Podcast | The Trinity Is A Love Story You Can Live | (Episode 144)

Welcome everyone to Heart of the Hominy Podcast.

My name is Michelle Lopez, and I'm here with Father Regoba.

How are you doing, Michelle?

Doing wonderful.

June 1st.

I know.

It is summer months are here.

I love the summer months, but it's I don't know.

I I guess the older you get, the faster the year.

I don't know if that's true.

I mean it's I say that every year.

It's it's just it's already, we're already in June.

It's amazing.

I know.

The years flying by.

Flying by.

And June has amazing feast days.

It does.

Like the one that we just celebrated yesterday.

So it's kind of like summer, but so much to ponder in beautiful mysteries of our faith.

So yesterday was the solemnity of the most holy trinity, which Father, this is, I would think this is like a hard It is so hard.

A hard weekend every year of like, what do you say about the Trinity?

Which is the most well I think the struggle is how much theology do you do?

Right.

Right.

Because you want to.

And there's so there's a wealth, and and there's stuff that maybe we can talk about today, but um I don't want it to be too heavy either, right?

It's there's got to be a point where, wow, I received a message and I'm able to bring that in because a lot of times people want information, but we bring a a fire hydrant, right?

It's like a big fire hose.

It's like I don't know what to to make out of all of that.

But um, you're right.

It's it's not an easy Sunday to preach about, but there's a responsibility to preach and preach well and to communicate the faith.

And then you can't complain or or or say, oh, people don't know their faith, or but if you're if you're not preaching that truth from the pulpit, but the bad the the hard uh part about that is all right, how do you do that?

Yes.

Especially about something that is so familiar but so mysterious, and so it's like the both and for the Trinity, you know.

But this is our God, our God is Trinity.

So it's kind of like at the heart of understanding who God is, who he's revealed himself to be, but then also ourselves, which is what I really love about your helmet.

I feel like you brought it down to our like a way in which to understand even like how we are created in the image and likeness of the Trinity.

So let's dive into it, Father.

Your story was um about the astronaut taking the what did you think about that?

I thought it was wonderful.

I love you mentioned like I should have saved this maybe.

You may, or maybe you might think I save this for next week.

That was my first thought too.

I was like, this is a great story for Corpus Thursday Sunday.

But it was wonderful.

I heard that once before.

Oh, you had heard about it?

I had, I had, and I was amazed at this man's, I mean, this brilliant astronaut, his faith.

Like well, we met him.

Uh wait, what you met him?

Yes, you didn't not say that in the oh my gosh.

We met him.

He uh I don't know if uh some of the people know, but I the Archbishop asked me to be the chaplain for Legatis.

And so since I've been here at St.

Augustine, I am also the chaplain for Legatis, um, the chapter here in Miami.

And it's been growing, it's great.

And and one of the beautiful things about La Gottis is that once a month we gather and we fly in a motivational, inspirational um speaker who will talk to business leaders, executives, CEOs about servant leadership.

And we had this General Chilton come.

Wow.

And he he gave this probably the best talk I've ever heard at La Gatus.

That's beautiful.

It was so powerful.

I mean, this man loves the Lord with such depth.

And to hear uh in great detail, first how he got permission to take the Eucharist into space, right?

And he wanted not to miss, he didn't want to miss the Sunday obligation.

He was an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion at his church.

Um, he had other crewmates who are Catholic, and so he planned it perfectly.

Um but this whole idea, well, the reason why I used it this Sunday and and not next weekend for Corpus Christi Sunday is what I wanted to flesh out is this idea that we are not alone.

Um just how God has existed, always existed, and God has never been alone.

Right.

Right?

And and so that was the idea behind um this astronaut who's an who's a remarkable man.

Like he's done great things, but just not even that, it just who he is.

I told him that night, like after we did the wrap-up and we did the prayer, I said, Let me tell you, you could have flown all these great missions and all of these important things that you've done in your life, but I think that the most important thing that you've ever done is how you communicate the faith to others because his love for Jesus is so palpable.

Especially his love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, like in the Eucharist too.

Like that is, you know, like a mystery to marvel at, but also like this brilliant man believes it to the point of bringing into space, like bringing Christ with him into space.

Um yeah, wow.

How beautiful.

Well, the thing is, you know, he carries the Eucharist into space, but he would not go out into all this distance and silence alone.

