Not Just the Chick in The Matrix

A friend recently asked me to explain the Trinity which has been the bane of much more learned men than myself for approximately 2000 years. My own understanding of the Trinity is apparently heresy, so I am hesitant to share it. But it honestly first clicked for me when I thought of God as water—all encompassing, flowing, raining & waving; and Jesus as ice—solid, tangible, graspable; and the Holy Spirit as steam or vapour—something healing, something we can inhale & make part of us.

This is apparently horrifying to priests. From a layperson’s & a scientist’s perspective, as these things are all water, just in different states, it makes sense. But the key component I am missing, of course, is love.

Priests generally are not good at explaining this, which is frustrating when you are trying to help someone new to the whole concept. I have looked at probably ten videos from ten different really smart & engaging clergy persons & nothing is appropriate for the person who’s never been to Mass. I have been steeped in the trinitarian message for years, so I feel it in my marrow, but how do I convey years of repetition to a person who hasn’t gone to Mass?

I mean aside from recommending that someone goes to Mass, which of course I always do.

The closest non-water explanation I have heard is that God is a substance in 3 persons (which, you know, sounds like water to me). This is also unhelpful.

Father Michael at my parish, who does not record or write down his excellent homilies, always cites Sister Mary Elizabeth from when he was a little boy. She says, “It’s a mystery.” Well, okay. That is kind of satisfying, in a very Catholic “It’s okay to not understand this because GOD IS SO BIG” but this does not satisfy the non-Catholic questioner, ever. I suspect it does not satisfy many Catholics, either, considering how many have stopped attending Mass.

So I guess the best way I can hope to explain the Trinity to someone is only to invite them to experience it. It’s a good prayer: “Lord, please show me the Trinity. Please help me understand how you are love & how that love is expressed in three persons.” You may as well throw in a prayer to help understand extra-human physics, too, because I believe it has a lot to do with that, as well.

It’s possible also that some people feel removed from Christ & the Holy Spirit specifically because God is a much easier concept to grasp, in some ways. As pantheistic as our culture has become, even pagans say “the Universe” when they are speaking of something Other & Greater. One big overarching Power is very ecumenical & also economical.

But Jesus was an actual person & sometimes we can’t wrap our heads around that. Why would the creator of the universe pour himself into a zygote & risk developing in the womb where all manner of things can go wrong, and be born where even more things can go wrong, and be raised in a Roman-occupied state where he would never be anything other than a second class citizen?

And God, whose mind is so vastly beyond ours that we cannot comprehend it, smiles.

You need only a cursory understanding of world history to start to grasp, when you really think about it, why Jesus had to be a man in that place at that time. Why when Jesus physically died, the Holy Spirit was given to the remaining apostles even as they hid from the Jewish leadership of the time. Why they eventually came out of hiding, emboldened by this spirit, and proclaimed the Son of God to their very deaths.

And we are still talking about it. Even the people who don’t want to!

The Trinity is some powerful physics.

Addendum on June 12, 2022:

It is Trinity Sunday, so every priest & bishop with a podcast & a YouTube is trying to explain the Trinity today. I don’t know if this helps, but have a look:

Quantum physics (the thing even physicists struggle to discuss)

You can start at 7:59, but I invite you to watch the whole Mass. Also have tissues on hand.