly, the divine persons are indeed different from one another. The Fides Damasi holds that “God is one but not solitary”. Again, the 11th Council of Toledo, while taking up this doctrine, expounds it by saying that “Father”, “Son”, “Holy Spirit” do not just stand as names labelling modalities of the divine being, for they are truly different from each other: “He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son”. The difference of the divine persons from one another stems from their relationships of origin, as the Fourth Lateran Council teaches: “It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds”. Hence, the divine Unity is Triune.
Thirdly, the divine persons are relative to one another. The actual peculiarity of the persons from one another lies only in the relationships that connect them with each other. The Fourth Council of Toledo instructs that “in the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance”. The Council of Florence (1442) maintained and expounded the same position by saying: “Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son”.
The Trinitarian dogma of three divine persons in one God, is not just a belief. Christianity is an incarnational faith and religion, since Jesus Christ is both God and man. Therefore, such a dogma has a direct bearing on society as well. From its nature, the Trinitarian communion suggests fellowship and relationship of the one with the all and the all with the one.
From the moment of creation, and especially with the insertion of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, in human history, the Trinity gave a visible witness of what solidarity is all about. In the encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis, which marked the 20th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Popolorum Progression, Pope John Paul II defined the virtue of solidarity as “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”
Solidarity is an “attitude: a commitment to the good of one’s neighbour with the readiness, in the gospel sense, to “lose oneself” for the sake of the other instead of exploiting him, and to “serve him” instead of oppressing him for one’s own advantage (cf. Mt 10:40-42; 20:25; Mk 10:42-45; Lk 22:25-27)” (Sollicitudo rei socialis, 38). In the Trinity, this virtue shines. The three divine persons give themselves to one another unreservedly.
Western contemporary society champions and advocates democracy, not only as the best way it thinks it can be governed but also because it views democracy as the most viable political system whereby people can, in fact, mostly participate in the sharing of power, or at least be widely represented. As a matter of fact, democracy is a form of government in which the people, either directly or indirectly, take part in governing. The word democracy originates from Greek, and means the rule of the people.
In itself, democracy is unitive. Both the governed and the governors share the same condition: humanity. Like the divine persons in the Trinity, all citizens are equal in their own right, since they are human persons with their dignity and personality. Therefore, people are entitled to share in the power of their country. No part of the society is to be deprived from an equal sharing of responsible government.
If one gives a glance to what is happening around us, in our islands, can we say that among us we have the same Trinitarian solidarity and fellowship? Can we say that we embrace that persevering determination to seek not only our good but the good of others, to the extent that we go the extra mile and, in the process, lose ourselves to find ourselves in others?
As Maltese, we are proud that we are a democratic country. We are proud of our Christian and cultural heritage. And rightly so. But it all boils down to our capacity to have that persevering determination to be responsible for all, to the good of each person and institution in our country. Once more, our Christian understanding of God is not only proving the correct teaching that God is not just one, but also Triune. Furthermore, it is giving us an enduring hope as well as the viable attitude we desperately need to make our country a sanctuary of fellowship, participation, communion and solidarity.
Like the Trinity we are called to be one, while preserving our individual characteristics. Because God is a communion of love, equality and total sharing, the three divine persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, serve as a great stimulation for our political system to be truly one that serves the common good of all.
Since the Christian God is an incarnational one and a Trinity of love, equality and fellowship, let us address our prayer to him so that, in being empowered by his loving presence, we can cultivate and persist in that persevering attitude of giving of ourselves to one another for the common good of our country, the good of all and of each and every person living on this land.
Let us praise Him that the Christian belief in God as a Trinity is in itself the inspiration for the promotion and nurture of an authentic democracy. Let us pray the Triune Christian God so that our democracy, will be one where solidarity will always be its driving force.
Dear readers, perhaps the following prayer, mainly taken from St Catherine of Siena’s prayer to the Trinity, can better encapsulate what I have tried to share with you:
“Oh eternal Trinity, Oh Divinity, Oh unfathomable abyss, Oh deepest sea, what greater gift could you give us then your very Self? You are fire that burns eternally yet never consumed, a fire that consumes with your heart our self-love. Again and again you are the fire which takes away all cold-heartedness and illumines our minds by your light, the light with which You have made us to know your truth. By this mirrored light we know You are the highest good, a good above all good, a fortunate good, an incomprehensible good, an unmeasurable good, a beauty above all beauty, a wisdom above all wisdom, for You are wisdom itself, the food of angels, the fire of love that You give to humanity. Unite our Maltese nation. Make us one Maltese family, where love, forgiveness, solidarity, peace, care and integration will be reflected in our thoughts and actions. Oh Most Holy Trinity of love, give us the grace to loose ourselves for the sake of each other so that we can best serve you in one another. AMEN.”