Like one of the things that he said, which is a beautiful story, is it's like people are afraid of darkness, people are afraid of danger, people are afraid of but the biggest fear that humans have is being alone.

Absolutely.

And um God himself is not alone, and he's never ever been alone.

And I think that's what that was the hitch, right?

Um, that I wanted to to talk about this past Sunday, but which from there draws the the second kind of point that I wanted to make.

Um, well, if if God has never been alone, what does that mean?

Right?

And it we have to go to what John is saying in in St.

John says God is love.

And if you notice, he does not say God is loving or that um God took up loving once he had made some creatures to love.

He says God is love, it's his nature, it's his essence.

That's the thing he's always been.

And that's why I brought in the first reading from when Moses, which is so beautiful, because if you really think about when we the first moments uh of God, uh who we find out who God is, and it's it's not I am powerful, I am God, you will worship me, and you will be my servant.

And no, it's not that.

It's I am kind, I am merciful, slow to anger.

I and all those things are are attributes of I love.

I want to love.

I've always loved.

Right?

Because if you think about what love actually is, love is not a mood you can just cook up inside your head.

You can't force someone to love you, right?

Right?

By its very nature, love reaches it, points away from itself.

The word only makes sense if there's somebody on the other side of it, a lover, a beloved.

Think about this.

You cannot be merciful in an empty room, right?

Or you cannot be faithful to no one.

You cannot love if there is nothing in existence but you.

And that was the point that I was trying to make.

Because if God has existed from always, and God is love, then there must be someone there, another person there to love.

That's why we begin to then understand, oh, the Trinity.

Right?

So if God is love and God has always existed with no beginning, then there was never a single moment when God was not loving.

Right.

Which that's where the mind gets blown a little bit.

But then what you're saying is we know that.

Like love to give love is never like you have to have another person.

Right.

Like there has to be a commun in order for love to exist, it's there's communion involved, there's persons, yeah.

Because love was already happening inside God.

A lover, a beloved, and love poured out between them.

Um when I was preparing for the psalm, I was thinking about Saint Augustine, um, because he saw this in his great work on the Trinity.

And if we if you look in the parish hall, there's that beautiful picture, that portrait of Saint Augustine, and it it depicts his all the work that he did on the Trinity.

And um, but it but he says that wherever you find love, you already find a kind of trinity hiding inside of it.

Think about that how beautiful that is.

The one who loves, the one who is loved, and the one the love itself that binds them together.

Three, yet one single act of love.

And he says that it's found in the fingerprint of God, tucked into every structure of love.

I know it's kind of heavy.

It's like, how do we think about that?

But if you start to meditate and reflect on what Augustine is saying, it is so beautiful because it's the fabric of who we are.

Then you come to believe we are made, that we are his creatures, right?

That there's a plan and it's like so well made.

It's it's just like it's perfectly made of how everything falls into place in how God operates.

So when we say God is a communion of love, we are not being poetic, we're being precise.

Right?

Love all the way down requires more than one.

And the God who is love has been from all eternity a perfect exchange of this giving, receiving, and sharing.

Three persons, one God.

And and a lot of people struggle with that.

But I think what you're saying too is um our how we're made points to this being real and true, that we're made in God's image and likeness.

And we know that because of our fears.

We know like the fear of being alone.

Like even thinking about like solitary confinement, like there's a reason why that's torture.

It's because like we're not made for that.

And our and we go, we don't survive that well, you know, and kind of like going back to the greatest fear is is being alone.

It it just it points to like if we're made in God's image and likeness, then then it makes sense that God is communion, that there's community, three persons, one God.

Um, if we're in his image, you know, that that's how we're wired to, we're wired for communion.

Yeah, because and you're absolutely right, and that's how we begin to write wrestle with this.

Because the key is this person and substance, and and they're answering two completely different questions.

Because substance um in the Greek is um oocia, and it answers the question, what is it?

When we ask what God is, the answer is one divine nature, one being.

There is one God, not three.

And um, and then person in in the Greek is hypostatis.

That's um, and it answers totally a different question.

It says, Who is it?

And when we ask who God is, the answer is three the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Right?

So the faith never said one equals three, and that's the big confusion.

That's where it gets very heavy, and people kind of check out because that would be nonsense, and and the church has never taught that.

It is one what and three who's one being, three persons.

There is no contradiction in in any of all that.

Um which again, it's it's it's fascinating.

I I remember um studying Tertullian, and I I think it's like around the year 200, and it was one of the first he was the first person um in Latin to use the word trinity.

And he gave us that phrase, one substance, three persons.

Um but I think that one of the things that um that I the the way I studied this is how how does the church answer this, right?

And it it always comes out of a crisis.

Like, how do I address a crisis?

Well, we need to be able to explain this.

Um, because in the early 300s, and I remember I just taught this at the end of my class last semester, but um, in the early 300s, a priest named Arius began teaching that the sun was not truly God, that he was the highest of all creatures, but a creature still, and that there's um um you've probably heard this is a famous, uh very famous phrase that he used.

He says, There was a time when the sun was not.

Heresy.

Right.

That's that's the Arian heresy, and and the one idea would have demolished the whole love story.

It's just, I mean, everything that we're talking about now, it would be demolish it.

And so what does it do?

The it's that's why we have the the council of Nicaea in 325, because that's where that the word, um, and we still use it consubstantial in Greek, homo uh homousius is it means that the son is the very same being as a father, not similar, not some uh junior copy, but the same God, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made.

Begotten, not made.

That single line there is the hinge of all of who we are in our history.

And that was in 320 something, right?

That was 25, yeah.

Like a which is incredible.

Again, it was it was addressing what you just said, it was addressing a heresy.

People were believing and buying into this, and Arian was very, very popular.

And so the church says, Um, and actually, Constantine is like, wait a minute, let me gather all these bishops.

You you all need to sit down and you need to address this right now.

Yeah.

In the Nicene Creed, I mean, that's the creed that is the the foundations of our faith.

You know, we think about 2,000 years later, you know, and that clarified such um deep and mysterious, but clarifying things of who God has revealed himself to be so that our faith can be built upon it.

Yeah, and I mean think about it, we still recite the Nicene Creed every Sunday.

That's how that's how important it is.

Yeah.

It's part of who we are as Catholics and what we celebrate every single Sunday.

But like I said, it often the clearest way to understand what the church believes is to look what she has rejected in the past.

And why?

Because um the Trinity got protected by fencing off four wrongs.

And every single one of those errors, if it were true, would have destroyed the idea of what we're trying to say here is that um God is a communion of love.

And um one of the things that, and you mentioned this earlier is that it is not a nightmare, but it's a challenge for preachers on Sunday to preach on Trinity Sunday.

And a lot of them use like the shamrock or the egg or the water, and you've probably heard that, right?

And people explain to Trinity like, well, water can be ice, water can be liquid, or water can be steam, and it's still H2O.

Just three different forms.

So they say, Well, see, one thing, three versions.

That's the Trinity.

Well, it sounds great, but actually they get it wrong.

That's not what the church teaches, and in a different way than the shamrock does.

But the shamrock, uh, and I've heard priests use this, and no judgment, but um, it's a different mistake.

One shamrock, three leaves.

The problem is that each leaf is only a piece of the shamrock, right?

Right, and so that would make the father only a third of God, the son a third of the and you know, and the spirit a third, but but that's wrong.

The father is fully God, the son is fully God, and the spirit is fully God.

There's not a slice uh of God there.

Um yeah, but I mean if we go back to water, because I think that that's one of the images that a lot of people use, and and and a lot of people use it to kind of understand the Trinity, right?

But if we go back to water, it has two problems.

The first problem is that the same water just changed forms one at a time.

You freeze it and it's ice, you heat it and it steams.

So, really, there's only one thing taking turns looking different.

Yeah, but but God is not one person taking turns.

It's the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are fully God at the same time.

And they always has been.

The Father doesn't turn into the Son the way ice melts into water and and the three at once forever.

You know what I'm saying?

It's yeah, all those, and they're you know, those are very human ways of trying to explain something that's not human.

Right.

Um, so I think that's why they're they're they give like a little window, but then they don't work.

They fall flat because they're um trying to reach for something that is um beyond our human understanding, but yet we can still understand in ways that help increase our faith and understanding of who God's revealed himself to be.

But those you did a great job on clarifying, those are kind of the two most common, I think, um, examples that people look to to kind of have some grasp onto who what the Trinity is or who the Trinity is.

Yeah, and it so if each person is fully God, then there is only one God.

And that's what we need to really concentrate.

And what actually makes the father not the son, and the son not the spirit.

It's is the persons are not told apart by having different powers or um like different amounts of divinity or different jobs that they clock into.

No, they are distinguished distinguished um by one thing only, it's their relationship to one another.

That's what that's what we need to understand.

Um, the father is father because he eternally gives and um he begets the son.

The son is son because he is eternally begotten, eternally receiving and giving himself back.

And then the Holy Spirit proceeds as the love breathing between them.

And if we take away the relationships, there's nothing left to how do you tell the persons apart?

Right?

But it yeah, it is it can get complicated.

Um I remember Aquinas put it in a phrase that still makes my head spin.

And he said that divine persons are just our subsit substitute substituent relations, meaning that in God the relationship is not something a person has, the relationship is what the person is.

So the father simply is his self-giving towards the son, and then at the very center of reality, to be a person is to be a relationship of self-gift.

And then that that plays a big role in how we live out our discipleship.

How do we see our faith?

How do we celebrate the faith?

How do we communicate the faith?

How do we live in communion with our brothers and sisters?

And that was something that I was trying to drive home in the sense that if you were made in the image and likeness of God, then you're called to communion.

Right?

You're supposed to live that same love that is breathed between the three persons in your house, in your spouse, and in your relationships, and even in the workforce, wherever it is that you're being called to live out your vocation, you're being called to live in communion.

And that insight is it tells us again, like how we're created and how do we find fulfillment is in being like the Trinity, being in being a self-gift, living in a way that um we are self-gift to others, and then also knowing that communion of love is what we're wired for.

Yeah, exactly.

Which is a challenge, Father, because we live in a very individual, individualistic world.

And that's where we live in.

Yeah, and it's it's a call to deeply understand ourselves and and know that um because we're made in the image-likeness of God, who is a communion of love, then it says something about who we are and how in which to live our life, to bring about fulfillment, to bring about um true and abundant life and and how to live our mission.

Yeah, it's if we go, if God in his very being is communion of self giving love, then to be made in his image is to be made for communion.

And that needs to be stressed because the the Second Medicine Council said said this um very early on.

It said, man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.

You've heard that million.

Of times we we've taught that.

We kind of stress it over and over because how are you living your discipleship?

Well, it needs to be a sincere gift of yourself.

Because you don't find yourself by hoarding yourself.

You find yourself by giving yourself away because that is exactly what God has been doing forever.

And that's why I use that quote from St.

Augustine, because, and it's overplayed, I think.

A lot of people use it all the time, but I think it's it's beautiful.

I one of the things that I say is we got to repeat stories, we got to repeat, um, we got to reread uh the saints' lives.

But also some of these quotes that are very powerful, um we were made for you, Lord, and our hearts are restless until it rests in you.

And and that's it goes all with this because until I really realize that the only thing that's going to fulfill me, that's going to satisfy me, that's gonna, it's gonna ease the ache of that that void that I have inside of me.

The only thing is Jesus Christ is this relationship with the Lord.

Because you don't find yourself by hoarding yourself away again.

You find yourself by giving yourself away always.

And that, so if you're if you're miserable, if you're you don't have the joy, if you're lonely, if you're um anxious and and living just like day to day, and it one day bleeds into the next, and you're just it's all about me, me, me.

Well, look what the church is teaching right here.

Look what the church teaches in in this theology of the Trinity.

Yeah.

Live in communion.

Yeah, and I and that first step is receiving the gift that Christ has given to you first.

It's like receiving him, so we give ourselves to him first and then to others.

Um, I think I've mentioned before, like the Mother Teresa says to find true joy, you live joy.

Jesus, others in you.

But really, I mean it's kind of wrapped up in what we're talking about, where we really like we give ourselves to Christ, and in that we receive him, and then we give ourselves to others.

Yeah.

Um, and we live in a world that is all about, well, all about the you, which you know, that can be redeemed, we're redeeming that in a different way, but um all about me.

And and we think and we think that by living life kind of selfishly, we're protecting our happiness and we're actually giving it away.

Spot on.

That's exactly what it is, and that's exactly why faith was never meant to be a solo sport.

People here are tired of me here of saying it.

It can never be a Jesus and me spirituality.

Because Christianity, think about this with no church, no sacraments, no other people, is a contradiction in terms.

You cannot you cannot image a God of communion all by yourself.

It takes a family, it takes the messiness, the glorious church, it takes actually showing up for one another.

Right?

Which is why it all ends at the altar.

And that's why I love this story of um General Chiltern, this astronaut.

He went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that he would be able to receive Jesus on Sunday.

He knew he was going to be on in uh uh in space on Sunday.

Why?

Because Holy Communion is the closest thing on earth to being pulled bodily into this external, eternal exchange of love, this this dance of love between um the the three persons.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But Mother, this is so good.

And you know what comes to mind too is um, I know we talked a little bit about this too, is this is such an invitation to look at like, okay, I'm made for to be a self-gift, I'm made for love, I'm made for communion.

And this is why we stress community, you know, like community in the life of a disciple.

Like we have to, there's no solo Christianity, it's meant to be lived in community.

And it's because we're made for community, we're also hurt in community, yeah, but then we're also healed in community.

And the family of God is supposed to be that, right?

That that we're brought back into healing in community.

But I think that's where the tension is, is some people are afraid because they've been hurt, right?

Like hurt in relationships because we're made for relationships.

Relationships is what our life is about, right?

But we've been hurt in relationship, and so sometimes, you know, there's a lack of investment in parish community or wanting to really grow with people.

But I think that's imitation, is like that's the whole point of church is the family of God.

It's supposed to be like, God knows that if we're hurt in relationship, we need to be healed in relationship too.

100%.

And I think it goes back to pride, it goes back to practicing humility because we want everything on our terms.

Right?

We want to be able to control the narrative.

If I have to step out of my comfort zone, what does that mean?

Because then I can't control it.

I yeah, I want community, but I want it on my terms.

And and there's a lot of truth to what you're saying.

There's been a lot of hurts, there's been uh wounds, and um, but we were made for communion, and that's how we begin to grow in the faith.

Absolutely.

And we need community because it's that manifestation of God's presence.

It's like a concrete way in which we can encounter God's love for us.

Yeah.

Um, the God that we cannot see, but you know, his body through the church is present and real, and we can touch and feel and um and come to know him in different ways.

That's exactly how you come to know him.

Yeah.

And we resist it.

Mm-hmm.

So, Father, what would you be some advice on um, again, kind of hearing like we're made for communion, we're made for relationship.

What would be some advice for someone that might be listening and being like, gosh, but I don't know if I I want to, if I want to invest in relationships or like kind of resisting um doing that investment, whether it be in friendships or community, or just feeling like, no, but I'm okay where I'm at, out of protecting themselves.

Right.

And what I would say is step out of that comfort zone, challenge yourself.

Um, something we've talked about many times is you got to be almost like that athlete who is conditioning or um just that strong-willed.

And we've been reading a lot in the different readings for mass, but even today, it's where Christianity gives you the discipline, it gives you the structure, it helps you fight the different vices and the passions.

Um, I would say it take the initiative to step outside of your comfort zone.

Do something that forces you to be in community, whether it's volunteering, whether it's coming out to a Bible study, something that's not normally comfortable for you.

It's it's stepping out and saying, okay, I'm gonna do this because I want to grow.

I want to stretch, I want, I want to see what the Lord can do with my yes.

But I would just say, as we wrap up here, um, this week, and I've recently been giving a lot of homework, but um, but I would say this week, when you make the sign of the cross, do it slowly.

And just remember you're naming the communion that you were made for.

And when you receive the Eucharist, when you come up and receive the Eucharist, remember what it actually is.

What is the Eucharist?

Well, it's the God who is love giving himself away one more time to you, right?

So this this astronaut, I don't want to be away from that.

I don't want to be.

I it's Sunday.

I need to receive Jesus.

He made sure that he was able to take it on that flight with him.

We have it, all we have to do is walk up the aisle, and he's right there waiting for us.

And it is in that small host where we consume it, and we hopefully come to understand in such a deep, deep way that the God who is love is giving himself away one more time for you.

In holy communion, in holy communion, that word itself.

The simplest simplest form, uh just bread.

So beautiful.

Well, a great homework challenge for all of us.

Um, and also uh, I think a greater appreciation of um growing in communion with the Holy Trinity.

Um, so thank you, Father, for this great conversation.

Thank you all for listening.

Um, share with others that might benefit from this um podcast.

Sounds good.

Thanks, Michelle.

We'll see you next time.

Take it easy.